5 Alarming Scams Targeting Young Adults and Teens

1. Fake Jobs and Easy-Money Scams

Teenagers wanting to make money is a good thing. Most parents would rather hear their kid say, “I’m going to get a summer job” than have them say, “Can I get twenty bucks?”

Scammers know that teenagers want money, too.

One of the scams that teens are susceptible to is what the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) calls a “task scam.” It’ll begin with an unexpected text or message offering easy online work. The job might involve something as simple as liking videos or rating products. The teen completes a few tasks and watches the money start piling up in an app.

They might even get their hands on some real money at the beginning. Maybe $5 or $20. That helps convince them that it’s legit. But eventually the victim will be told to deposit their own money, often in cryptocurrency, to unlock more tasks or withdraw their “earnings.”

But there aren’t any earnings. The numbers on the screen are about as real as the Cleveland Browns' chance of winning a title. But the money your teenagers send is real. And it might even be your money.

It’s good to teach your teen this principle: you should never have to pay money in order to get paid. A legit employer isn’t going to randomly text you and offer hundreds of dollars for clicking on products. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

If you get any text like this, it’s a good idea to independently look up the company and the recruiter rather than trusting the contact information supplied in the message. A quick online search might even reveal that this number has been used for other scams.

A first job is one of those little steps toward adulthood. Unfortunately, scammers are trying to ruin it. But they won’t have much success if we’ve taught our kids that “easy money” always merits a closer look.

Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Prostock-Studio 

2. Fake Shopping and Gaming Deals

Teens aren’t just looking to make money. They are also looking to spend it. And if they can get great products on the cheap, that’s all the more appealing. A brand-new laptop for only $700! That’s amazing. And it’s on the internet, so it must be true.

The problem is that a thirteen-year-old may not have the same internal alarm that adults have. They might think they’ve found an incredible deal, and they need to act before someone else swipes it up.

Shopping scams are one of the most commonly reported. An ad looks like it’s from a familiar company offering an expensive item for a huge discount. But the product never arrives. Or what arrives is a knockoff of the original.

One “shopping center” that adults might not be aware of is in the world of gaming. Your teen might not be offered Air Jordans on the cheap. For them, it might be free Robux or cheap V-Bucks. Roblox is blunt about this: offers for “free Robux,” subscription generators, or valuable items are scams designed to steal passwords, personal information, and more. Epic Games gives essentially the same warning about websites offering free or heavily discounted V-Bucks.

Here you can teach your kid this principle: if you have to act now, it’s often a scam.  Scams like this depend on excitement and urgency. There’s a countdown with a limited offer. The deal disappears in ten minutes. Teaching them not to fall for this kind of scam will pay dividends far beyond the world of Roblox.

Photo Credit: Pexels/lalesh aldarwish 

3. Fake Concert and Event Tickets

This one works for a similar reason. This one is likely to snag older teens and those in larger cities with event centers. A favorite artist is coming to town, but all the tickets get swallowed up or are too expensive.

Then they stumble upon what seems like an angel on social media.

“My friend backed out. I have two tickets and just want what I paid for them.”

They have screenshots and a convincing story. Your teen is already placing themselves at the concert. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) warns consumers about these scams on social media involving fake event pages. There are even phony ticket sites set up to sell tickets that don’t exist. Some scams might even go so far as to advertise events that aren’t real in the first place.

The convo here should likely be about FOMO (fear of missing out). That’s the hook that ensnares them. And again, it’s all about having to act fast. Teach your teen: before you send money, make sure it’s real. 

It’s always best to go through a venue or an authorized ticket seller if possible. If you’re using a resale service, use one with buyer protections. Missing a concert stinks, but losing money and still missing the concert stinks even more.

Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Paul Hanaoka 

4. The “Can I Use Your Picture?” Scam

This one might not even be about a picture. It’s about taking something creative that your teen has created and using it to scam them. Your teen receives a message on social media from an artist or content creator:

“I really love this picture you posted. Would you mind if I used it for a painting? I’ll pay you.”

That sounds flattering. How could that be a scam? This is what the FTC calls a “muse scam.” In this scam, the artist pays for permission to use a photo. Then a check arrives for even more than the agreed amount. Your teen is instructed to deposit the check, keep their portion, and then send the rest to the artist or someone providing another service.

The problem is that the check is fake. But it won’t be immediately recognized. The money can even appear in their bank account before the bank discovers the fraud. The teen sends part of the money elsewhere, and then the original check eventually bounces. The money that was sent to the scammer is still gone, and now your teen has to pay for the bounced check.  

There’s a good rule worth teaching here: If somebody sends you a check and then asks you to send part of that money to somebody else, stop. 

There is also something to teach here about affirmation. That’s the hook. It’s probably not even about the money as much as it is about feeling like something you’ve made is valuable. That can be even more painful than losing the money.

But this moves us to the final scam on the list, and this one is absolutely horrible.

Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/Hispanolistic 

5. Financial Sextortion

This one makes me sick to my stomach. This one isn’t just costing teenagers and their families money. It’s costing some of them their reputation. And for some, it’s even costing their life.

What happens with this one is that your teenage son receives a message from a girl online. She’s about his age. They share some interests. Her account might even be connected to people he knows. The conversation becomes flirtatious and then sexual. She sends an explicit image and then asks him to send one in return.

He sends it. (This could just as easily be a girl sending photos to a “boy”)

At that moment, the conversation changes. This isn’t an interested girl; this is some criminal (likely from Nigeria) who now threatens to send the image to your son’s friends, family, school, teammates, or even their whole social-media followers. But they can prevent this if they send money.

This is financially motivated sextortion.

The FBI says victims are typically boys between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, though any child can become a victim. It can happen incredibly fast, sometimes within minutes. The criminal may demand gift cards, money transfers, cryptocurrency, or other forms of payment. And paying does not guarantee that the threats will stop.

And the scale of this is also tough to ignore. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children received more than 50,000 reports of financially motivated sextortion in 2025, averaging 137 reports per day. That was up from more than 36,000 reports in 2024. And I wasn’t joking about Nigeria earlier. That Nigerian prince asking you for money has apparently grown up and become quite the jerk.

I think we should resist two bad reactions. First, we shouldn’t panic. Secondly, we shouldn’t be naïve and think our child would never do that. They might know better than to send an explicit picture to somebody online. I hope so. But teens sometimes do things they know they shouldn’t, just as adults do. And the privacy and “knowing it’s wrong” are what make this one so dangerous.

But there is another disturbing part to this. These criminals can even use manipulated images. That means even if a normal photograph is sent (or even pulled from the internet), they can use that material to create something sexualized or embarrassing enough to use as leverage.

That means the conversation has to be more than just “Don’t ever send nudes.” That’s true. They need to have that rule. But we also have to say, “If something like this ever happens to you, come get me.” Let them know they don’t have to be embarrassed and that people make mistakes.

Sextortion works because of shame. The teenager thinks their life is over if their parent finds out. They may believe sending money is the only way to keep anyone from knowing what happened. Or they might come to a much scarier conclusion—perhaps, they have to end it all to escape from the shame.

We want to break that isolation before a scammer ever has the opportunity to use it.

The FBI advises victims not to keep paying or sending additional images. Save the messages and profile information, report the account, block the offender, and involve a trusted adult and law enforcement. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children also operates Take It Down, a service designed to help minors stop or limit the spread of intimate images online.

Keep Talking

There will always be scams. As technology changes and platforms change, they will only get more creative and often more debased. But the mechanics underneath the scams are pretty old. They profit off greed, fear, shame, and urgency. They exploit desires to belong and a desire to be noticed.

Scammers work with ordinary human stuff.

That’s why the answer isn’t to raise kids suspicious of everything and everybody. That’s not wisdom either. We want them to flourish. Our job is to give them some categories for thinking through these things. Talk about scams, but talk about wisdom and the gospel underneath them.

And make one thing especially clear: If you get fooled, still come home.

Photo Credit: ©GettyImages / Михаил Руденко