Here's Some Advice For People New To Tumblr I Haven't Seen Around Our Parts Yet... A Very, Very Common

here's some advice for people new to tumblr i haven't seen around our parts yet... a very, very common current scam on this site to get some money out of folks is as follows:

You receive a message like the below, asking for a signal boost for a donation post pinned on their page; this is almost always for a pet.

You check their page and it all looks legit. They have an icon/pfp, a bunch of reblogs rather than an empty blog, the pinned post has candid cat/dog/etc photos that look convincing, and there's a link to a normal looking gofundme in a lot of cases, with similarly realistic photos. They didn't even ask you to publish the ask specifically, they just want you to consider reblogging.

…but if you scroll down far enough, it turns out there's only like a week worth of random reblogs, no real other posts and no interaction with anyone else on the site. Which isn't in and of itself an issue- everyone joins Tumblr at SOME point- but maybe a red flag?

Inevitably, when you reverse image search the pet photos, they were nabbed off instagram or facebook or twitter or something. It's a scam.

I was getting 2-3 of these a week at one point, and all of them were convincing, probably because I doubt any of them were bots. this is a really common scam but not nearly as easily spotted as obviously automated phishing attempts; don't publish or donate to these. they're hoping your sense of sympathy, generosity and even guilt will override your suspicion at a rando asking you for money. delete 'em.

i just bring this up because i'm seeing a couple people in tf fandom getting these asks and going 'hey, signal boost!!!'' and while it's a very kind impulse... yeah, it's overwhelmingly scams, folks. sorry.