Tell me about common cons/scams: "Thanks, you suck. Hello, this is Linda."

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about common cons/scams: "Thanks, you suck. Hello, this is Linda."

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

There's a whole host of fraudulent business services whose business model consists of mailing out Very Scary and Official looking order forms that imply they're billings for services received, until you look closely and see _{_{THIS IS NOT A BILL}} buried in the small print.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2016 16:40

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:02

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

Shingouryu posted:

Working IT at a medical office I get a call at least once a year from someone claiming to be our printer service company asking for our printer model number and other information. From what I understand, if you give it to them they ship your office hugely upmarked ink/toner, and then try to justify you paying for it since you gave them the model number. I usually just reply "That's strange, we're leasing it from xxx and have a service plan with them" which causes them to immediately hang up.

Of course, we also get the usual ones like mailings that say we need to pay $5000 to keep our trademark or a robocall saying we're being sued for x amount of dollars and to hold for a representative that would surely steal credit information. It doesn't help that the business owner likes to use the business phone number for personal transactions on shady websites

Our office has gotten the printer service company call a couple of times. I always wondered what exactly their endgame was, since they never got that far. Our company has all of 4 employees including the owner and our printer service process is "whoever has time after work to stop by Office Depot picks up some more ink", so those conversations always went off script very quickly. They usually get really, really flustered too, I've never had one smart enough to hang up when they get called out.

My favorite was the time I got a version of that call asking specifically about our copier, at a time when we had no copier in the office (not even a multifunction printer.) He spent five minutes repeating himself in disbelief that our company could exist without a copy machine before declaring that our printer that can't make copies counted as a copy machine, then I told him we weren't interested and hung up.

# ¿ Feb 29, 2016 23:31

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

cumshitter posted:

I used to do consumer finance and one of our biggest referrers came from one of those alkalkine/Kangen water MLM schemes. The idea is that you attach a $3 to $5 thousand machine under your sink. It electrifies the water and changes the pH level. Apparently it was pretty big in Japan at the time.

Around the same time stores selling jugs of the water and the machines started popping up around the office district I worked in (Wilshire/UCLA), and some crazy looking guy got the local gym to let him stand in their lobby and rush up to you with with a cup full of Kegel water. I wasn't really happy approving or financing those deals, so I always turned the guy down. But man, he had the craziest loving look in his eyes like a cult leader who thought he'd found a lost soul.

I barely remembered anything from my high school biology at that point but I knew enough to realize that your body is able to maintain a normal pH level even if you drink a gallon of orange juice. I can't believe how many of those things the guy running that sold if he was just going through us for the ones people financed.

This one is my favorite because when the poo poo in Flint started going down I was Googling for information and stumbled across some crazy alkaline person's website about how the REAL CULPRIT in Flint was fluoridation because fluoride had acidified the water to the DANGEROUSLY ACIDIC pH of 7.3 which was FIVE TIMES AS ACIDIC as normal water which has a neutral pH of 8.

(for clarity: all numbers are straight from the website)

# ¿ Apr 7, 2016 15:16

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

That Robox posted:

How common is it for MLM/Pyramid scams to team up? I keep seeing big colorful posters around, and ads posted on facebook about some "Women's Empowerment Summit" or something similar to that. And it's basically like 5 or 6 of these MLMs targeting women all under one roof. They've teamed up to rent a conference center or something.

And as usual, I'm just holding my tongue because every time I've tried to point out an obvious scam, I get dogpiled on and accused of being jealous and trying to ruin opportunities for people.

I've never seen a pure MLM gathering like that, but they will definitely descend as a swarm on any kind of convention/expo/fair that will let them get their foot in the door. I've seen MLM booths pop up at loving art shows.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2016 04:23

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

Captain Bravo posted:

Hell, even if I knew it was legit I would probably press 2 just to see what would happen.

I would be sorely disappointed if this didn't result in a cartoon hand emerging from the phone's speaker brandishing a court summons.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2016 21:47

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

Thanks to the MLM de jour, I'm making more money than I ever did at my old job!! You should come work with me so you can too!! By the way, did you know that grocery stores just throw away slightly moldy food? It really helps stretch your grocery budget when you need it, which we definitely don't, because I am making six figures selling magic health water

# ¿ Sep 20, 2016 14:57

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

teh winnar! posted:

Only if you're in Iowa or something. A friend of mine actually teaches a HS computer class in San Francisco, and they're doing coding for Android.

Can confirm. I had a university course that made us turn in programming assignments on floppies, in 2001. Because Iowa.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2016 16:00

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

flosofl posted:

I know the commercial of which you speak. It's definitely aimed at funeral expenses.

As far as the other, as long as you aren't the co-signer of any loans or cards, you aren't responsible for any debt. Now if you want to keep things like cars or houses, you need to assume the outstanding debt, but credit lines are not assumed by non-signatories. A lot of CC companies are absolutely poo poo-heels and will do every thing up to (but not quite crossing the line) implying you are responsible for your spouse's/kid's/parent's debt, but usually a quick consult with lawyer to write letters is all it takes to get them to go away. I'm not sure if they can go after the estate to recover.

At least that's been my experience in IL.

The estate is absolutely responsible for outstanding debts. Otherwise everyone would go on a credit card buying spree for their loved ones before they shuffle off and hey, free stuff!

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 18:08

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

Jyrraeth posted:

My mom used to work in insurance for farms/ranches and said there was a lot of people who would try to pass off 3 bulls as one bull, and things like that. I wish I remembered some stories, 'cause ranchers aren't the smartest fraudsters. Lots of pretending cattle were a better/worse breed and trying to hide the extremely flammable barn with terrible electrical.

Shady car dealers are notorious for pulling these tricks and I'm extremely amused to find out that cattle farmers do the exact same thing but with cows.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2017 20:42

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

At random occasional intervals at work we'll get a robocall from a spoofed number that's just... a looped recording of various office noises. Quiet chatter, a phone ringing in the background, etc. Same recording every time. No idea what the point is supposed to be. Once when I was bored I gave it a good 30 seconds to see if anyone would come on the line, but nope.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2018 16:23

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

That probably explains it, although whoever's got our number doesn't seem to be doing a very good job since it's only the one clip and nothing interesting happens in it. At this point it's less effective than dead air since everyone who answers the phone recognizes it.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2018 17:47

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

flense the flesh from your bones and live your life as a skellington. never shave again!

# ¿ Jul 16, 2018 22:40

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:02

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

hellotoothpaste posted:

MY GIRLFRIEND almost got popped by an "I'm in trouble" scam and I'm real glad I had been reading this thread/staying aware of scam tactics for a long while. Caller was pretending to be a friend of a relative in some sort of tight spot and needed money right now. Was trying to get her to send money via the Cash app (like Venmo/Zelle, I hadn't heard of it at all) and while she is empathetic and was starting to believe, fortunately she isn't gullible and feigned dependence on my decision until I got home and the phone rang again. I picked up and we had a different sort of conversation.

Pretty standard fast-talky, scammy person trying to talk past the ability to process information. Knew an incredible amount about the guy he was pretending to be, including a professional license number which he was far too over eager to share in order build confidence. Told him to slow down and we had a pretty ridiculous "you're a loving idiot scammer and it's obvious" call where he was constantly trying to break off from me to get back to her. I got tired of the call when he started turning it around on me in a poo poo lazy fashion and told her it's probably A Good Idea to block the number. A strange part was that he was pretty adamant about getting on Facetime to prove who he was. That seemed strange to offer that up when clearly this was someone that snagged an identity, and I wasn't going to waste the 10-15 mins where he "can't get video working" or whatever that was probably heading toward, but like.. I dunno, it was oddly confident but in the obvious way sociopaths/narcissists can get when challenged. Either that or it'd help him identify me via connections he'd already made.

One curiosity came to mind after, was what are the chances this is a single direct hit on something like email -> social media accounts -> building up a list of info and relatives to hit, versus that whole thing being sold as a package by a third-party and/or in bulk? It seemed like it would be an awful amount of work to dig up the really comprehensive, but outdated information about not only the mark, but shared acquaintances as well. I've only ever thought about bulk credentials being traded in the dark but it's even scarier if it's large profiles that have been mined from that information.

PS: This thread not needs derailed

I got one of these calls a some years back, it was pretty freaky. Never got a money pitch, just a bunch of rapid fire questions about close family members' personal details. A little too rapid fire, fortunately. They opened up with enough details to spin a vague but plausible story about having met my brother at a recent comic con and needing to get in touch with him, which I probably would have given up if he hadn't bounced around to so many other questions in the time it took me to go look up my brother's phone number. Questions about my other siblings, what cars various family members drove, what school they went to, what their pets were named... at which point the alarm bells started really going off, because 1. the guy's story couldn't account for knowing all these family members across the country that don't run in the same circles at all, and 2. gee this guy's questions all really sound like account security questions.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2018 05:03

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about common cons/scams: "Thanks, you suck. Hello, this is Linda."