5 Common Scams That Fraudsters Use To Get You To Mail Them Your Eyeballs

Eyeball fraud is one of the top one hundred types of fraud currently happening online. In order to protect your peepers from digital eyeball thieves, it’s important to recognize the strategies they use to trick innocent people like you. Here are five common scams that fraudsters use to get you to mail them your eyeballs.

1. They Send You An Email With The Subject Line “Gonna Need Your Eyes…”

Let’s be clear: anyone who needs your eyeballs for a legitimate reason will ALWAYS put the reason they need them in the subject line of an email. Sometimes your doctor might send you an email with the subject line, “Mail Me Your Eyeballs So I Can Wash Them,” or your priest might send you an email with a subject line that says, “Give Me Your Eyes So I Can Throw Them At The Devil.” In these cases, the clarity is a good sign: you are probably not getting scammed.

BUT, If the subject line just says, “Gonna Need Your Eyes…” and the body of the email says something like, “You do not need to understand why your eyeballs must be mine. Please mail them to me as fast as anyone ever could,” then this is a red flag for sure. It’s almost a guarantee that this person wants your eyeballs for nefarious reasons unrelated to the health and security of you and your community. 

2. They Claim You’ve Been Selected For An “Eyeball Exchange”

If you get a phone call or email from someone you’ve never met before claiming that you have been selected for something called an “Eyeball Exchange,” there’s a really good chance you are being targeted by an eyeball fraudster. The person on the phone might explain that you have been chosen to trade eyeballs with a famous person like Christian Slater or Matthew Rhys. They’ll say all you need to do is mail them your eyeballs and in the next five to six weeks you’ll receive a celebrity’s eyeballs in the mail that you can use as your own. Nine times out of ten, you are being tricked. You will never get Matthew Rhys’s eyeballs. They will have your eyeballs, and you will have empty eye sockets that you’ll need to fill with olives or golf balls.

3. They Send You A Postage Paid Box With The Words “Put Both Of Your Eyeballs In Here” On It

It might seem really convenient that these people have already paid for the postage to mail them your eyeballs, but think about what’s happening here: They haven’t told you WHO they are, or WHY they need your eyeballs. This is a major sign that they are trying to defraud you. They don’t want your eyeballs for any good reason. They’re just trying to steal from you. 

4. They Take Out A Billboard Near Your House That Has An Address On It Assuming You’ll See It And Mail Your Eyes There

Sometimes you’ll be driving on a road near your house, and you’ll see a billboard that has nothing on it except a mailing address. Your first instinct might be to think, “That’s an awesome address. I should take out my eyeballs and mail them there.” While this might seem like the natural thing to do, you should definitely think twice. That billboard was most likely put there by criminals who want to trick you into mailing them your eyeballs for nefarious purposes, and as easy as it would be to send your eyeballs to their address, it might not be the best choice for you and your future health.

5. They Text You That The IRS Needs Your Eyes Or The Country Will Go Bankrupt

This should be common knowledge in our day and age, but the Internal Revenue Service will never text you demanding your eyeballs. If the IRS needs your eyes, they will send the President of the United States to your home to request them in person. So if you get a text from someone claiming to represent the IRS telling you that you need to send your eyeballs to the agency as soon as possible or else the United States will go bankrupt, you should immediately recognize this as a lie. On the other hand, if the president comes to your house and says, “It’s me, Donald Trump or Joe Biden or whoever is president right now, and this country needs you to put your eyeballs in my trouser pockets,” you should go ahead and do that, because that’s a real emergency eyeball situation and your country needs you.