Scams you've encountered

[2HF]

Not exactly a scam but a story I never get tired of telling.

2 years ago I was working at a major hardware store, you know the one... We were having our christmas party and there was food left over at the end of the night. Since all the food was paid for and the catering company was just gonna take it with them our managers told us to grab whatever leftovers we wanted. I grabbed a steak and a burger. After the party I drove my date downtown and we parked in front of shop that was still open. We get to making out when I hear a tap on my window. I roll the window down and a homeless guy asks if I can spare some change, he's real hungry. I says to the guy I says "I don't carry cash on me but I just happen to be coming from a christmas party and I've got this delicious steak in the back seat. Let me grab it for ya". The guy says "No thanks" and walks on.

The fuck? Even if you did just want booze money who the fuck turns down free steak? If you're a homeless vegetarian your priorities are out of whack.

 

[Catfood220]

I used to get a load of emails from scammers saying that my account with a bank had been closed due to suspicious activity on my account and to fill in my bank details to reactivate my account. I used to look at those and think to myself "but I'm not with that bank, you have failed..."

 

[lunavixen]

snip

I had a bit of fun with these guys once, we have several computers in our house so i asked "which one?", the lady said the one in use (they all were), so i pretended to ask who was on the computer and then asked her what operating system was the virus in, she said with a very unsure voice "Windows Vista?"... All of our computers run either XP or windows 7, so I told her never to call again and hung up.

OT: I've run into quite a few of these scams, ranging from job offers, to phone and even mail scams, we just laugh and destroy the letters or hang up on them.

 

[Karma168]

A scam you see in businesses like door to door and call centres is they often hire you for a 'training period' on low or even no wages knowing that most people can't afford to work for 2 weeks unpaid (since benefits usually get cancelled) and those that do agree will usually burn out after a few days and leave, meaning they've got dozens of man hours out of you for next to nothing.

Another version of that is something my girlfriends sister had happen to her. She applied to a marketing company and got onto a minibus with about a dozen others, they trekked about 20 miles out from the city to a small town where she found out it was a door to door job (she had asked and been told it wasn't). She said she wasn't interested and they just told her to leave, when she had no real idea where she was or how to get home. It's a trick to knock people out of their comfort zone and feel they have to sign up just to get home and they are often unpaid for the 'induction day' meaning if you do it often enough you have next to no staff overheads (as most people get home and quit).

 

[Strazdas]

That...makes a lot of sense. You'd like to think that someone at the bank would question why Old Man Moneybags just came in for a large withdrawal but I suppose this just needs to work a few times for them to get their money's worth.

frankly banks dont care about as little as 10.000. i withdrew my 36.000 savings when i was buying a place to live that was on term-based-saving before the period expired and no questions were asked. just "are you sure you want to do that as youd loose your interest".
if you were to wothdraw 100.000 then sure, they woudl question. 10.000 is nothing for them, they handle millions every day.


So i of course had couple nigerian scams email me, but those go to trash bin instantly.
The more interesting ones, once a guy called me from unknown number, as i was at work i was not intending to talk much for them.
He starts by saying (im translating from lithuanian obviuosly) "did you knew Laura died" (yes he used a name, taking huge chance). i answered No (i have a good friend named Laura, but i know she is in United Kingdom). then he does on to tell me how she is lieing in local church and how i should visit and whatnot. and i jut go "ok" since i dont want to start doing anything crazy while at work. and obviuosly that was not incentive enough, so he goes like "do you want to meet up or something". i was like WTF but he didnt wait for me to answer and actually dropped the call himself.
Laura is fine.

My grandpa used to get SMS all the time about variuos scams, but as he always asks me to read his messages for him it never worked. There was one time when he called me and asked me if i was ok, because apperently somone called him and told him i was in car accident. but he was smart enough to check on me first.

I am kidn of lucky when it comes to scammers on phone since i got a 10 year old pay-to-call card number and still use it, but since its being so old and pay-to-call its mostly delisted on all advertisement and scammers lists, so i VERY RARELY get any calls from people i havent gave the number to.

I was selling a chair or something on Craigslist and got an interested party. He then claimed that he accidentally mailed me a $2000 dollar check and if I would cash it for him and send him 1000 dollars I could keep the rest. I guess they mail you fake checks and get you to cash them for. Apparently this is a pretty popular scam for morons.

how do you cash a fake check? wouldnt the bank just tell you to FO and even call the police on you if you tried?

Now in full panic mode, I do something real drastic: I shut down my bank account. SUCK ON THAT MEMBERSHIP PEOPLE!!!!

So I lost $150 and had to shut down a bank account. Lesson learned: If it's free, assume there's a catch.

you should have contacted the bank manager. they hate scammers like these and would verly likely gotten your money back, canceled the subscription and depending on mood maybe even provided you with enough evidence to sue them.

 

[Creator002]

My family was once selling an elliptical trainer on Gumtree and we got an interested buyer from the UK (we're in Australia). He "bought" the trainer through "PayPal" and "sent" us $2,100 (we were selling the trainer for $700). He then said that PayPal would release the money to us once we payed $1,000 into his bank account via the Western Credit Union to pay for delivery which confirmed by a grammatically atrocious letter from PayPal. Pretty sure PayPal doesn't hold payments.
It went on for a while before I threatened to go to the police because he kept harassing me about how he lost $2000 and PayPal can't refund it.

 

[crotchdot]

I've never fallen for it, but I've run into the Microsoft phone scam.

I love these guys. Nobody likes being bothered by tele-marketers, but they're just normal people stuck doing a less than satisfying job. The "Windows Department" guys, however, I vent my rage on. It's very cathartic.

 

[ACM_Shadow]

I've never fallen for it, but I've run into the Microsoft phone scam.

For those who don't know, the scam works like this. You receive a call, and the caller says that they're some sort of representative from Microsoft, but are in fact just from some call center in India (easy to tell from the accent). The caller claims that your PC (doesn't matter what you actually have, they'll just say your Windows PC) is infected with multiple viruses, and that they need your permission to help clean it up. By using tactics such as making standard system errors seem like virus reports, they convince the person to go through some program that allows the person on the other end to take control of the computer, at which point they'll access whatever files are on their and just end the call there. It's been around for a while, and I've gotten at least three instances of this scam being attempted. You would think that at this point people would wise up, although apparently many still fall for it.

This once happened to me, the speaker was actually fluent in english, had a slight US accent.
Me: "We have been running 2 macs and a Linux for years, could i get your name, supervisors name and your number." phone goes dead...

 

[RyQ_TMC]

1) When I was on vacation in Rome, a guy stopped by in a car and asked for directions to Piazza del Popolo. Despite an obvious question of "why are you asking a tourist", I humored him and gave him the directions. He then launched into a story about how he's a sales rep for Hugo Boss or something, showed me a bunch of (obviously fake) windstoppers he had on the pilot seat, he'll happily give one to me, but you know, he's been driving in circles for hours, he's out of gas and he doesn't have any change, so if he could get some money for that... I told him I didn't have any, his facial expression immediately changed from "friendly" to "fuck you" in that weird way only Italians can pull off and he drove off.

2) I live in Stockholm, a city infamous for its housing crisis, especially if you're an international student (seriously, I know people who are forced to bounce around for years, changing address every few months). Since landlords get hundreds of replies to their offers, they can pick and choose, and after two months of constantly being turned down you start getting a bit desperate. Long story short, the frustration (and constant pressure from my parents to finally find something) ended up with me succumbing to a scam and sending a deposit before meeting the "landlord" in person. Good thing is that after arriving in town, finding the place bolted shut, and the "landlord" not answering my calls, the police were real helpful and offered me a place to stay for a few nights (I ended up staying with a friend). Since then, I'm a lot less trusting and I've encountered a whole bunch of scammers operating along the exact same lines.

3) There was a pretty organized operation along a popular boulevard in my hometown a few years back. A smartly-dressed person would approach you, tell you about the "new luxury line of cosmetics" which will arrive in the store "next week" and offer you a free sample. Then, because you were so nice (of course), they offered to sell you some more at half-price! It was obvious they were reciting a script and yet, they somehow managed to keep the "arriving next week" thing going for a year or so before the population collectively wised up.

4) Phone scams - not sure how it works in other countries, but where I come from, as long as a salesman can get you to say "yes" to a sales offer on the phone, that counts as a contract. So they have scripts prepared to ask the question in the most roundabout way possible, just to get you to say the magic word. I distinctly remember being asked "whether that product sounds like a good thing to have in the house". Sadly, this works wonders on elderly people and my grandmother, who had some mental deterioration going by the time the scams hit in force, ended up ordering a bunch of phone offers and cable TV deals. We had a routine ready, I would chase away the install techs and my mom would take care of cancelling the contract (luckily, the 7 day resignation period still applied).


Wow, that's more than I expected.

 

[Friendly Lich]

I think allot of dermotoligists scam people. They have always given me treatments for acne that never worked but was both physically painful and costly. Thousands costly. I've tried multiple dermatologists and they all want to try the same treatments.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

I almost had my Steam account phished, thankfully Steam customer support rectified the situation. Now I am always careful about websites that look like Steam but have suspicious looking URLs.

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

Okay, neither of these are exactly scams, but...

(I suppose it's worth clarifying before this starts: I'm female.)

1. I was walking to the store once when I was 18 or 19 and some guy pulled over at the curb, came out of his car, and started talking to me. The first words out of his mouth were "Wow, hey! Are you 18? I drove around the block a couple times to make sure you weren't 12." So that was a great start.

I was kind of a dumb kid, so I just stared at him and said "What?" instead of getting the hell out of there. There were plenty of people around, and we were far enough from his car that I felt safe, though I probably shouldn't have.

Anyway, I'm going to summarize what he said over the next 10 minutes or so (my own contribution to the conversation was just staring and nodding and being totally confused):

"See, I'm a photographer, and I'd love it if you could model for me. I'll pay you enough money to get your hair and makeup and nails done beforehand. But there's this one requirement I have: you gotta shave, you know, down there. Cause I was showing some of my photos to a friend once, and he said, 'you sure this isn't a man?' and I said 'why?' and he said 'look at the bulge!' You know, the dresses these days are just so slinky. I really have to ask that you shave. Another thing, I exclusively shoot up near this remote lake over in the mountains, really beautiful place, but it's such a dangerous drive up there that I have to insist that I drive you myself. No one else is allowed, you know, no boyfriends, no parents, I can't take them along. So here's my card, my name is Antonius Smelt (yes, that's exactly the name he gave me), please call me back!"

And no...I never called him back. Good lord. I did give the card to the police though, just in case.


2. This one is embarrassing, since it was much more recent.

I was in a parking lot in my dented old car, looking for a space, when a couple guys in a big black van with PDR written on the side pulled up next to me and rolled down their window. One of them said "Hey, I saw the dents in your car, and I happen to have a paintless dent removal company. Would you be interested in a free estimate?" I figured it wouldn't hurt to get their card and then look them up online, so I said "Sure, give me your card." He agreed, and we parked.

Then he and the other guy in the van came out and started talking to me about the process and whatnot, without any evidence of a card like I'd asked for. In the meantime, another black van pulled up with three more guys in it, and they started chatting with the other two and pulling stuff out of their van.

I was feeling really overwhelmed at this point. I wanted to get back in my car and leave, but I was scared. One of them pulled out this suction cup thing and popped out part of one of the dents in my car and said "See, this is how we do it." At this point I realized I was actually negotiating with them, probably since it seemed like they had already started, and also I was never taught how to say no clearly. Always have to be the sweet, polite little girl who never hurts anyone's feelings, in my family...

So we haggled and finally agreed on $80. They pulled out a bunch of shit including crowbars, and other people in the parking lot were staring, and I was feeling just miserable. I saw them try to pull the same thing on another woman, and she was able to graciously decline and leave, and I was even more upset with myself.

When they finished, it was clear that they'd done a shoddy job. To be fair, it looked better than it did before, at least from a distance. Up close it looked like...well, it looked like I'd paid some random dudes $80 to remove the dents in my car with a suction cup and a crowbar.

I asked them how I was supposed to pay, since I didn't have enough cash. They suggested that we drive to an ATM down the block, and also, could I please make it $100? I felt incredibly uncomfortable with that suggestion, so I told them I'd try to see if I could get cash back from one of the nearby stores (which were a Michael's and a Best Buy). Of course they didn't give me any. So when I walked back from my second failed attempt, feeling ready to cry, I asked if they'd take a check or something. They said no: cash only.

So at that point I really felt I had no choice but to drive down the block with them. One of the guys offered to ride with me in my car, but of course I declined. Fortunately, he didn't press it. So that's how I found myself driving down the street with one large black van really close in front of me and one really close behind me, feeling like the biggest idiot I'd ever met and hating myself for leaving my cell phone at home that day, on top of everything else I'd done.

Well, we got to the ATM, they stayed in their vans at a safe distance, I got the money out, I paid them, and I left. Nothing else happened. But I couldn't help feeling terrible about the whole situation. They may not have scammed me per se, but they did take advantage of my hesitation and social anxiety. And what if they had decided to do something worse? I would have just gone along with it because I was scared.

That day was kind of a turning point for me. I knew I had to learn how to be more certain of myself. I'm not entirely there yet, but at least I don't care anymore about sparing people's feelings when they're trying to take advantage of me. (Yeah, thanks mom.)

 

[Hagi]

Well...

I've played EVE for years... The scams that fly by every single second of every single day in the main trade hubs are quite the sight.

Never really found anything in real life though.

 

[Strazdas]

I think allot of dermotoligists scam people. They have always given me treatments for acne that never worked but was both physically painful and costly. Thousands costly. I've tried multiple dermatologists and they all want to try the same treatments.

Some treatments work on some people and some on others. In medicine as such there is still al ot of trial and error due to how different people react to treatment.
So its not definitely a scam.

 

[Queen Michael]

1. Somebody came up to me on the street and said that he'd forgot his credit card at home when he was moving to Sweden, and said thta if I could give himm some money along with my name and address he'd pay me back. I actually believed him, but didn't want a stranger knowing where I lived.

2. I got an email from "eBay" claiming that someone had hijacked my account and that I needed to follow a link to a site where I could log in, thus helping stop the hijacker somehow. In the small print, it said that I'd be held financially responsible for whatever the hijacker did. That part was clever, putting it in the fine print so that it would seem more professional. Anyway, I had no eBay account, so... yeah. (I'm ashamed to say I tried to follow their instructions at frst, and only then realized I had no eBay account.)

3. My mom got one saying that Ericsson was sending free cell phones to anyone who forwarded a chain email. She fell for it, but I explained to her that it was a scam.

4. She also got an email saying that she'd wone the lottery. She told me about this, saying "I've won the lottery!" I told her that it was unlikely that a real lottery company would give out free money to people who didn't buy tickets. No real profit to be made that way.

 

[Queen Michael]

My mother bought a copy of "Who's Who Among American High School Students". That's a scam.

What is it?

 

[RyQ_TMC]

2. I got an email from "eBay" claiming that someone had hijacked my account and that I needed to follow a link to a site where I could log in, thus helping stop the hijacker somehow. In the small print, it said that I'd be held financially responsible for whatever the hijacker did. That part was clever, putting it in the fine print so that it would seem more professional. Anyway, I had no eBay account, so... yeah. (I'm ashamed to say I tried to follow their instructions at frst, and only then realized I had no eBay account.)

I got that one where it was "World of Warcraft". At first, I was a little bit worried since it was sent to an e-mail address which used to be associated with my WoW account (although I'm pretty sure my account is deactivated and probably deleted by now). But then I remembered the golden rule that companies will never ask you for your secure information, so I just ignored it.

 

[lechat]

I was selling a chair or something on Craigslist and got an interested party. He then claimed that he accidentally mailed me a $2000 dollar check and if I would cash it for him and send him 1000 dollars I could keep the rest. I guess they mail you fake checks and get you to cash them for. Apparently this is a pretty popular scam for morons.

how do you cash a fake check? wouldnt the bank just tell you to FO and even call the police on you if you tried?

actually a really common scam on all sales sites these days
the scammer offers to pay over asking price as long as you foot the delivery bill, usually because they don't have a credit card or cash or whatever and in some cases they will actually send a guy to pick up the item which you need to pay. the scam works because it takes time for the cheque to clear and in that time they have taken your money often through western union which is untraceable

another similar scam is advertizing an item below market price and when you offer to buy it they will start telling you they have alot of interest in the item and will only take you seriously if you put down a deposit again usually western union. i know for a fact this one works because when someone i knew nearly fell for exactly this scam when he tried to report it to the police (they didn't care) the officer who he talked to had already fallen for it

 

[Beat14]

When I went to China, me and a friend got scammed twice, first time we got something out of it second time not so much. Both happened in Beijing. We probably got scammed more, but those 2 were actually expensive to us even if we had been back home. I don't really want to type them out, out of laziness, but I'll try, sorry if these are sloppy/a bore.

First one some guy was calling to us on the main street, for some reason we actually listened. Most likely because the trip was in it's starting stages, making us unaware of the dangers! Kind of joking... Being caucasian over there draws quite a bit of attention (especially in more remote places as people stare and take photos), meaning that quite a few people approach you and talk to you. So we listen to this guy, who find out that we come from the UK, so he starts telling us about this art exhibition he is doing at Birmingham University and invites us up to his gallery. Looking back I guess we could have got mugged up there. To cut this short, we got sold phoney art work after about a 45 min conversation. Both of us didn't have much money on us at the time, but both of us felt inclined to buy something after striking up such "rapport".

The second one was also on the main high street. The blame lies on me for this one, as I told my friend off the previous day for neglecting to talk to people, which is rich coming from me. Anyway the people we didn't talk to probably wouldn't have got much money out of us, as they claimed to be Studying English at the University and just wanted to talk to us in Mcdonalds. I still think they were trying to scam us. It's bad, but the longer we were there, the more we thought people were just trying to scam us, bar one or two natives.

The group/couple that did scam us had a much higher chance to get money out of us as both female and the same age as us roughly. g2g will finish with edit.