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sullat
Jan 9, 2012

Earwicker posted:

No, you don't need an overseas call center, and it's trivial to get the contact info for people who could potentially be in debt by going through the garbage at an apartment complex.

True, but if you're in the US and you do that, the feds will do terrible things once they catch you. The foreign call centers can't really be stopped by the US, so they keep on trucking.

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kaschei
Oct 25, 2005

Lawsuits by creditors of delinquents have skyrocketed and are public record. Don't need to dig through garbage to see who is in debt.

sullat
Jan 9, 2012

kaschei posted:

Lawsuits by creditors of delinquents have skyrocketed and are public record. Don't need to dig through garbage to see who is in debt.

Well, this is just with the tax impersonation scam. Don't know if the Aussie version uses foreign call centers, but the US one certainly does. And they don't dig through garbage, they get lists of tens of thousands of names and numbers and call them, on the assumption that a couple of bites will make the expense worth it.

Korgan
Feb 14, 2012


sullat posted:

Well, this is just with the tax impersonation scam. Don't know if the Aussie version uses foreign call centers, but the US one certainly does. And they don't dig through garbage, they get lists of tens of thousands of names and numbers and call them, on the assumption that a couple of bites will make the expense worth it.

It was almost certainly a foreign call centre, number was blocked and the bloke had an Indian accent. Call centres here try not to hire Indians with obvious accents because they tend to get hung up on immediately thanks to a shitload of people getting calls from Microsoft about viruses, the ATO/criminal record scams, solar panel and energy saver rebates, etc. Every scam call I can remember receiving has been a blocked or overseas number with an Indian person on the other end. I wish they had better job prospects over there so they didn't get suckered into scamming people. Is there any truth to the scammer call centres being advertised as legitimate jobs and then paying people peanuts to read a script until they land a sucker, and then have to hand the phone over to a "supervisor" who is better prepared to lie and threaten and improvise their way into your wallet?

Thin Privilege
Jul 8, 2009
IM A STUPID MORON WITH AN UGLY FACE AND A BIG BUTT AND MY BUTT SMELLS AND I LIKE TO KISS MY OWN BUTT
Gravy Boat 2k

Eien Ni Hen posted:

-People hiding meat at the grocery store, then retrieving said meat when it's past its sell-by date, and trying to get another of the same item for free because "your store had expired meat for sale."

I always heard grocery store employees complaining about hidden meat and they and I thought someone was just too lazy to put it back, but now it makes sense.

Pentaro
May 5, 2013


Scam phone calls, :mexico: edition:

A few weeks ago, I received a phone call from some dude claiming to be Col. Whatshisname, "chief of security of Cartel Whatever", saying that "two ladies" paid him to kick my rear end, but since he believes in fairness he sent a team of his finest men to investigate me, and then decided that I was actually a fine upstanding person and that the ladies where only losing his time and as such he was going to give them hell instead. Of course, he also mentioned how much money he spent in that investigation and was hoping for a "gesture of good will", and that I should not get cocky because his men were stationed one block from my house and ready to move at his command.
I must admit it was scary at first since the guy actually mentioned my name and address, but as he was spinning his yarn I realized anyone can pick a phonebook and pick any number at random, so I just hung up the phone.

drat it, prank callers are getting wild.

Fruits of the sea
Dec 1, 2010

There's a severe housing shortage in my city, especially affordable apartments or rooms for students. There's also a large influx of foreign students every year. An industry of scammers has grown up around this. The conmen will advertise apartments for rent in nice neighbourhoods at prices that are just a little too good to be true, and then take a deposit and first month's rent before the students even arrive in the country. The students go to their nice new address, and discover that somebody else lives there. They are now homeless in one of the most expensive cities in Europe, where housing is so short that even local people with connections have to search half a year to find something.

Recently this has escalated to the next level. The conmen rent swanky air bnb apartments and invite victims in to check the place out, sign the papers in person and fork over cash. Naturally, they never get their keys as arranged, and are left out in the cold, minus a thousand euro or two.

You could say these foreign students are naive, but most of them are intelligent and educated. They come from countries where there is an excess of housing, informal agreements are more normal, and they tend to be trusting of authority figures in a new country. It's a sad situation.

Pentaro posted:

Scam phone calls, :mexico: edition:

A few weeks ago, I received a phone call from some dude claiming to be Col. Whatshisname, "chief of security of Cartel Whatever", saying that "two ladies" paid him to kick my rear end, but since he believes in fairness he sent a team of his finest men to investigate me, and then decided that I was actually a fine upstanding person and that the ladies where only losing his time and as such he was going to give them hell instead. Of course, he also mentioned how much money he spent in that investigation and was hoping for a "gesture of good will", and that I should not get cocky because his men were stationed one block from my house and ready to move at his command.
I must admit it was scary at first since the guy actually mentioned my name and address, but as he was spinning his yarn I realized anyone can pick a phonebook and pick any number at random, so I just hung up the phone.

drat it, prank callers are getting wild.

This is amazing.

AlphaKretin
Dec 25, 2014

A vase to face encounter.

...Vase to meet you?

...

GARVASE DAY!

Pentaro posted:

Scam phone calls, :mexico: edition:

A few weeks ago, I received a phone call from some dude claiming to be Col. Whatshisname, "chief of security of Cartel Whatever", saying that "two ladies" paid him to kick my rear end, but since he believes in fairness he sent a team of his finest men to investigate me, and then decided that I was actually a fine upstanding person and that the ladies where only losing his time and as such he was going to give them hell instead. Of course, he also mentioned how much money he spent in that investigation and was hoping for a "gesture of good will", and that I should not get cocky because his men were stationed one block from my house and ready to move at his command.
I must admit it was scary at first since the guy actually mentioned my name and address, but as he was spinning his yarn I realized anyone can pick a phonebook and pick any number at random, so I just hung up the phone.

drat it, prank callers are getting wild.

:psyduck: Why does he feel the need to make up a story to demand money on the basis of "or I'll kick your rear end"?

Fruits of the sea
Dec 1, 2010

The mafia is getting really lazy. Work from home extortion, just three hours a day!!

Josef K. Sourdust
Jul 16, 2014

"To be quite frank, Platinum sucks at making games. Vanquish was terrible and Metal Gear Rising: Revengance was so boring it put me to sleep."

Anyone have an experience of the petition scam? Here's mine: In Belgium I was approached by a gypsy girl who asked for my signature on a petition (something do with forcing EU to provide education for gypsies - which it already does). I was thinking of signing then decided not to. She got abusive and aggressive and I just walked away. Later I learnt what the scam was. The person signs the petition then the scammer flips over the page to show a sheet on the clipboard which asks (in several languages) for a €10 donation to the cause (whatever it is). The signer feels either obligated or pressured to hand over a "donation". Of course the petition is not real (not an actual cause and is never submitted) and the cash is pocketed. This is kind of a cruel one because it doesn't prey on a victim's greed but on their desire to support a worthy cause.

Sk8ers4Christ
Mar 10, 2008

Lord, I ask you to watch over me as I pop an ollie off this 50-foot ramp. If I fail, I'll be seeing you.

Korgan posted:

Not sure exactly, as soon as she heard "mother's criminal record" she laughed at them and told them they were full of poo poo. I assume it would have been similar to my call, send us money and we'll get it cleared up. Most people wouldn't fall for it, but they're not preying on most people. They're targeting those who are going to panic and agree to everything and send them the cash without stopping to think about why this situation is dodgy as hell.

Makes sense, and it actually reminded me of another scam that was going on around here for a while. People impersonating electricity company employees were calling up residents insisting that unless they paid their "overdue bill" :siren: right now :siren: their electricity was going to get cut off. I thought it was easy enough to figure out it was bullshit if you kept any sort of track of your utility bills at all, plus most companies send notices in the mail after missed payments. But apparently enough people fell for it to the point the scam got featured in the news. Unfortunately I think the reason for that was most of the targets were non-English speakers. :smith:

My mom speaks English, but she has a thick accent. She would get calls from these people almost every week.

Safety Biscuits
Oct 21, 2010

Fruits of the sea posted:

There's a severe housing shortage in my city, especially affordable apartments or rooms for students. There's also a large influx of foreign students every year. An industry of scammers has grown up around this. The conmen will advertise apartments for rent in nice neighbourhoods at prices that are just a little too good to be true, and then take a deposit and first month's rent before the students even arrive in the country. The students go to their nice new address, and discover that somebody else lives there. They are now homeless in one of the most expensive cities in Europe, where housing is so short that even local people with connections have to search half a year to find something.

What's the university's overseas students department (or whatever) doing? They should at least be able to liase with the people who accredit landlords.

Kopijeger
Feb 14, 2010

Josef K. Sourdust posted:

Anyone have an experience of the petition scam?

There are a few variations on these. In Rome, there was a dude claiming to be Slovenian apparently collecting signatures for a petition against drugs. Now, this particular scam is described on various scam warning sites, but even without that foreknowledge, it was suspicious that he asked me whether I was Italian or not and attempted an ungrammatical phrase in my native language when I told him what country I am from. If they had been legitimate, they probably wouldn't have gone after foreign tourists specifically and they would have stuck to their native country instead of going to Italy. Also, in Paris there was this young woman with an English accent who went: "Hello, do you speak English? I've got this[petition]..." Suspecting a scam, and in any case feeling no obligation to speak English in France, I simply ignored her completely. Apparently that annoyed her, making her go "Hellooooo...excuuuse me". Why she thought that would get her anywhere is beyond me.

Josef K. Sourdust
Jul 16, 2014

"To be quite frank, Platinum sucks at making games. Vanquish was terrible and Metal Gear Rising: Revengance was so boring it put me to sleep."

Kopijeger posted:

gone after foreign tourists specifically

Yes, I got the impression that this group were targetting tourists because they might be less used to seeing/ignoring the scam, plus being ignorant of the subject. Sad eyes, social injustice, sign here, please etc. Someone pulled the ring scam on me in Paris and it worked because I had never heard of it or encountered it. Hopefully this thread will clue up a few people in advance.

Domus
May 7, 2007

Kidney Buddies
My Brother's father-in-law is one of the few people who actually make money from Amway. His territory is mainly in China, and through a translator, he pitches Amway to rural Chinese. I can't imagine how he justifies earning his living from scamming the folks who can least afford it. Something like %97 of Amway sellers end up loosing money. I've only ever met him at my brother's wedding, but I wish there was something I could do about it.

Fork of Unknown Origins
Oct 21, 2005
Gotta Herd On?

Eien Ni Hen posted:



Another common, really lovely scam is people posing as attendants at paid parking lots. The "attendant" takes your money, and then your car gets ticketed or towed because you technically didn't pay to park. Someone tried this scam on me a few years ago, and it was kind of unnerving. The dude looked shady as hell, and started screaming at me when I went to put money in the lock box, saying that I had to give it to him instead, that he would call the cops, get my car towed, etc. He kept at it too, even after I straight up refused to give him money. I found out later that my dad fell for the same scam back in the 90s when he worked in downtown Dallas.


My dad and I always parked in the same free lot before college football games. One day there was a homeless guy in a folding chair at the entrance offering to "watch our car" for $5. My dad paid him the $5 because A) It was cheaper than parking anywhere else and B) We were pretty sure he'd key it/smash a window/etc if we didn't. It was the only time he showed up.

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

Fork of Unknown Origins posted:

My dad and I always parked in the same free lot before college football games. One day there was a homeless guy in a folding chair at the entrance offering to "watch our car" for $5. My dad paid him the $5 because A) It was cheaper than parking anywhere else and B) We were pretty sure he'd key it/smash a window/etc if we didn't. It was the only time he showed up.

Ah... the protection racket. A classic!

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug

Kopijeger posted:

There are a few variations on these. In Rome, there was a dude claiming to be Slovenian apparently collecting signatures for a petition against drugs. Now, this particular scam is described on various scam warning sites, but even without that foreknowledge, it was suspicious that he asked me whether I was Italian or not and attempted an ungrammatical phrase in my native language when I told him what country I am from. If they had been legitimate, they probably wouldn't have gone after foreign tourists specifically and they would have stuck to their native country instead of going to Italy. Also, in Paris there was this young woman with an English accent who went: "Hello, do you speak English? I've got this[petition]..." Suspecting a scam, and in any case feeling no obligation to speak English in France, I simply ignored her completely. Apparently that annoyed her, making her go "Hellooooo...excuuuse me". Why she thought that would get her anywhere is beyond me.

Scammers tend to be very pushy partly so they can demand your attention and potentially weasel their way into your wallet and partly because some people will sign/pay just to make them go the hell away.

Another thing they use is guilt. If they act like they just want to talk to you please if that's not such a bother and make you feel like your a jerk for ignoring them rudely it gets a foot in the door, as it were.

ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Feb 27, 2016

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

Domus posted:

My Brother's father-in-law is one of the few people who actually make money from Amway.

I doubt it.

Typically what happens is they show you a check they got but neglect to mention all the money they themselves spent buying bullshit and attending seminars. It's a rebate of sorts. They might get a check for a thousand dollars or something but almost always they've spent 5 times that much to get it.

I'd be interested to see the guy's actual tax returns.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane
Lucky you for only having charity muggers that target tourists.

I suppose it's not quite a scam if they're actually associated with a charity, but they can still all go gently caress themselves for bothering me as I'm trying to go about my business all the time.

artsy fartsy
May 10, 2014

You'll be ahead instead of behind. Hello!

Josef K. Sourdust posted:

Anyone have an experience of the petition scam? Here's mine: In Belgium I was approached by a gypsy girl who asked for my signature on a petition (something do with forcing EU to provide education for gypsies - which it already does). I was thinking of signing then decided not to. She got abusive and aggressive and I just walked away. Later I learnt what the scam was. The person signs the petition then the scammer flips over the page to show a sheet on the clipboard which asks (in several languages) for a €10 donation to the cause (whatever it is). The signer feels either obligated or pressured to hand over a "donation". Of course the petition is not real (not an actual cause and is never submitted) and the cash is pocketed. This is kind of a cruel one because it doesn't prey on a victim's greed but on their desire to support a worthy cause.

I saw this one in Paris a couple years ago! I forget what the petition was supposed to be for but I signed and yeah, she flipped the clipboard over and asked for money.

I kept saying I didn't have any on me and while she didn't get aggressive she did keep lowering the amount she was asking for, and kissing her fingers and touching me with them. Over and over again. That was weird.

Domus
May 7, 2007

Kidney Buddies

BiggerBoat posted:

I doubt it.

Typically what happens is they show you a check they got but neglect to mention all the money they themselves spent buying bullshit and attending seminars. It's a rebate of sorts. They might get a check for a thousand dollars or something but almost always they've spent 5 times that much to get it.

I'd be interested to see the guy's actual tax returns.

No, really. It's what he does for a living. For like the last 20 years. I think he's just high enough in enough pyramids that he genuinely makes money. It's just that he does it by lying to poor people. He's possibly a sociopath, or he keeps his emotions behind a ton of mental walls. When you talk to him, you get a distinctly fake personality.

Josef K. Sourdust
Jul 16, 2014

"To be quite frank, Platinum sucks at making games. Vanquish was terrible and Metal Gear Rising: Revengance was so boring it put me to sleep."

artsy fartsy posted:

I saw this one in Paris a couple years ago! I forget what the petition was supposed to be for but I signed and yeah, she flipped the clipboard over and asked for money.

I kept saying I didn't have any on me and while she didn't get aggressive she did keep lowering the amount she was asking for, and kissing her fingers and touching me with them. Over and over again. That was weird.

Actually, I almost added that this scam is common in Paris. :) There are organised gangs which work the Eiffel Tower, the Seine Bridges and the Louvre. The Louvre was actually closed for a day or two because the police couldn't handle the number of thieves, scammers, pedlars and beggars working the courtyard. The metro is (or was) rife with pickpockets and "steaming" gangs.

Fruits of the sea
Dec 1, 2010

House Louse posted:

What's the university's overseas students department (or whatever) doing? They should at least be able to liase with the people who accredit landlords.

Without going into unnecessary detail, the university's bureaucracy is notoriously impenetrable. Liaising is not something they do. As for accreditation of landlords, that falls under the tax ministry's purview, and they only care whether landlords are reporting the correct income in relation to the number of renters to rooms.

There are a bunch of resources, legal and otherwise,, but the university and government do a piss poor job of communicating them. I actually volunteer at a help desk for foreign students, and communicating that we even exist has been a struggle.

Edit: Part of the problem is that the lack of housing has created a large "black market" of landlords who don't report their renters. Scams are only one of the problems, I know people who have been subjected to harassment, sexual harassment, cockroach infestations, bizarre rules and evictions with little to no notice. So many evictions. The sad thing is there is legal support for these issues from non-profit orgs, but again, nobody knows they exist.

Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Feb 28, 2016

Absurd Alhazred
Mar 27, 2010

by Athanatos

Fruits of the sea posted:

Without going into unnecessary detail, the university's bureaucracy is notoriously impenetrable. Liaising is not something they do. As for accreditation of landlords, that falls under the tax ministry's purview, and they only care whether landlords are reporting the correct income in relation to the number of renters to rooms.

There are a bunch of resources, legal and otherwise,, but the university and government do a piss poor job of communicating them. I actually volunteer at a help desk for foreign students, and communicating that we even exist has been a struggle.

Edit: Part of the problem is that the lack of housing has created a large "black market" of landlords who don't report their renters. Scams are only one of the problems, I know people who have been subjected to harassment, sexual harassment, cockroach infestations, bizarre rules and evictions with little to no notice. So many evictions. The sad thing is there is legal support for these issues from non-profit orgs, but again, nobody knows they exist.

My recommendation: suggest to whomever's in charge of international students that the orientation pamphlet sent out include a very thorough explanation of their rights and common scams; but most importantly, that the university housing authority (I am assuming someone is in charge of running some kind of dorms, at least!) have its own database of rental properties, which they will make sure are credible. That's what my recent alma mater here in the US did, and it made finding an apartment much easier (it also helped that I got a cheap hotel room for the apartment-hunting phase; also something to recommend to students coming in as an alternative to renting sight unseen).

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug

Domus posted:

No, really. It's what he does for a living. For like the last 20 years. I think he's just high enough in enough pyramids that he genuinely makes money. It's just that he does it by lying to poor people. He's possibly a sociopath, or he keeps his emotions behind a ton of mental walls. When you talk to him, you get a distinctly fake personality.

So he was lucky enough to get in on the scam early, which let him be a scammer rather than get scammed. Good for him, he's a terrible person.

Safety Biscuits
Oct 21, 2010

Fruits of the sea posted:

Without going into unnecessary detail, the university's bureaucracy is notoriously impenetrable. Liaising is not something they do. As for accreditation of landlords, that falls under the tax ministry's purview, and they only care whether landlords are reporting the correct income in relation to the number of renters to rooms.

There are a bunch of resources, legal and otherwise,, but the university and government do a piss poor job of communicating them. I actually volunteer at a help desk for foreign students, and communicating that we even exist has been a struggle.

Edit: Part of the problem is that the lack of housing has created a large "black market" of landlords who don't report their renters. Scams are only one of the problems, I know people who have been subjected to harassment, sexual harassment, cockroach infestations, bizarre rules and evictions with little to no notice. So many evictions. The sad thing is there is legal support for these issues from non-profit orgs, but again, nobody knows they exist.

This is loving appalling and the university and local government sound incredibly negligent. I can't see them organising a whitelist of properties, but I'm glad someone is doing something for the students. Like those petition scams, or teahouses, foreigners are easy and obvious targets.

Fork of Unknown Origins posted:

My dad and I always parked in the same free lot before college football games. One day there was a homeless guy in a folding chair at the entrance offering to "watch our car" for $5. My dad paid him the $5 because A) It was cheaper than parking anywhere else and B) We were pretty sure he'd key it/smash a window/etc if we didn't. It was the only time he showed up.

You just reminded me of a bloke I heard of who looked after a couple of big, popular car parks near Bristol. He charged £1 a day or £5 all day, and one day, after working there twenty or thirty years, he vanished. When people phoned up the council to ask where the car park warden had gone, they'd never heard of the guy.

Original_Z
Jun 14, 2005
Z so good
In South Africa that whole "carwatcher" thing is actually a big underground business, you get harassed by people no matter where you park. Some of them do provide a service like helping you put your groceries in your car or remembering you and guiding you to your car, while others just demand money and don't do anything. There is a lot of risk of crime there but I doubt any of these watchers will risk their necks if someone does want to get into it.

In the Philippines, there was a huge racket uncovered last year where airport personnel would put bullets into a traveler's suitcase, tell the traveler that they're in deep poo poo, and demand a bribe to make it go away. If you didn't pay it, they'd simply arrest you for transporting illegal items, and good luck pleading your case. Terrible embarrassment for the country and they cracked down hard on it, but it's still best to wrap your luggage when traveling through the country.

NYC, and probably other American tourist cities have no end of people trying to scam you out of your hard-earned cash. One of the more depressing ones is where black youths will try to peddle their homemade hip-hop CDs to you, even forcing them into your hand and then demanding a donation to support their efforts. If you refuse it, then they get all tough and prey on fears that tourists have of NYC African youths, even being blatant like "are you sure you want to argue with a black man like me?" Great job enforcing the stereotype, guys! I've heard that these days those CDs are loaded with viruses and ransomware anyway so the scam continues when you put it in your PC.

Also bad in the Times Square area are electronic shops with insane markeup and goods are of questionable quality with pushy salespeople and a no-refund policy. poo poo like this:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60763-d1734028-Reviews-47th_Digital-New_York_City_New_York.html

The Ferret King
Nov 23, 2003

cluck cluck

ToxicSlurpee posted:

So he was lucky enough to get in on the scam early, which let him be a scammer rather than get scammed. Good for him, he's a terrible person.

Yep. That's exactly what he said. Thanks for clarifying.

stringball
Mar 17, 2009

Speaking of universities can someone tell me about "university" of phoenix, ITT tech, Collins college (they changed the name iirc after a shitton of bad publicity) or any for-profit schools?

From what I know they put people in awful debt and a "degree" that's probably not even worth the paper it's printed on

Thrifting Day!
Nov 25, 2006

House Louse posted:

You just reminded me of a bloke I heard of who looked after a couple of big, popular car parks near Bristol. He charged £1 a day or £5 all day, and one day, after working there twenty or thirty years, he vanished. When people phoned up the council to ask where the car park warden had gone, they'd never heard of the guy.

This is like the oldest STDH.txt from facebook.

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

The Ferret King posted:

Yep. That's exactly what he said. Thanks for clarifying.

Still not buying it. I'd love to see his tax returns and how much of his money comes from selling motivational tools and bilking suckers into attending conventions over actually running a business.

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

ToxicSlurpee posted:

I'm fuzzy on the legal details but some deregulation in PA has led to some odd scams. The short of it is that energy-related utilities have been deregulated a bit in order to "encourage competition." Though the electricity is still all generated by the same power plants as ever the suppliers can change. The idea is that you can choose your supplier so you can get the best rates. I'm not too keen on all the details but it's basically increasing the number of electricity resellers that can sell you electricity even though they all end up using the same infrastructure anyway. It's pretty stupid.

But it has let all sorts of scammers weasel their way into the system. Now we have to deal with fast talking people going door to door using pretty standard tactics to get your money. Basically they start with the scare; "your rates are going to go up!" is the common one. Now we all don't want to pay more for stuff so it gets peoples' attention. However, it's a huge red flag on its own because they're going door to door when you haven't gotten any mail based on rate increases. They talk fast and try to confuse you, sometimes ask to see your bills, or whatever. In the end it's always "here sign this and your rates will stay the same/decrease" but they won't let you see the details. Just "sign this right now or you'll have to pay more pretty much immediately." Another one is people selling "insurance" against rate increases. They almost always quote some new law that nobody has heard about yet that just happened to go through yesterday/this morning that will lead to massive rate increases unless you sign this paper right now. They act like they're doing you a favor.

What they don't tell you is that you end up signing a year+ long contract with an energy supplier middleman type thing. See, you can basically just buy power directly from the company that owns the plants anyway so why bother paying a middle man? They also lock you into rates that are waaaaaaaay higher than what you'd be paying even if rates go up. The "insurance" is pretty much bullshit.

How do you deal with this? If somebody knocks on your door and starts talking about electricity rates just tell them to gently caress off and shut the door. Don't sign anything, don't show them any of your utility bills, don't let them get any information. Just tell them go away.

Jesus Christ this thing is a bad topic at my house.

My girlfriend told me that she wanted to switch over to Energy Direct so that we could save money on our power bills. Her sister had signed up for it the year before and she thought it would work for us. I asked her how it worked and she told me, and it immediately sounded scammy, so I googled it (and I think even made a thread in A/T) about it and quickly learned that it is 100% a scam and that the company who is at the forefront of it here in Canada was being run-out of Ontario by the provincial government.

Anyway, it caused a bit of a fight, but we never did sign up for it and to this day my girlfriend believes that we're wasting hundreds of dollars a year, even though oil is down and we use an oil furnace.

Her family is the perfect type of people to be scammed: the ones that don't need too much convincing, and I blame her father for it. He is 100% convinced that no matter the situation, he is the smartest person in the room, and I think it makes him the perfect mark. He has a full room of his house filled with "AS SEEN ON TV!" junk and boxes of Beanie Babies/sports cards/comic-books/toy cars/anything RARE and VALUABLE, all poo poo that the market fell out under years ago and he either collected afterwards or the investments never paid off.

Only 2 years ago he was calling my girlfriend and her siblings and telling them to go to their closest Walmart and buy as much Pokemon cards as the stores had in stock and that he'd pay them all back when he picked them up.

Yesterday I was telling him that in the Fall I was speaking to one of my neighbors who had paid a couple grand to have his driveway paved by a paving company that appeared in our small town for a few days with the "Leftover Asphalt" scam (people in our town fell for it hook/line/sinker, over the next week it seemed every fourth house had a newly paved driveway... these are all not-well-off people, who also almost exclusively use cash, so it's not even like they could drive to the bank and have time to think it over), and he shook his head and told me very slowly and deliberately how the scam worked, pretty much word-for-word how the scam is sold to the mark, with the exception that he didn't see it as a scam.

I softly tried to poke holes in it and it was pretty clear that he couldn't reason outside of what he'd just told me, I didn't let it drop that our roads are paved under contract with the province/municipality, and that workers going around making extra cash for asphalt already being billed to the taxpayer would be super loving illegal.

But yeah, the best guy to scam is the one who does most of the work for you. The ultimate irony that has never been realized with this guy (who I really like most of the time) is that I believe his arrogance cost him more than he'll ever realize: after he was laid off from his job he told a story about how, through pure disastrously bad luck and irony, he'd managed to somehow get himself alone with a high-up official with his company, and how he'd told him his views on how the oil company was being run as well as the companies' use of Temporary Foreign Workers, likely using the same slow and deliberate method of speaking that he used with me.

I guess the guy said something like "Huh, I'd never thought of it that way", and one week later he was out of a job... ahead of the oil slump. When he tells the story he seems to be 100% convinced that he schooled the wealthy business guy, when in reality that guy doesn't give a poo poo about wealth staying in the country/ working conditions/ anything that he would have had to say to him.

Ham Equity
Apr 16, 2013

i hosted a great goon meet and all i got was this lousy avatar
Grimey Drawer

PT6A posted:

Lucky you for only having charity muggers that target tourists.

I suppose it's not quite a scam if they're actually associated with a charity, but they can still all go gently caress themselves for bothering me as I'm trying to go about my business all the time.
If you're talking about the dudes with the binders: they're mostly desperate college students who get sucked into a "job helping progressive causes." The company they're working for contracts with the charity, and takes a huge loving cut of whatever they collect. They then hire the desperate people--at rates that have been known to dip below minimum wage--and employ them doing some really terrible poo poo.

You should never give those people money, because there is zero accountability for any of the money they collect (like, they could literally be donating it to a cause the opposite of what you're supporting), but also realize that the people holding the binders are victims, too.

Grassroots Campaigns is probably the largest offender in this industry.

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.
Has Bitcoin been brought up in this thread yet? I have a friend who I generally respect and like a lot but every now and again he brings up bitcoin and I just wince.

tinytort
Jun 10, 2013

Super healthy, super cheap
About a decade or so ago, I got sent an email alleging to be from a legal firm in England. Apparently I had come into some money as part of an inheritance from a relative I had never heard of, and all I had to do was send them my bank details so they could get me the money.

The first thing I thought was "if this was legit, they would be sending me a letter, not an email. And my parents would probably have mentioned this."
So I flagged it as spam and want onwards with the thought that if it was real, they would send me a letter.

I also got some lady who tried to get me to sign up for a spa treatment when I was in college. "I have no money," I said. "Oh, you must have some," she said. "Just my tuition loan money." "Oh, just use that, then."
I gave her the stink eye, and finished eating so I could get to class; she wouldn’t believe me that I really couldn't spend that money on anything except what it was earmarked for, but it was true: the loan was from the government, who would have noticed if I went spending it on something else, and (I believed) if I had gotten caught doing that, I would have had to start repayment and been ineligible for any future loans.

I don't know if it would have been true, and I never had cause to find out, but the fear of it was enough to outweigh any interest I might have had in a spa day.

Domus
May 7, 2007

Kidney Buddies

BiggerBoat posted:

Still not buying it. I'd love to see his tax returns and how much of his money comes from selling motivational tools and bilking suckers into attending conventions over actually running a business.

No, you're not understanding. He sells Amway. Not Amway products. He brings new sheep in for the slaughter. I mean, he might buy a product package for show, but he doesn't make money selling the products. He makes money from the people under him, that he recruited, buying products to sell. He really is in the 3% that makes money, off the backs of people who really can't afford it.

His wife's a kindergarden teacher, but they managed to put two kids through college and live pretty drat well. I don't think he's making millions, but he's probably pulling in at least six figures.

Raere
Dec 13, 2007

My grandmother's husband got suckered into switching his Medicare supplement carrier by a door-to-door salesman a couple years ago. The poor guy is 90 and has Alzheimers. He couldn't even remember doing it. It really screwed everything up and he needed a lot of help switching back to the original plan. How do these people sleep at night?

The Duchess Smackarse
May 8, 2012

by Lowtax
Back in the day where I live there were a lot of energy resellers going around with fixed rate scams. Basically they'd sign you up for hydro at a higher rate and promise that the price would never go up as long as you were with them. Naturally, if you looked at the contract they could cancel it for whatever reason, and they'd sell you energy at a hefty mark-up knowing full well they could disappear if the price actually did go up.

The best part is that they'd get you to show them your elec bill and then they'd base the price they offered you off of what they saw you were paying. My idiot ex actually signed us up for it, but fortunately it turned out that my signature was needed before it could go through.

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azflyboy
Nov 9, 2005

stringball posted:

Speaking of universities can someone tell me about "university" of phoenix, ITT tech, Collins college (they changed the name iirc after a shitton of bad publicity) or any for-profit schools?

From what I know they put people in awful debt and a "degree" that's probably not even worth the paper it's printed on

For profit schools make their money by aggressively recruiting people and encouraging them to take out massive loans, with zero regard to whether the students are actually able to complete the course work or their ability to repay those loans when they drop out or graduate.

Aside from their shady recruiting practices, for profit colleges also charge something like four times as much as a community college for the same training, and they heavily target veterans, since GI Bill money isn't considered federal benefits for the requirement that a school obtain at least 10% of it's funding from non-federal sources.

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