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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about common cons/scams: "Thanks, you suck. Hello, this is Linda."
 
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Shingouryu
Feb 15, 2012
 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.

turbomoose posted:

One that I heard about from my grandparents was this:

1. scammers look for old people, then try to find relatives (grandchildren) on facebook or what have you. This will give them basic info, name, where they live, etc.

2. scammers call old people and say hey we have <insert kid's name here> in jail and they need bail money. they're calling you because kid gets in trouble if they call parents. Sometimes they even have a younger person of the requisite gender get on the line and mumble about needing bail money. I think the scam that was used claimed it was jail in Canada or something.

3. Old people get confused because the name of the kid is right and it sorta sounds like them so they send money/give cc info

My grandfather was a victim of this one. Someone called him claiming to be me and told him I was stranded after a car accident in Europe (I live in the US). The next day he called my cell phone asking if I was okay, and got kind of depressed when it became clear he was scammed. He lives alone in a retirement community, so I suppose the bastard saw him as easy prey :smith:

Shingouryu fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Feb 24, 2016

* # ¿ Feb 24, 2016 19:22
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about common cons/scams: "Thanks, you suck. Hello, this is Linda."