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Round this way it's "gypsies" selling "lucky heather".Omnikin posted:Many moons ago working late night security in a big urban office building, I was standing out back with a janitor having a smoke. This random dude holding a full black garbage bag walks by, eyes us up, and says "Ten bucks and the bag's yours, no questions asked guys." That's called a pig in a poke, isn't it? Years ago I found this list of common types of scam: quote:1. Simple misrepresentation. It was part of a blog post about Sovereign Citizens/tax protesters. It's interesting, but most of the links must be dead. This one's real, though, and it's a much more detailed anatomy of frauds.
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Feb 26, 2016 06:32
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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.
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Feb 27, 2016 12:20
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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. 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.
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Feb 28, 2016 12:39
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mostlygray posted:She also once smuggled a parrot from South America into Mexico in an empty flashlight. Again, there are way to many stories to tell. This one's not cool, though.
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Apr 28, 2016 05:24
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Speaking of New York, there were a bunch of street vendors approaching me selling stuff on my one visit there. Are they mostly legit, or just way overpricing, or scammers?mostlygray posted:The bird was unharmed and happy afterwards. No damage, just issues with the border. It was only in the flashlight for a few minutes as they crossed. It was a last minute thing when they found that they couldn't cross the border with the bird. Please don't white knight animal cruelty.
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Apr 29, 2016 16:20
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If you're in your home country and go to a clip joint, you could always say you need to go to the ATM, then enter the wrong number and have it eat your card. It would be inconvenient but it might be enough to make them let you go. I'd rather not go into one in the first place, though.many johnnys posted:Fair enough, if it's six bucks it's not worth the trouble. But I figure, what are they gonna do if you grab a smoke and then just disappear? If I were running a scam, I'd either come out for some fresh air/a smoke with you, or nod to the bouncer outside to make sure this doesn't happen.
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Jun 13, 2016 08:14
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WampaLord posted:
Yes, but if you get it wrong three times it'll eat the card. In the UK anyway; maybe it's different where you are.
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Jun 14, 2016 01:59
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feedmegin posted:Except you'll have a heavily muscled guy escort you to the ATM and the second time you 'forget' your PIN he applies some rubber hose cryptanalysis until you 'remember' it properly... True, but I'm generally under the impression that these places prefer to stay scammy but legal. Even if he threatens you that's extortion, beating you up (probably with witnesses cos if you're at an ATM, there's probably someone in line of sight) would be immediate cause for the cops to pay them a visit. Not that I'd try this myself, you understand. Just an idea.
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Jun 15, 2016 13:11
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tinytort posted:Ooh. No, I read about that one. It got linked in a psa about how to avoid convention scams. The guy running this particular scam actually started a cult. Was this Victoria Bitter or something? The story rings a bell from when I was on fandom_wank.
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May 16, 2017 15:52
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effervescible posted:Yep. That was Andrew Blake's original fandom handle before he transitioned. His alleged partner in crime during the LOTR days later got free of him and turned out to be a victim as well, though she at least acknowledged her wrongdoing and did what she could to make amends. Her blog writing about that time is pretty harrowing in parts but has a happy ending. Thanks, that brings some memories back. Fandom had some weird stuff happen. Msscribe wasn't exactly a con - or at least she wasn't out for people's money - but she could have been, and other famous fans definitely profited in ways they shouldn't really have.
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May 18, 2017 15:25
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EL BROMANCE posted:In the UK it's common to get hit by a wave of 'chuggers' in the high streets, (charity muggers). They're a vile type who do their best to guilt you into paying a monthly subscription to a charity - some really well known, some unheard of. They also make it sound like they're in the streets volunteering but the ones in my old area were on about £8 ($12) an hour. They're told that they generally need 2 years worth of money from a person to break even. Scams all the way down. Try telling them you live abroad. As soon as I said that, the chugger said I couldn't sign up. I didn't ask why, maybe it's because I don't pay tax.
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Sep 3, 2017 05:53
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