A very important update (about this blog)
Hello everyone,
I hope that you’re all having a fantastic day and I hope you had an equally wonderful weekend. If your day isn’t going that great for whatever reason, I truly hope that things get better in the near future. Remember to breathe and take things one step at a time, as tomorrow is another day. :)
With that said, I want to start by talking about this blog, its goal, and then talk about this blog and its future moving forward. I’m making this post as I’m going to be changing how I do things a little bit, and I’ll likely be updating my pinned post in the near future to reflect said changes.
This is an important post, so please don’t skip it just because of the read more below, and I apologize for how long this post is in advance lol. It's.. long, so, yeah.. apologies.
Let’s continue!
Part one: This blog.
Who runs this blog?
This blog is only run by one person, and that’s me, @slenbee. I joined tumblr in 2013 and up until 2024, I had never made another side blog until I made this one.
With that said, please know that nobody has access to this sideblog but me. Nobody ‘co-mods’ this side blog, or influences the content that’s made or shared to this blog. The posts I do try to share are those I think will be informational and beneficial to the people who follow this blog so they can share it, too.
I have always been a firm believer that any and all information that I provide here on this blog should be free and open to the public so that anyone and everyone has access to it. There is no gatekeeping of information behind "you should know it's a scam lol" comments, and no paywalls.
I’ve seen first hand how hard it is to access good, solid information about scams on the internet, and all I ever found was text and brief descriptions of what happens in the end. And, well, I wanted to change that, so I made this blog! :)
If you want to know the personal, ‘at home’ reasons as to why I made @scam-alerts, I have that in the bottom of the post that’s pinned to this side blog.
I also want to make this abundantly clear:
I do not get paid for what I post on this blog.
The only post I made mentioning I had a ko-fi was last month in reply to an anon who had asked about it. I’ve made several posts stating that I don’t want people to pay me money for what I do. Again, the information I provide is meant to be free and open to everyone. I don't expect nor want to be paid.
What’s the goal of this blog?
The goal of this blog is the same as the day I created it, to help people.
From the day I made this blog up until now, all I ever wanted was to give people the tools and knowledge on how to not just help themselves, but ultimately help others. Knowledge is power, and with great power comes great responsibility. In the posts that I make, I wanted to not just show people what a scam looks like through text, but with pictures, too. I wanted to show people how a scam starts and ends, how to identify the many red flags throughout it, and what the overall main goal of a scam is.
Because at the end of the day, the more scam aware someone is, and the easier it is to identify a scam? The less likely someone is to fall for that scam and the easier it is for them to identify other scams, too.
But people sometimes forget something: I’m just one person.
One (wo)man army… and I can’t do it all.
Researching the facts and evidence for every scam I cover is something I've always put a lot of effort into, but that can take up a lot of time.
Reverse image searching, comparing blogs that seem similar, looking at text, donations, paypal names, digging up old posts to see if we’d dealt with the same person before.. It can take a while! And in that time, there is the possibility that I miss something, and if I miss something important that says something is or isn't a scam, and someone can show me proof of such? Then I’m always more than happy to make a post saying that I made a mistake and that I was wrong.
If that does happen, I will lock the old post preventing reblogs, I will apologize, and I will tell the people that follow this blog the truth of the matter while providing the appropriate evidence needed to prove or disprove what I had said prior.
When it comes to scams, I feel people deserve the truth and facts over fear mongering and finger pointing. I don’t believe in “he said she said” or word of mouth via text. If there’s proof of something and someone knows about it? I want to see it.
I’ve been told by several people (you know who you are and thank you) that I tend to try and bee positive and optimistic about everything, that I try to see the good in everything and everyone more than the bad. And, yes, that may be true.
But that’s why when I’m not sure about something, I try to tell people to trust their gut, not mine.
I can give people the facts and evidence that I find and see.
I can point out what looks suspicious, or what might be a huge red flag.
But at the end of the day..? I'm just one person, and I can’t change someone's mind if they’ve already made it up.
The constant uphill battle
With this blog, there are days that I can leave a comment on someone's posts in the #scam related tags and the person who made it thanks me for helping them not get scammed. There are days where people tell me how they helped their friend not get scammed while another comments on my post telling me how I helped get their blog back a week later. I can be told about how "I stopped and looked this up before replying to the scammer and saw your post on google's AI and it told me it was a scam." And.. those days are great!
But.. then then there are days where I leave a comment on a post and then I get called a scammer myself who’s defending other alleged scammers simply because I had said ‘not all fundraisers are scams.’ There are days where I get anonymous asks and DM's from.. well, I don't know if they're just scammers on alt accounts after their old blogs were called out, or people just choosing to be mean. But I get harassed, and I get threatened. I get called horrible, horrible things and told things should happen to me that no woman should be told.
My family, even gets threatened.
All because I make the posts that I do. Because I try to help people.
And no, I'm not going to stop trying to help people.
To quote John Lydgate,
“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
Let me be honest to you all: I’m really, really not cut out for half of what people ask me to look into, especially when it comes to blogs that are hosting fundraisers and are stationed in other countries.
I've said it once and I'll say it again:
I do not have the appropriate resources to look into these blogs.
The issue here is that there is an apparent wishy-washiness that comes from me trying to treat each of these blogs individually. I can see how saying “this one looks ok” and “this doesn't" can be taken as me picking and choosing. Dedicating my time to deep diving into a single blog with a fundraiser and not covering other, more important scams is exactly what allows scammers to take advantage of people.
When I get asked to look into fundraiser blogs that have earned hundreds or thousands of dollars, I sometimes spend hours between reverse image searching, looking up similar blogs, investigating similar fundraisers matching names or stories that seem vaguely similar to try and find any shred of proof that one blog might be a scam.
In the hours I spent on that, I could have been looking into and reporting about other scams. I could be helping other people. And that's where things need to change.
Part Two: Moving Forward
Starting today, I will no longer be covering any kind of fundraiser blog in any kind of capacity that contains a chuffed, gofundme, or any kind of campaign related website link.
To helpful (sc)a(m)non and others: Yes, you can still send me the information you collect on paypal scammers, that's 100% okay. Other scams are also okay. As long as YOU can give ME concrete proof that it is a scam to begin with.
Again, I will not be answering asks or publishing submissions asking me things such as "is this a scam? <blog link>" where the blog is hosting a chuffed or gofundme.
Those that ask will receive an answer similar to the one I currently give people: I’m sorry, but I’m not someone who’s qualified to say that it is or isn’t a scam.
Only now I’ll just.. include something related to this next bit:
A brighter future
My new goal starting today is to look into finding or making a list of reputable, 100% verified charities and/or organizations that people can donate to. Be them to food kitchens in Gaza or Sudan, animal shelters needing money for food, the disaster relief related to the wildfires in Canada or the earthquakes in Venezuela. These will be campaigns hosted by actual organizations/groups and not just.. 'people'.
The digital world is changing. (...and not for the better)
I’m going to be extremely blunt with what I say next, and before I begin, please do not take this as me ‘giving up’ on anyone. There is genuine concern and there's a valid reason behind it.
With how things like AI are advancing compared to how they were in 2024 (when this blog was made), and with how many new blogs are suddenly popping up that are exhibiting numerous red flags such as:
Not posting full pictures and instead are posting AI images or are making collages of blurry photos of cropped people or unrelated images? It’s getting really difficult to tell what is real and what isn’t.
People are still guilt tripping and gaslighting those they approach in DM’s, and when they’re told no or don’t get a response, blaming the people for the “possible” deaths of their family and/or children. This type of stuff had been condemned by vetters like gazavetters over a year ago, and yet it still goes on to this day.
More and more now I see comments on fundraiser posts up in the 300’s or 500’s that have only a dozen or two notes. Where blank blogs or alt accounts are tagging dozens of users within seconds of each other, over and over again. Then there are the accounts that go as far as to block evade with new alt after new alt just to stalk and harass someone who spoke to them in DM’s in an effort to try and get money out of them.
All of that?
Is 100% scam like behavior, and I’m not going to pretend that it isn’t.
It’s gotten so hard to tell who is real and who isn’t in pictures, what's been written by a person or chatGPT, so much so now that even a big blog recently found out that the family they were helping? Wasn’t even the family to begin with. The people were out there, somewhere. But the person they were talking to? Wasn’t them.
Now stop. Take a deep breath.
If you've come this far after what I just said only to think I'm suddenly calling all fundraiser blogs scams, you're wrong. If you've prepared to take that as my "stance" on things and scream it from the digital roof tops that "scam alerts/slenbee is now saying everyone from gaza is a scammer! See! They are all scam accounts! I was right!" You're also wrong. There are a handful of reasons as to why a fundraiser might not be a scam. Here are a few for example, and here are a few more.
Nobody can just look at something at first glance and cast judgement upon people they don't know.
No one person should be able to say 'yay or 'nay' without facts and evidence. Because if I can't, they shouldn't either, but I can't change peoples minds if they choose to say otherwise. That's on them.
Just because you find one bad egg in a carton, doesn't mean you throw the rest out. And few mushy grapes doesn't make the whole bushel bad. You see what I'm saying here? But, again, maybe that's me being the 'see good' optimist lol.
So, to finish this off once more:
I was never someone who could vet, verify, or say ‘yes this blog is ok to donate to’ or ‘ no this one isn't' and I never claimed to be. All I ever said to people was ‘not all fundraisers are scams’ while giving people the red flags I could find and see.
But now, even if even I can’t tell what’s real and what’s fake anymore..?
There's really not much else I can do to prove otherwise, and that's the crappy part of all of this. I can provide people with the tools to check for themselves if they want, but spending so much time looking into it.. It's just too much work. At the end of the day, the decision is still theirs.
Final thoughts
I know those reading this likely expected something big or dramatic in this post, but I honestly just wanted to clarify some things about this blog and talk about how things will be moving forward with this blog.
TL:DR Things will continue as they have been, but I will no longer be looking into any kind of chuffed/fundraiser campaign at all related to raising money for relief aid in another country and the like. So please don't ask about them. (yeah I said that before.. but people seem to not want to read that apparently and ask anyway lol..)
Everything else can still be asked about.
I hope everyone understands, and I hope you have a beeutiful rest of your day and a lovely week ahead of you. 🙂
-Bee