Scams you've encountered

[Dethenger]

In December, I got a virus that completely fucked my computer. If I was connected to the internet, it would open up an unclosable window claiming to be a block set up by the FBI. According to the window, the FBI found out I had been secretly gambling, viewing and distributing child pornography, and I think consorting with terrorists.
Apparently, I was to believe that the Feds would investigate further unless I paid a fine of $200, and that I was supposed to pay this fine by way of a MoneyPak.

So yeah, I obviously wasn't in any real trouble, but it did fuck my computer. Never was able to get rid of the thing.

 

[splayfoot1]

A while back we were getting regular calls from a random Indian sounding guy who worked at "apple windows", he was desperate to help us fix the problem they had found in our computer. He stopped calling after I started getting abusive every time.

 

[JdaS]

I've had a couple.

First one came along when me and a friend decided that the fastest way to move out was to move in together. Thus began the search. We found a place in a good area that had good public transport and services nearby. Rent? About 600? if I recall correctly. It was fully furnished and looked amazing. Me and my friend were optimistic, but it all looked too good to be true.

Needless to say, it was. The only way to contact the person renting the pad was via e-mail. A very weird sounding address. The owner of said address spoke English (We live in Finland) and requested a deposit up-front to be paid to one of those MoneyPak-style sites. Needless to say we didn't contact them further.


Then there was something that happened to me last year, in late-August. I was doing my civil service when an old classmate called me asking if I wanted to make some cash on the side. Now this is a guy I've had no contact with in years, so I was already more suspicious than curious, but I agreed to hear him out. He told me to meet him at a hotel conference room downtown at 6:00pm. I didn't really want to but I went anyway.

Once inside, with another guy my classmate had called plus a bunch of assholes in cheap suits and some gold-digger looking people aged 20-55, some asswipe with a shit-eating grin asks us: "Who wants to be rich?". He proceeds to tell us how the cappucino machine business is just waiting to boom in Finland and how, by buying one of their machines and subscribing (yes, subscribing) to their capsules for 250? + 50?/month, we can tap into this emerging market and make more than 10.000? a month! How? Simple! By recruiting more people by selling more machines.

I already had them pegged the minute I sat down, but by then it was clear. My old classmate had been suckered into a goddamn, good old-fashioned pyramid scheme and after noticing that he'd basically just thrown his money down the drain, was trying to recoup his losses by trying to play me like a putz. We stopped for a short recess and our host "really wanted us back for the second part". I was outta there, said I'd sleep on it.

He called the next day. I said I wasn't interested.

 

[Trull]

Am I the only one around here that realized the scam bot in this thread wasn't actually a bot? (S)he should be unsuspended.

 

[Strazdas]

Yeah, but i mean if you send me a check, i can cash it (freely) at a local bank. if its fake, they wont let me cash it and likely call police for forgery, but the guy would get nothing from it whatsoever. and if the check passes, i cash out 2000 and then send him 1000 from these 2000.
i guess the trick is to send 1000 before 2000 arrives and then he cancels the check. but then the check is not fake to begin with.
And when police falls for the scam your trying to report, thats just irony.

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".

well, if he had a 45 minutes scam ready thats some good preparation from his part.

"apple windows",

Well, he did cover both possiblities "

 

[FlaktheFox]

I remember one scam I almost fell for was one I'm sure many people heard of. You would receieve a call and have some Indiant 'technician' call on behalf of Microsoft claiming there is a virus on your computer. They would tell you to do a little test, and despite what you do, they always say that all the files are virus. I'm 90% sure I was just looking at my system cache at the time. What they would ask you to do next was to allow them to remotely access your computer to 'remove' the issues. It was at that point that I just hung up, only for them to call me up several times later while I did my own research.

Turns out Microsoft themselves released a statement saying that this was a scam so that they can trick you into buying some fancy 'anti-virus' program which was filled with scripts and trojans and all sorts of nasty shit. By the time they called back, I had some choice words for them.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I had some random guy contact me on Facebook, then he had someone else he knew try to get me into a pyramid scheme. A year or two later, someone who I thought was my friend did the same thing. Then I've had emails telling me there was an issue with my paypal account, which was hilarious since I didn't have one.

 

[funkyjiveturkey]

regarding the "Vector International" thing i've come across this same thing here in Canada. my girlfriend and many of my friends recieved a call from a door-to-door knife company. the pitch was that it was high paying with no selling angle and it was not door to door or over the phone. upon doing a little research it turns out it is door to and door and over the phone, it's ENTIRELY on commision and even then a lot of people get completely stiffed and recieve no money at all. the odd thing about it is everyone i know who was called said they were reccomended by a guy we all went to highschool with but didn't actually know at all, and this same person had reccomended all of them.

there was another one i was actually just asked about an hour ago. basicaly it's one of those services online that promises that you can make like $7,000 a week without leaving your home. so a posting and advertising deal. but the site i was asked about was a total fake, it posed as a news site with a link to the explanation video embedded. if you try to click on links to a different news story it would just take you to the front page of this scam site where it would immediately demand all this information from you.

to be fair i have a friend who actually used one of these services, and bought a $5000 TV after only one month of work. however he did it through google, and for every 1 legit service like this there's about 200 scam ones.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

A guy in the street trying to sell a laptop in the dead of night. It was made of WOOD, with keyboard letters glued on doubling as a real keyboard, a Windows sticker covering the "screen" and everything else wrapped in black tape. Easily the biggest loser I've met in my life.

 

[Mr.Cynic88]

I recently received an automated cold call from somebody with a nigerian-esque accent saying that if I donated money to him, he would pray for me. Being both logical and an atheist, I hung up, but I'm sure there are plenty of old/religious people who may have taken the bait.

Check out 419eater.com. It's a website where people get in long email exchanges with these scamming assholes and waste their time/screw with them.

 

[Grayjack]

I've been getting quite a few scam emails about how I can get 2500 dollars with a quick loan. I've also gotten quite a few emails about how I need to enter my Blizzard account information to verify if I'm trying to sell my account. Problem is, I don't have a Blizzard account.

 

[Grayjack]

Am I the only one around here that realized the scam bot in this thread wasn't actually a bot? (S)he should be unsuspended.

Pretty sure it is. Checked his other posts, and they were the same message. The whole HAHANICETRYSCAMBOT thing is an edit a mod made when they suspended the account.

 

[Commissar Sae]

I got a call from the "Windows Corporation" saying that my computer had been sending them virus reports. I played along and half believed them for a little while, but the virus reports they were talking about were standard crash reports and the they wanted me to go to a website to allow them remote access to my computer so I just started laughing and told them to go fuck themselves.

Although I once gave 20$ to a guy who apparently needed it for a locksmith for his locked car saying he would pay me back and that I should stick around there, so I obviously can be pretty dumb sometimes.

 

[spartan231490]

I think that the biggest scam I have encountered is the one currently being perpetrated on the American people by the media and the government that no longer holds their best interests at heart. Yes, the scam is the idea that firearms are evil, and that by reducing their availability, you will prevent crime, prevent murder, and save lives. The scam is the idea that the 2nd amendment is predicated upon a need, not a right. The idea that we will be safe if we ban all "military style" weapons, or all semi-automatic weapons in general. This scam is so horrifying because any reasonable individual, who bothers to study the available information, will see that every one of these claims is false. Despite this, people fall for this scam in droves, and no one warns them. There is no public statement made, like those made by banks when their customers fall victim to information phishing scams, and so the public remains ignorant to the fact that this is nothing more than a firearm phishing scam. The public remains ignorant to the fact that they risk their lives, their well-being, and even their economic stability by agreeing with and supporting these irrational, illogical, and counter-productive measures known as gun control. That's the biggest scam I have ever encountered.

 

[Randomologist]

I've also had the Microsoft Engineer Virus guy. First time I heard it, I just put the phone down laughing. Second time, I kept asking "What Computer/Internet/? I don't have one". The poor bastard's English couldn't keep up.

Also, anyone in the UK- You can opt out of most (law-abiding) marketing calls. I suspect links are probably frowned upon so Google Telephone Preference Service. Any calls you get after registering are outside the law.

 

[triggrhappy94]

Am I the only one around here that realized the scam bot in this thread wasn't actually a bot? (S)he should be unsuspended.

(S)he broke unwritten rule number 11 (I think), the "Triggr rule" (I came up with it back on the Unwritten Rules thread, I get to name it), which states that if you're going to be sarcastic you have to make some kind of indication aside from the sarcasm itself. This is the internet so people can't tell just by reading it.

If (s)he wants, I'm sure (s)he can appeal the suspension by PMing a mod and explaining the situation.
If not, the suspension will eventually go away, and (s)he will just be left with a warning.

 

[emeraldrafael]

I wonder how many people said religion on here and how many will...

eh, my spam box is filled with them, but I think th ebiggest scam is actually street beggers, particularly some of the ones here in Pittsburgh. They're like, 20 something, dressed decently well for a homeless person, and then acctaully ask you money just cause tehy dont want to work.

 

[[REDACTED]]

Am I the only one around here that realized the scam bot in this thread wasn't actually a bot? (S)he should be unsuspended.

(S)he broke unwritten rule number 11 (I think), the "Triggr rule" (I came up with it back on the Unwritten Rules thread, I get to name it), which states that if you're going to be sarcastic you have to make some kind of indication aside from the sarcasm itself. This is the internet so people can't tell just by reading it.

If (s)he wants, I'm sure (s)he can appeal the suspension by PMing a mod and explaining the situation.
If not, the suspension will eventually go away, and (s)he will just be left with a warning.

It also posted in a thread of mine, and it's just a plain spambot. The "Nice Try" link was a joke on the part of the mods.