Father’s Day Scams to Watch Before June 21 — and the One Text That Fools Even Careful Dads

June 12, 2026 · 5 min read

Father’s Day is nine days away. Americans will spend an estimated $22 billion on grills, tools, golf gear, electronics, and dinners out — and for the next nine days, almost every American adult is genuinely expecting a delivery, an order confirmation, or a deal email.

Scammers know this. The same “your package couldn’t be delivered” text that looks obviously fake in February looks completely normal on June 18. And dads carry a particular blind spot: the scams aimed at them don’t feel like scams. They feel like a deal on a grill, a text from a kid with a broken phone, or a bargain ticket to the golf.

Here are the five scams that spike every year around Father’s Day — and how to keep your dad (and yourself) off the list.

1. The fake gift-delivery text

The seasonal classic, retooled for June. A text claims a delivery — usually invoking FedEx, UPS, or USPS — couldn’t be completed, with a link to “reschedule” or pay a $1.99 “redelivery fee.” The link goes to a pixel-perfect copy of the carrier’s site that captures your credit card.

The Federal Trade Commission tracked over 330,000 reports of package delivery scams in the year ending in 2025, with sharp spikes in the two weeks before Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Christmas. It works for the same three reasons every year:

• The fee is small enough to feel harmless ($1.99, $2.99), so you don’t hesitate
• The branding — logos, colors, fonts — is pixel-perfect
• You really are expecting a delivery, so the text matches reality

How to spot it: No legitimate carrier asks for a redelivery fee by text. Open a new browser tab, type the carrier’s URL directly, and look up the tracking number from your original confirmation email. If there’s no record of a problem, the text was the problem.

2. The “Hey Dad, new number” text

This is the one that fools careful people, because there’s no drama in it. A text arrives from an unknown number: “Hey Dad, I dropped my phone in the sink — this is my new number for now.” Dad saves the number, they chat for a bit, everything feels normal. Then comes the small favor: a bill that’s due today, a deposit that needs covering, a few hundred dollars “until my banking app works on the new phone.”

Imposter scams are consistently among the FTC’s most-reported and most-expensive fraud categories, and the family-impersonation variant is aimed squarely at parents. It skips the panic of the classic emergency scam — which is exactly why it slips past people who would never wire money to a “kidnapper.” The ask is mundane, the amount is modest, and refusing feels like letting your kid down.

How to spot it: Any “new number” text gets one response: call the old number. If the phone was really broken, you lose nothing. You can also ask a question only your real child could answer — not one a stranger could pull from Facebook. And if money comes up in the first day of a “new number” conversation, it’s a scam until proven otherwise.

3. The too-good-to-be-true gift deal

Every June, social media ads fill up with impossible prices on big-ticket dad gifts: a $900 pellet grill for $89, name-brand power tool sets at 80% off, golf club sets “liquidated” for a tenth of retail. The storefronts look professional — product photos lifted from real retailers, countdown timers, fake reviews. They take your payment and ship nothing. Or worse, they ship a $4 trinket so the tracking number “proves delivery” and your card dispute gets harder.

These sites live for a few weeks around a gift-giving holiday, then vanish and reappear under a new name for the next one.

How to spot it: Search the store’s name plus the word “scam” before buying. Check whether the site has a real street address and a working phone number. And apply the oldest rule in retail: a 90% discount on this year’s Weber or DeWalt doesn’t exist. If the price would lose the seller money, the product doesn’t exist either.

4. The AI-cloned “Dad, I’m in trouble” call

The emergency scam still works on the phone, and AI has made it dramatically more convincing. The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report flagged AI voice cloning as one of the fastest-growing fraud vectors: scammers can clone a convincing voice from just a few seconds of audio pulled from a social video or an old voicemail. They call your dad, sound exactly like you, and push him to send money before the “police” or “hospital billing office” gets involved.

Father’s Day week is high-emotion and high-anticipation — kids traveling home, plans in motion. A panicked call that interrupts those plans lands harder than it would on an ordinary Tuesday.

How to stop it: Set up a family safe word. Pick a word or phrase — nothing guessable from social media — that any real family member in trouble would know. If a panicked “child” calls and can’t produce it, hang up and call them back on their real number. Got a suspicious call or voicemail right now? Run it through our free phone scam checker.

5. The fake U.S. Open tickets and streams

The U.S. Open golf championship traditionally finishes on Father’s Day, and “take Dad to the golf” is a beloved last-minute gift — which makes it a beloved last-minute scam. Fake resale listings offer tournament tickets at suspiciously reasonable prices, payable by Zelle, Venmo, or wire because “the platform’s fees are crazy.” The tickets never existed.

The streaming variant targets dads directly: search results and social posts promising a “free HD stream” of the final round that route through pop-ups demanding a credit card to “verify your location.”

How to spot it: Buy event tickets only through the event’s official site or a major resale platform with a buyer guarantee — and treat any seller who steers payment to Zelle, Venmo, or a wire as a scammer, full stop. For streams, if a site you’ve never heard of asks for a card to show you a “free” broadcast, close the tab.

The simple test for any Father’s Day message

Most Father’s Day scams share three traits. If you see any two of them, treat the message as fake until proven otherwise:

• Urgency. “Reschedule in the next 24 hours.” “Only 3 left at this price.” “I need it before tonight, Dad.” Real businesses — and real kids — don’t move at this pace.
• An unusual payment method. Gift cards, wire transfers, Zelle to a stranger, “crypto for security.” Anything other than a normal credit card on a real website is a red flag.
• A small first ask. $1.99, $4.99, “just cover the deposit.” The cost is psychologically negligible, which is exactly why it works — you stop checking once it feels too small to matter.

Not sure if a text or email is real? Paste it into our free scam checker — you’ll get an instant analysis with the specific red flags called out.

The gift that actually protects him

If you’re shopping for your dad this week, consider that the most valuable Father’s Day gift you can give him isn’t another gadget — it’s the peace of mind of knowing the next suspicious text won’t catch him off guard. Antigrift screens his texts, emails, and voicemails for scam patterns and sends you a daily summary of anything we caught. It takes two minutes to set up, works on any phone, and is in active use by families across the country.

Read more in our guides on how to protect your parents from scams and the best tools to protect seniors from scammers — and if you missed it, the Mother’s Day edition of this list covers the scams aimed at Mom.