Swipe Right on a Scam: Why Gen Z Is Getting Played by Old-School Inheritance Tricks on TikTok and Discord
The Scam Your Grandma Got in Her Inbox Is Now in Your DMs
There's a version of this story most of us know. An elderly relative gets an email from a "Nigerian prince" promising millions in exchange for a small processing fee. We laugh. We forward it to the family group chat. We feel very smart.
Here's the thing, though: that same scam — dressed up in new clothes, speaking a new language, living on new platforms — is absolutely destroying Gen Z right now. And the people running it are not the unsophisticated operators you might imagine. They're organized, psychologically savvy, and they've figured out something critical: younger Americans are actually easier to manipulate than their parents in certain very specific ways.
According to a 2024 report from the FTC, adults under 30 reported losing money to fraud at higher rates than adults over 70. Let that sink in. The generation that grew up with the internet, that can spot a deepfake and knows what phishing is, is getting taken more often than retirees. The inheritance and unclaimed funds scam is one of the biggest reasons why.
So What Does "Inheritance Scam 2.0" Even Look Like?
Forget the badly formatted email with a foreign flag emoji. Here's how it shows up in 2024:
On TikTok: A video goes semi-viral showing someone's supposed bank statement after "claiming their unclaimed state funds." The creator talks casually about how they found $4,200 just sitting in a government database with their name on it. The video looks authentic. The comments are full of people saying "omg I found mine!!" — many of whom are fake accounts seeded by the scammer. There's a link in the bio to a "claims portal" that harvests your personal information and, eventually, your money.
On Discord: Someone joins a finance or crypto server and starts casually mentioning that their family received a surprise inheritance through an "international estate clearinghouse." They DM vulnerable members — often people who've mentioned financial stress in the server — with a "contact" who can help them "check if they're eligible." The contact asks for a processing fee. Then another. Then another.
On Instagram: Fake accounts impersonating attorneys, estate lawyers, or even government agencies slide into DMs with official-looking graphics explaining that the user is the beneficiary of a distant relative's unclaimed estate. All they need to do is pay a small "international transfer fee" to release the funds.
The common thread? Urgency, authority, and personalization. These aren't mass blasts anymore. Scammers are doing research.
Five Reasons Gen Z Falls for This More Than You'd Expect
1. Digital fluency creates overconfidence. Knowing how to use the internet doesn't mean you know how to detect manipulation. Gen Z is comfortable online in a way that actually lowers their guard. If something looks native to the platform — if it feels like content they'd normally scroll past — they engage with it differently than they would an obvious email scam.
2. Financial anxiety is at an all-time high. Student loan debt, a brutal housing market, inflation. Gen Z is under enormous economic pressure, and scammers exploit that stress deliberately. The promise of unexpected money isn't just exciting — for a lot of young people, it feels like a lifeline. That emotional state clouds judgment in ways that are hard to recognize in the moment.
3. They don't have the same reference points. Millennials and older generations grew up hearing about these exact scams. Gen Z didn't. The inheritance scam feels like something from a movie about old people getting tricked, not something that would show up in their TikTok FYP.
4. Social proof is weaponized against them. Gen Z trusts peer validation heavily — and scammers know this. Fake comment sections, seeded Discord conversations, and purchased social proof make these schemes look community-endorsed. If it looks like 200 people in the comments found their unclaimed funds, it feels real.
5. The ask starts small. Fraud investigators note that Gen Z scams rarely open with a big financial request. It starts with a "verification fee" of $15 or $20. Then a "processing charge." By the time the amounts get significant, the victim is already emotionally invested in the outcome. This is called the "foot-in-the-door" technique, and it's devastatingly effective.
What Fraud Investigators Are Saying
Consumer fraud investigators working with state attorneys general offices have described these operations as increasingly sophisticated. One investigator who spoke with us on background — they weren't authorized to speak publicly — described seeing coordinated scam rings operating simultaneously across TikTok, Discord, and Instagram with scripted response trees designed to keep victims engaged for weeks.
"These aren't one-person operations," they told us. "They have customer service-style workflows. They know exactly what to say when someone expresses doubt. They've studied the psychology."
The psychological hook they rely on most? Identity. Telling someone they are specifically owed money — that their name is attached to a real unclaimed account — triggers a sense of ownership that's very hard to shake, even when logic says something is off.
Red Flags to Screenshot and Share With Everyone You Know
- Any message claiming you're owed money from a deceased relative you've never heard of. Real estate attorneys contact next of kin through verified legal channels — not Instagram DMs.
- "Unclaimed funds" portals that aren't .gov domains. The real unclaimed property database is MissingMoney.com and your state's official treasury website. That's it.
- Any request for payment to receive money. Legitimate inheritance payouts and unclaimed fund claims do not require you to pay fees upfront.
- Urgency language. "You have 48 hours to claim" or "this offer expires soon" are pressure tactics, full stop.
- Requests for your Social Security number, bank routing info, or ID photos before any official legal process has been established in writing.
The Verdict
Here's our honest take: the inheritance scam didn't get smarter. The delivery system did. And that's what makes it so dangerous for a generation that trusts platforms over institutions.
If you're Gen Z and you're reading this — or if you're a parent, older sibling, or friend of someone in that age group — the best protection is awareness. Share this article. Talk about it like it's real, because it is.
And if you or someone you know has already been targeted, report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. It won't undo the damage, but it helps investigators build cases against the people running these operations. That matters.
The scam is old. The platforms are new. The playbook is the same: they find where you're vulnerable, and they push.
