Pantaloon Pontiff posted:

Pantaloon Pontiff posted:

Agents are GO! posted:

Oh my god shut up

Pantaloon Pontiff posted:

And this is where I disagree; you're making a claim about me based on no evidence other than assertion, then claiming that I'm arrogant because I don't believe that some stranger on the internet knows me better than I know myself. How on earth would my mother having a health emergency going to lead to 'need to give a bag of cash to someone in a car, so need to empty my savings account and ignore the person at the credit union who tries to stop me'? Hospitals and doctors don't work by handing bags of cash to someone in a car - immediate life saving treatment happens at the ER and then is billed later. If I thought my mom was in a medical emergency there are a lot of things I might panic and do, but withdrawing money into a paper bag to hand to a dude in a car is not on the list.

Accusing someone of 'hubris' while claiming to know them better than they know themselves is certainly a look. Some people put their whole savings account into a paper bag and hand it to a guy in a car, but a lot of people don't, and your idea that anyone would do so if someone just said some magic words is not based on reality.

I also don't have a lawyer on speed dial, and only vaguely know how to pick out a criminal lawyer. OTOH, I absolutely would not worry at all about the cost of a lawyer if I did believe that I was the subject of a police investigation and a cop was trying to intimidate me into saying or doing something, because the cost of not getting a lawyer in that case is years in prison, probably seizure of assets, loss of income for the years in prison, and loss of income after that because of the difficulty of getting a job that requires a background check with a felony record. I've seen what happens to people who are the subject of a police investigation and believe police are trying to help them and start giving information (much less committing crimes) at the behest of police, both on the news and in person, and if you're worried about the cost of a lawyer in the situation described I think you're not performing a realistic analysis of the costs. Anyone who can't afford to hire a lawyer unless one is appointed doesn't have $10k in a savings account (like I do) or $50k like the woman in the story does, which makes them immune to this particular scam as there won't be a large sum of money to withdraw into a paper bag to hand to the scammer.

The absolute last thing that I'm going to do if I'm in a panic situation where I think the police are investigating me for something serious (in the example scam, financial fraud) is to continue the conversation with the alleged LEO in any way other than "I decline to answer any questions without a lawyer present", and I'm certainly not going to start doing things that could serve to dig me deeper like withdrawing money and making payments to someone in a car. And I certainly wouldn't keep quiet about it, I'd let everyone I know know so that if I do get arrested they at least have some idea what happened instead of me just vanishing quietly into the system for weeks or months before they figure it out.

Tagra posted:

I got a text last night from "nudetv75@gmail.com" saying they want to transfer money to me. Definitely clicking this link! Cha-ching, motherfuckers

Tagra posted:

I got a text last night from "nudetv75@gmail.com" saying they want to transfer money to me. Definitely clicking this link! Cha-ching, motherfuckers

MrNemo posted:

I had an email through to my personal email purporting to be from my CEO saying they needed to get in contact urgently. Nearly fell for it because I work in a small company, it's entirely possible the CEO might actually contact me directly and I was on holiday at the time. I've also been having some negative performance stuff that's recently been turned around mostly due to a management change but the company also had two high level people resign, creating some worry about whether there was an underlying problem it's facing. The icing on the cake for me buying it initially was when I went to check my work email, I got a message that my work profile had been deleted.

This was essentially a perfect storm for me to think maybe I was being fired in a really lovely way. I did answer that I was available to talk and got a response saying he wanted to send rewards for some colleagues, at which point someone else on the trip pointed out this is a classic scam. The email address was some nonsense thing but I hadn't even thought to check it. Now it's entirely possible if he'd asked me to buy Amazon cards or something I would have started to get suspicious but I can also imagine I'd have been at relieved to still have a job I'd have prioritised getting this task done to show how dedicated I was to who I thought was the CEO. Very much perfect storm conditions.

wizard2 posted:

I get a text from an email addres at least once a week. I found an Apple Tech Support Q&A page that went something like:

Tagra posted:

Are green card scams still common? We've got a friend who went to visit a girl in the Philippines. We thought he might be getting romance scammed but he said it's a relative of one of his coworkers, and he came back unscathed and not drained of all funds (that we know of...). But then he dropped that she had tried to visit him but couldn't get a Visa approved, so the only way to come visit would be to be engaged to him...

Volmarias posted:

These are forever. Frustratingly, a friend of mine who was getting married to a non US citizen had to jump through a ton of hoops to try to prove that it wasn't a scam marriage. It took them years of talking to whichever immigration agent before they finally caved and accepted that perhaps these two people could in fact genuinely love each other?

CaptainSarcastic posted:

My niece had to jump through hoops to marry her wife, who is from England. I don't think it took years, though.

Volmarias posted:

Guess the skin color of my friend and their husband

Inceltown posted:

I met a dude on the train once who was complaining that he was struggling to convince immigration that his relationship was true love. It wasn't his fault that the 4 other women he married all abandoned him the instant they could.

Just pathologically incapable of realising he's a mark.

Thesaurus posted:

You missed a golden opportunity to fleece him in some (non-romantic) way.

Thesaurus posted:

We were sure a family member was getting romance scammed by a Filipino woman. They met online and he's a kinda awkward tech dude who hasn't had great luck with women in the states. After a fast and purely digital courtship he flew to the Philippines to propose to her with an expensive diamond ring. The woman already had four kids of varying ages from perhaps two men. So red flags all over the place. His siblings were desperately trying to talk some sense into him.

But that was like 10 years ago, and they're apparently still happily married back on the States. I've met her and she's a nice woman with nice kids, half of whom were already in high school when he brought them over. They had a baby together and seem to be a happy mixed family.

So yeah, love and immigration is complex...

namlosh posted:

I’m not saying it can’t work, but all I can think of reading the above is:

You have been a valuable asset to the organization over the past X years, but present circumstances leading to your diminished ability to contribute to shared objectives has left us at an impasse and we must pursue alternate partners in order to meet our future goals. Thank you, please sign here:
<<<Signs divorce papers from hospital bed>>

EL BROMANCE posted:

Putting your pets on social media is cool and good, putting your kids on social media should be a crime.