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Lhet posted:I think they're paying for the stuff that gets rung up. They wouldn't go so far as to straight up steal, but are more than fine from benefiting from a cashier's mistake, and start making setups that make the error more likely so they can say "Oh hmm, looks like the cashier forgot to ring this up. Welp, their mistake, lucky me!". It's usually more that they're hoping anyone watching the doors will see their cart full of unbagged things and think "oh that's all right, those things aren't supposed to be bagged! Surely this person has purchased all those items." It's usually something you'll see more often at a big box store like Walmart, because the door greeters are more likely to be easily distracted and have zero way of knowing if you really did just leave a register.
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Feb 24, 2016 04:24
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I once bagged some pre-made meal at a grocery store, just to make sure it doesn't leak, but did pass it through the register. The cashier just assumed I came in with it and didn't ring it in. I only realized this when I was halfway out of the store and thought that it was weird I had had to pay so little; then I looked at the receipt, saw the mistake, and came back in to pay for it.
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Feb 24, 2016 05:30
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I once bagged some pre-made meal at a grocery store, just to make sure it doesn't leak, but did pass it through the register. The cashier just assumed I came in with it and didn't ring it in. I only realized this when I was halfway out of the store and thought that it was weird I had had to pay so little; then I looked at the receipt, saw the mistake, and came back in to pay for it. I've seen people that go to the pharmacy or other departments, buy something there and then throw stuff in the bag and either walk out or go to another register and buy something else small and say "hey I bought this at the pharmacy"
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Feb 24, 2016 06:24
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My current favorite scam appears several times a day on r/legaladvice. Somebody on chatroulette/omegle/some other thing sends a dick pic to some "girl" and then gets a message from "her father" saying that "she's" 14 and he's going to call the police if dick pic guy doesn't send $400 via MoneyPak/GreenDot/some other anonymous cash sending thing. It always seems to be $400 for some reason. Edited to add: this is a glorious (and ambitious! $4700!) example. AlbieQuirky fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Feb 24, 2016 |
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Feb 24, 2016 06:36
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Josef K. Sourdust posted:I had that years ago (though I didn't fall for it). I guess the principle there is that scammers are selling rejects/display replicas/faulty material to people in a situation where they cannot test the item (on the street). The incentive is that buyers think that they are getting an expensive item for a discount price.
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Feb 24, 2016 10:12
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British scammers seem to have finally discovered photoshop. We've had a recent rush of people attempting pricematch scams. They'll come in with a picture of a receipt for a high value item on their smartphone, with the value of the item edited to about 20% of RRP from one of our competitors. They will then demand that we sell that item to them under our pricematch policy. We will usually tell them to go gently caress themselves, but occasionally they can browbeat an unaware cashier into reducing the item, especially if all of the supervisors are busy elsewhere.
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Feb 24, 2016 11:00
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If you own bitcoins and invest them anywhere, it will always be a scam. Also if you deposit them anywhere, or buy them, for that matter.
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Feb 24, 2016 11:01
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So the gold chain for cheap scam. Obviously, if someone is coming up to you on the street selling jewelry, it's a scam, but often they will talk about how it is an expensive piece and you can tell because of the clasp. It is true that cheap jewelry has crappy clasps and nice jewelry has better ones that might keep 200$ worth of gold on your neck, but it is also true that you can buy replacement good clasps cheaply and put them on crappy stuff.
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Feb 24, 2016 15:38
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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: 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 
Shingouryu fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Feb 24, 2016 |
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Feb 24, 2016 19:22
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Palisader posted:It's usually more that they're hoping anyone watching the doors will see their cart full of unbagged things and think "oh that's all right, those things aren't supposed to be bagged! Surely this person has purchased all those items." It's usually something you'll see more often at a big box store like Walmart, because the door greeters are more likely to be easily distracted and have zero way of knowing if you really did just leave a register. Another one I've heard of but not personally seen is the bigass packages of bud light with a handle and the beer can showing on it, people will load batteries/makeup/whatever is small enough to slip in between the handle and beer cans and just ask the cashier to scan the beer with the gun while in the card
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Feb 24, 2016 19:59
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For some reason, drugs and Tide theft/scams go hand in hand in a lot of areas. Like, straight-up trading stolen Tide for drugs sometimes. Though if your dealer is a whiny baby who insists on bring paid in cash, you can attempt to return the Tide, but that's risky since they might have you on camera stealing it in the first place, so you got to do the ol' Tide switcheroo. Buy Tide and the cheapest, most generic detergent there is, like Xtra or Purex. Dump the Tide into an empty container, dump the Purex into the Tide container, then return the "Tide" for profit. Only like $8 or $10 profit, but do it a few times at a few different stores and even after subtracting gas money or bus fair you can make enough for a few days worth of your drug of choice easily.
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Feb 24, 2016 20:15
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DrBouvenstein posted:For some reason, drugs and Tide theft/scams go hand in hand in a lot of areas. Like, straight-up trading stolen Tide for drugs sometimes. Though if your dealer is a whiny baby who insists on bring paid in cash, you can attempt to return the Tide, but that's risky since they might have you on camera stealing it in the first place, so you got to do the ol' Tide switcheroo. This seems like a lot of work for not much profit; like less than minimum wage probably.
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Feb 24, 2016 20:41
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Lhet posted:This seems like a lot of work for not much profit; like less than minimum wage probably. Sure, but you work your own hours, have unlimited growth potential, and don't have to deal with that tedious job application process. Is what I'd say. If I did that sort of thing.
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Feb 24, 2016 21:19
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DrBouvenstein posted:For some reason, drugs and Tide theft/scams go hand in hand in a lot of areas. Like, straight-up trading stolen Tide for drugs sometimes. Though if your dealer is a whiny baby who insists on bring paid in cash, you can attempt to return the Tide, but that's risky since they might have you on camera stealing it in the first place, so you got to do the ol' Tide switcheroo. The store across from my apartment has the name brand detergent and shampoo in locked cases to prevent this. You have to find an employee to come unlock it for you. edit: This reminds me of the water bottle scam. In the summer, people will dig empty water bottles out of the trash can and fill them up in a public place. They put them in a rolling cooler with ice and sell them in tourist areas. Always check the seal on a bottle of water before drinking it. hot sauce fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Feb 24, 2016 |
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Feb 24, 2016 22:33
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Lhet posted:This seems like a lot of work for not much profit; like less than minimum wage probably. There are a surprising number of people who are more than happy to put in a poo poo ton of work to scam someone or get away with something who are then also unwilling to work jobs (or they do work jobs, but don't consider the scam stuff "work"). It's a really weird risk/reward thing where the risks levels are mitigated as a concern because they're getting away with something.
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Feb 24, 2016 22:38
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hot sauce posted:edit: This reminds me of the water bottle scam. In the summer, people will dig empty water bottles out of the trash can and fill them up in a public place. They put them in a rolling cooler with ice and sell them in tourist areas. Always check the seal on a bottle of water before drinking it. There's an entirely different "bottle scam" very common in NYC which involves someone carrying a glass bottle of juice or some beers (or they will often use a pair of glasses for the same thing), then bump into a tourist and drop the bottles, breaking them, and start yelling at the tourist claiming they broke the bottles and now owe $20 or some poo poo
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Feb 24, 2016 22:55
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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. I'm in Philly, so I've had some of these people come knocking. When you ask who it is, they'll say "power company" to make you think it's your legit power company. So before you even open the door, ask something unambigous like WHICH POWER COMPANY DO YOU REPRESENT
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Feb 24, 2016 23:34
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DrBouvenstein posted:For some reason, drugs and Tide theft/scams go hand in hand in a lot of areas. Like, straight-up trading stolen Tide for drugs sometimes. Though if your dealer is a whiny baby who insists on bring paid in cash, you can attempt to return the Tide, but that's risky since they might have you on camera stealing it in the first place, so you got to do the ol' Tide switcheroo. Wait, I'm missing something here, why does everyone want Tide? And that scam nets you negative cash, but positive Tide, but in the wrong container.
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Feb 25, 2016 05:55
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:Wait, I'm missing something here, why does everyone want Tide? And that scam nets you negative cash, but positive Tide, but in the wrong container. http://nymag.com/news/features/tide-detergent-drugs-2013-1/
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Feb 25, 2016 05:59
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HEY GAL posted:It's a prestige object. In my local trash & treasure groups lately there have been guys selling huge 50 gallon unlabeled buckets of 'Tide' and ignoring any questions about why it's in the buckets or where it came from. I'm guessing now that it's related to all of this/mixed with the 'fell off the back of a truck' scam.
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Feb 25, 2016 12:53
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Shingouryu posted: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 Someone tried this on one of my facebook friends once, from my account. Unfortunately for them I was already logged in and saw the messages pop up, claiming that I was in England, had lost my passport (I didn't even have one at the time), I needed $900 wired to me, and just interjected 'Hey my account is compromised, that's not me, I'm at home, send no money'. The scammer tried to defend their plea for a hilarious minute or two while I changed my password but it could have been so much worse if they'd tried on one of my family members and I hadn't been there. Sorry about your grandpa, that always sucks.
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Feb 25, 2016 20:48
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There's a slew of not terribly interesting ones that target tourists (ring scam, shoe shine scam), but most of it comes down to: a) don't ever let anyone put something in your hand you didn't ask for b) don't accept anything for free.
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Feb 25, 2016 21:33
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MystOpportunity posted:There's a slew of not terribly interesting ones that target tourists (ring scam, shoe shine scam), but most of it comes down to: a) don't ever let anyone put something in your hand you didn't ask for b) don't accept anything for free. Especially little loving herb sprigs! Is that a uniquely Spanish scam, I wonder?
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Feb 25, 2016 22:47
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PT6A posted:Especially little loving herb sprigs! Is that a uniquely Spanish scam, I wonder? In Paris there's the stupid piece of string in the tricolor scam. It's probably a localized variant.
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Feb 25, 2016 23:08
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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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When I first moved out I used Craigslist to search for rental listings, because that's the place I happened to find the best deals, outrageously cheap rent for spacious apartments/houses. I answered almost all of them, then I very quickly learned they were all scams once I received replies written in broken English, asking me to wire money. The ones that didn't ask for money up front wanted to run a FREE CREDIT CHECK on me. I just had to click this link!!!! The red flags are obvious in the replies, but to be safe just don't bother with any listings that sound too good to be true. Research what apartments or rental homes go for in your area, and if you see something that's unbelievably cheap, don't waste your time. Sometimes the fake listings will have pictures, but most of them don't. I guess broken English in the ad can be a warning sign, but it might be hard to tell, because it's usually just the standard Bed/Bath, Pets, Smoking, etc. stuff probably copy and pasted from somewhere else. I guess some people's advice would be to stay away from Craigslist, but I did end up finding a really nice place on there with one of the best landlords I ever had, so it isn't always a cesspit. You just have to be careful.
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Feb 26, 2016 13:11
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Had some bastard ring up today claiming to be from the Australian Tax Office and that they knew I had been withholding taxes between 2010 and 2014 on purpose and they were going to sic their lawyer on me. The guy spent forever trying to convince me he was a legit agent, giving me a fake name, fake agent number, and fake case number too, insisting that if I felt he was lying I could then call the ATO and look him up. Luckily he knew the exact amount I owed and I'm sure if I hadn't gotten bored with his lovely pseudo-legalese explanation of why they were suing me they'd have explained how I could transfer the money via Western Union or something, but he was taking forever and I lost my patience and told the guy if he was from the ATO they could send me a letter, otherwise he could go gently caress himself. That was after my sister received a call not four hours earlier where apparently our mother has a criminal record and they're bringing charges against her. Been a busy day for scammers today.
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Feb 26, 2016 13:15
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Korgan posted:That was after my sister received a call not four hours earlier where apparently our mother has a criminal record and they're bringing charges against her. Been a busy day for scammers today. What exactly were they trying to get out of your sister here? Money to expunge your mother's record/stop the charges? Is that even a thing most people think you can do?
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Feb 26, 2016 13:34
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Jake Snake posted:When I first moved out I used Craigslist to search for rental listings, because that's the place I happened to find the best deals, outrageously cheap rent for spacious apartments/houses. I answered almost all of them, then I very quickly learned they were all scams once I received replies written in broken English, asking me to wire money. The ones that didn't ask for money up front wanted to run a FREE CREDIT CHECK on me. I just had to click this link!!!! I had something similar happen to me - an ad advertising a suspiciously cheap place to rent, but because of 'timewasters' they wanted me to put a £500 deposit down before being allowed to view the place which obviously they would repay if I didn't want to take it. I assume that if I'd been dumb enough to send them the money they would have given me some random bloke's address and just not turned up at the agreed time!
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Feb 26, 2016 13:53
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feedmegin posted:I had something similar happen to me - an ad advertising a suspiciously cheap place to rent, but because of 'timewasters' they wanted me to put a £500 deposit down before being allowed to view the place which obviously they would repay if I didn't want to take it.
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Feb 26, 2016 15:05
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kaschei posted:Probably, but maybe if you were dumb enough to send them money they'd also see if you were dumb enough to try to buy a house they "own"? Really a timeshare or rental property, but they'll make up a story for why they'll take 25% of its worth as cash and oh, we have a great realtor, you don't need your own... They were advertising it as a rental. Houses hereabouts go for about £250,000/$400,000 so 25% of even a suspiciously cheap house in cash would look like something out of a Mafia movie.
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Feb 26, 2016 15:56
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Well I mean not cash bills but some amount you could write a check for without getting a bank involved that would do due diligence. And I know they're unlikely to target renters with this scam you just reminded me of a scam I'd heard of and for some reason I tried to segue.
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Feb 26, 2016 16:14
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Jake Snake posted:What exactly were they trying to get out of your sister here? Money to expunge your mother's record/stop the charges? Is that even a thing most people think you can do? 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.
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Feb 26, 2016 21:22
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Korgan posted:Had some bastard ring up today claiming to be from the Australian Tax Office and that they knew I had been withholding taxes between 2010 and 2014 on purpose and they were going to sic their lawyer on me. The guy spent forever trying to convince me he was a legit agent, giving me a fake name, fake agent number, and fake case number too, insisting that if I felt he was lying I could then call the ATO and look him up. Luckily he knew the exact amount I owed and I'm sure if I hadn't gotten bored with his lovely pseudo-legalese explanation of why they were suing me they'd have explained how I could transfer the money via Western Union or something, but he was taking forever and I lost my patience and told the guy if he was from the ATO they could send me a letter, otherwise he could go gently caress himself. That was after my sister received a call not four hours earlier where apparently our mother has a criminal record and they're bringing charges against her. Been a busy day for scammers today. Yeah, this has been a big problem in the US as well, people calling random people, saying "this is the IRS, you owe us $5000, go to Walmart and send us a pre-paid Debit card for that amount or we'll arrest you!" Sometimes they have confederates who call a few minutes later pretending to be the police. This isn't really the kind of scam a random meth head can cook up, though, you need access to phone lists and have an overseas call center available.
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Feb 26, 2016 21:29
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sullat posted:Yeah, this has been a big problem in the US as well, people calling random people, saying "this is the IRS, you owe us $5000, go to Walmart and send us a pre-paid Debit card for that amount or we'll arrest you!" Sometimes they have confederates who call a few minutes later pretending to be the police. This isn't really the kind of scam a random meth head can cook up, though, you need access to phone lists and have an overseas call center available. 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.
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Feb 26, 2016 21:36
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BiggerBoat posted:Amway and MLM scams get my goat. They're like a cult the way they operate and brainwash people. Did one time something similar. I had a guy with a bad accent asking for some banking information. I told him I had to look that up, but that I was not able to do that because then the line would be disconnected.After a while a agreed to go look it up and just put the horn on the hook. After two minutes he called back, I kept him on the line for an other two minutes, then I asked if he could go look at the window if the police already had arrived. Did not really called the police, just scaring him a little.
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Feb 26, 2016 22:39
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The ones where you get a massive discount on some attraction (e.g. Disney World), you just have to sit through a Timeshare presentation... and then you have sit down with a high-pressure salesperson, which isn't mentioned until it happens. We spent 2 hours having this rear end in a top hat try to convince us to buy a timeshare but we refused and eventually he gave up and we got two 2 day tickets to all parks in Disney World for $30. (This was in '98).
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Feb 27, 2016 00:37
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Eternal Destiny posted:Did one time something similar. I had a guy with a bad accent asking for some banking information. I told him I had to look that up, but that I was not able to do that because then the line would be disconnected.After a while a agreed to go look it up and just put the horn on the hook. After two minutes he called back, I kept him on the line for an other two minutes, then I asked if he could go look at the window if the police already had arrived. Did not really called the police, just scaring him a little. The dude was probably in a call centre in India and unworried by your local fuzz.
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Feb 27, 2016 00:59
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I've heard of a weird variant of the Grandparent Scam where the scammer claims to be law enforcement and demands gift cards instead of money. In other words, the scammer tells the victim that the bail/fine/whatever is payable in gift cards rather than actual money. 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. Other scams I've encountered include: -Scammers selling perfume or some other crap outside of businesses, trying to get people to give out their credit card info. -Herbalife, Vector Marketing, and other MLM scams. -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." -Crackheads stealing clothes from laundromats, specifically the laundry rooms in our apartment complex. This one is just bizarre to me, because most of the residents are broke college students and large Hispanic families. In other words, not the type of people to have high-end clothing. Eien Ni Hen fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Feb 27, 2016 |
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Feb 27, 2016 01:01
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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. Most people in the US are in debt, so you could just call everybody.
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Feb 27, 2016 01:28
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