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cheerfullydrab posted:Aren't stories about how panhandlers are secretly rich and faking their mental illness like one of the oldest urban poo poo that didn't happen myths? They exist for a reason, so you can feel better about not giving bums money. I believe that a lot of people think that way, and it only takes one legit example of a scammer to make everyone else feel justified in not giving any panhandlers anything, ever. In this case, it was a real thing. A reporter followed her, and published the results many years ago. It keeps coming up occasionally, mostly when the reporter mentions it: http://www.torontosun.com/search?cx...s=1707j897815j6
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Apr 8, 2016 14:15
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For what it's worth, most case workers who actually deal with the homeless on a regular basis recommend against giving the homeless cash. Some beggars are scammers that's true. But even the legit homeless are usually addicts. That's how they became homeless. So if you give them a buck, then they're going to spend that dollar towards getting a fix. If you want to help the homeless, then give that money to a group like the Salvation Army that helps the homeless sober up and get back on their feet. I just tossed out the Salvation Army as a well known group. Odds are there are probably some smaller charities you've never heard of running soup kitchens in your community. Do a bit of googling, find a charity in your area, and toss them a couple of bucks when you can.
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Apr 8, 2016 15:19
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thrakkorzog posted:I'm guessing it's a basic MLM scam, sign up a bunch of people and you get to go free, similar to spring break scams. Sell enough Cancun vacations to your friends and you get to go party in Cancun. Yeah, my university ran a genuine 'study abroad' course visiting Greece and Turkey for Classics and Archeology students. Really wish I'd been able to afford to go at the time, and I'd still love to visit Istanbul.
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Apr 9, 2016 13:21
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When we were originally looking for a place to live when I got out of the army my wife got contacted from Craigslist saying they were an older lady that owned a house in East Texas that she wanted someone to live in for free to take care of it. Obviously it sounded like a scam so we didn't do it but she sent pictures of a house and everything. I always wondered what the scam was since she never asked for any money, although we never got past a few emails with her.
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Apr 9, 2016 14:09
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RenegadeStyle1 posted:When we were originally looking for a place to live when I got out of the army my wife got contacted from Craigslist saying they were an older lady that owned a house in East Texas that she wanted someone to live in for free to take care of it. Obviously it sounded like a scam so we didn't do it but she sent pictures of a house and everything. I always wondered what the scam was since she never asked for any money, although we never got past a few emails with her. Probably a deposit of some kind.
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Apr 9, 2016 14:12
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Avalanche posted:5) Study Abroad in TURKEY over the summer! Only $1975! round trip all expenses paid!" some people go to college to actually learn new things and broaden themselves as a person. weird, right? RenegadeStyle1 posted:When we were originally looking for a place to live when I got out of the army my wife got contacted from Craigslist saying they were an older lady that owned a house in East Texas that she wanted someone to live in for free to take care of it. Obviously it sounded like a scam so we didn't do it but she sent pictures of a house and everything. I always wondered what the scam was since she never asked for any money, although we never got past a few emails with her. The scam is that this person doesn't own the house, and probably lives in some other country. How it works is that they first find pictures of a property online, like on real estate websites, other Craigslist ads, Flickr, etc. Then they figure out its address to look legit, and post a rental listing on Craigslist pretending to be the owner or property manager. You email them and they act normally at first, but eventually they will mention that they are out of the country so you will have to conduct all your business by email or phone until they return. Obviously they are going to be back before your lease actually starts, but if you want to get everything in order you can fax them a signed lease and pay your security deposit by wiring them money. The really sad part is when people fall for this and take the scammer at their word that they will meet up at noon on the first of the month to get the keys to the house. The first of the month comes and the suckers sit in their car for a while, notice that nobody seems to be around, and when they knock on the door of the house the discover that the real owners have lived in the house for 20 years and have never rented it out. I've run into this scam a few times while apartment-shopping and it's really scummy because it preys on people's anxiety about housing, a basic human need. Lutha Mahtin fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 19:16
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In Dublin, the rental market was really loving crazy in 2003-2004. To get a place, you typically had to show up with first & last in cash and be ready to hand it over and sign the lease on the spot to get keys. None of this, "I'll think about it and call you first thing in the morning" (I found out the hard way about this). But obviously this just leaves people open to all kinds of rip-off artists, like the guy who rented his apartment to 9 different couples who all showed up with working keys and rental agreements on the first of the month. He had gotten about €4000 from each of them.
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Apr 9, 2016 20:27
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My friend told this story today. Not really a scam per se since no money exchanged hands, but back when we were in college, he and his new room mate responded to a Craigslist ad about a too-good-to-be-true rental and were told to come to the open house on X date and time at X address. They showed up at the address and it was a church. This place was using the ad to lure in college students to recruit for their youth group. 
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Apr 9, 2016 21:32
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pastor of muppets posted:My friend told this story today. Not really a scam per se since no money exchanged hands, but back when we were in college, he and his new room mate responded to a Craigslist ad about a too-good-to-be-true rental and were told to come to the open house on X date and time at X address. "We're lying for God!"
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Apr 10, 2016 06:18
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Lutha Mahtin posted:some people go to college to actually learn new things and broaden themselves as a person. weird, right? Haha. You really don't see anything wrong about a 14 week trip to Turkey including plane tickets, tuition, and lodging costing only ~$2000? Maybe I should of been more descriptive and included the fact that the dude advertising this poo poo does not advertise with any other study abroad programs, it's always the same lone dude advertising, there's little/no literature available, and everything is written out in red ink on a small portable white board. Also, $1975 or whatever it is is always underlined with alternating green, black, and red marker ink. Sounds legit.
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Apr 10, 2016 09:36
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Avalanche posted:Haha. You really don't see anything wrong about a 14 week trip to Turkey including plane tickets, tuition, and lodging costing only ~$2000? I SUSPECT he is referring to the bit where you say "No-one ever, even the dumbest retard ever, ever wants to go to Turkey. Ever."
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Apr 10, 2016 09:41
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Some clowns pay to go and work on farms in dirt poor countries to be culturally enriched. Worst case scenario you get press ganged into picking olives and suffer some lifelong trauma involving hairy men in a Turkish bathhouse. What's the problem? Seems pretty enriching to me. Seriously though, I've been to Turkey twice and it's a pretty cool and varied place. I assume in some Americans' heads, Turkey is just some dirty Arabic petrostate not safe for whitey or something. Hey fellas these guys are your massive geopolitical allies! Technically secular! You'll probably be awwwright. Think of it like a much, much angrier Greece with more call to prayer and backgammon.
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Apr 10, 2016 14:52
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pastor of muppets posted:My friend told this story today. Not really a scam per se since no money exchanged hands, but back when we were in college.... this reminded me of something. Those kiosks that credit card companies set up at colleges offering a free bag of gummy bears or something to sign up for a 20% interest credit card that they know will gently caress these kids over. Most of them are so desperate for financial relief (and free gummy bears), they sign up right away and then gently caress up their credit by taking cash advances and poo poo. Legal, but scummy, and sort of a scam.
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Apr 10, 2016 16:29
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The defunct PYF scummy marketing technique thread had a story about a credit card company setting up a booth at a college football game and luring in students with promises of a free taco in exchange for signing up for a credit card.
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Apr 10, 2016 16:33
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Avalanche posted:Maybe I should of been more descriptive and included the fact that the dude advertising this poo poo does not advertise with any other study abroad programs, it's always the same lone dude advertising, there's little/no literature available, and everything is written out in red ink on a small portable white board. Also, $1975 or whatever it is is always underlined with alternating green, black, and red marker ink. Yeah this makes sense and is legitimately funny. And I guess it's been a few years since I was in college but that number didn't really strike me as odd. Depending on the college and the study abroad program, sometimes it can be really cheap to go. I remember my college partnered with a study abroad program so the advertised rates were just a couple thousand bucks on top of your regular tuition.
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Apr 11, 2016 03:17
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RenegadeStyle1 posted:When we were originally looking for a place to live when I got out of the army my wife got contacted from Craigslist saying they were an older lady that owned a house in East Texas that she wanted someone to live in for free to take care of it. Obviously it sounded like a scam so we didn't do it but she sent pictures of a house and everything. I always wondered what the scam was since she never asked for any money, although we never got past a few emails with her. My guess is that they want a deposit, and that it isn't their house. Fake rentals have been another scam here in the last couple of years. One person rented out a cottage in the summer to 4 families per week, all summer. So each week 4 families would show up on the doorstep expecting to have the cottage for the week. The owner of the cottage had no idea what was going on. The scammer had used pictures from when the cottage was posted for sale a while earlier to advertise the rental.
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Apr 11, 2016 16:13
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Jeza posted:Some clowns pay to go and work on farms in dirt poor countries to be culturally enriched. I have some friends that considered paying an obscene amount of money to pretend to be a peasant in Mongolia. They eventually reconsidered, but not for a rational reason like paying someone else to do their farm work is a bad idea. A different group of friends were in on the scammer side. They would order cases of the McFarlane sports figures to get the rare and valuable ones (one per box of six) then they'd do a no-receipt return the regular ones for store credit at some big box store. For anyone that isn't aware, there was a British show called The Real Hustle that ran a bunch of scams on (maybe) regular people. Some were rather elaborate scams they pulled, well beyond what the average crackhead on the street corner could manage. Entertaining watch, here's a sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=479uU2WpjtQ
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Apr 11, 2016 19:22
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Antifreeze Head posted:
These seems like a really dumb scam
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Apr 11, 2016 20:39
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I'm translating a contract (despite having no accounting experience) and had to find proper translations for some accounting terms. A bit of googling told me that the presence of terms like "Rolls and extensions" "Operative documentary letter of credit" and "International banking hours" (yes, I'm serious) probably means something scammy is going on, but none of the sources I found provided any details about the actual substance of the scam. So... what is / could be the scam involved? Also... should I alert my client? I'm not actually sure which side drafted the contract though.
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Apr 11, 2016 22:38
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Antifreeze Head posted:I have some friends that considered paying an obscene amount of money to pretend to be a peasant in Mongolia. They eventually reconsidered, but not for a rational reason like paying someone else to do their farm work is a bad idea. Get some new friends.
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Apr 11, 2016 23:17
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Xander77 posted:I'm translating a contract (despite having no accounting experience) and had to find proper translations for some accounting terms. The fact that this client is having a non accountant and presumably non lawyer translate a goddamn contract seems like a red flag.  Edit: like, I'm not a lawyer either but this smells perilously close to practicing law without a license. What I'm getting at is plz post details in the legal questions thread.
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Apr 12, 2016 00:24
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Better yet - it was a contract between a Brazilian and a Jordanian (persistently spelled "Jourdanian" throughout the document) firm, in English, to be translated into Hebrew. Which isn't that odd – as a freelance translator in a multicultural society, you may find yourself But still. It was kinda weird. After I tried asking a few questions, they "decided to take their business elsewhere" so I guess… it was a scam of some sort? Maybe? Edit - I've translated basic legal and financial documents before. Generally speaking, a notary will confirm the accuracy of the translation, and apparently their signature will grant the translation the force of a legal document. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Apr 12, 2016 |
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Apr 12, 2016 03:01
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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.
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Apr 12, 2016 03:44
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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. 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.
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Apr 12, 2016 04:23
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Xander77 posted:But still. It was kinda weird. After I tried asking a few questions, they "decided to take their business elsewhere" so I guess… it was a scam of some sort? Maybe? I would say that even if it sucks you missed out on full payment (?), you definitely dodged a bullet on whatever was going on there
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Apr 12, 2016 11:27
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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. Very common. A lot of the major MLMs have groups associated with them that are almost their own entities. Usually there will be a few people on top with large downlines. Once they are established, they will milk those downlines for all they are worth. That is another part of the MLM scam. You may only need to order 100$ of product a month (on auto-delivery of course) in order to be part of the MLM, but a lot of times the uplines want you buying tapes made by them talking about sales tactics, or go to events where they talk about sales, or take their custom sales traning, all of which is pure profit.
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Apr 12, 2016 14:33
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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.
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Apr 12, 2016 16:57
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Arkanomen posted:Bleach is mostly water and we are mostly water, therefore we are bleach. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqbn7oxXh38 HAMBURGER TIME!
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Apr 12, 2016 17:41
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Imaduck posted:It's weird, you would think that being scammed by one MLM would make you less likely to jump in that boat again. However, my anecdotal evidence suggests that people tend to jump from one MLM scheme to the next. They just can't give up on the dream, and will rationalize anything to make it seem like a reality. "Sure, it didn't work last time, but this product is so much better!" I even know someone with an astrophysics PhD that has sold crap for multiple MLMs without turning a profit, and yet she keeps on doing it. You'd think getting burned would make you shy away, but it just makes you want to work extra hard to prove that you haven't been duped. This isn't super surprising to me. Scientists are in some ways very trusting. Part of the job requires it, because you have to trust that other people in your field are on the level and not falsifying data, since replicating everything is impossible.
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Apr 12, 2016 20:01
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That Robox posted:How common is it for MLM/Pyramid scams to team up? I don't know about the "teaming up" part but anywhere there's a crowd that might have anything resembling free time, they're all over it. I remember getting caught up in that Amway poo poo for about 3 weeks when I was waiting tables and some dude started telling me the secret to success and all that. A few years later, when I was waiting tables, there was an Amway convention in the hotel I was working at and every loving person I waited on left me a card and was "in town on some business". MLM is the worst. Worse than waiting tables where, unlike MLM's, you can actually make some money.
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Apr 12, 2016 20:52
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A few years ago I was getting phone calls once a week or so (always from a different number) that would start off, "Your automobile warranty is expiring! Act now to extend your warranty [blah, blah, blah] press 1 to talk to an agent now." So, one time I pressed 1. There was a youngish sounding woman on the line, she went into her spiel but I interrupted and asked "Which car had an expiring warranty?" She had absolutely no answer to this obvious question. The best part is that they stopped calling me. More than a decade ago I tried doing online dating. Boy what a bunch of scams there were in that mess, I hope it's improved. Russian bride scams, "Help I'm stuck in South Africa" scams, "Buy me dinner/drinks" scams. Well, the last one wasn't always a scam. The stuck in South Africa one was pretty funny because it started off like a normal thing and we sent some emails back and forth and I suggested we meet for coffee at a Starbucks that should have been near her neighborhood. She agreed so I drove there and got a coffee and waited. And waited. Then I get a email that shes sorry and she had to catch an emergency flight to Africa, something something dead relative (I think, it was a while ago now) and how that used up all her ready cash. She hadn't actually asked for money when I went into the website (match I think?) and stopped communication between us but I'm sure it was coming minutes behind. Come to think of it the Russian ones were pretty funny too because they were all canned responses with no specific details and you could just picture some guy carefully crafting these text dumps to be as ambiguous as possible while still sounding promising and authentic. It really must have been a lot of work.
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Apr 12, 2016 21:59
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People appear to be willing to work surprisingly hard for easy money.
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Apr 12, 2016 22:05
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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. Well, I'll be damned if the same old "Women Empowering Women" crapola from 2001 isn't still doing the rounds, but gussied up and now parasitic on the legitimate idea of 'gift circles' (basically bartering groups for skills and time, often entirely or mostly consisting of women): http://priceonomics.com/when-your-womens-empowerment-group-is-actually-a/ Long, late edit: Having followed some of the links from this article, I would be surprised if all these "Womens' Empowerment" groups don't in reality represent the bifurcations of one original group, repeatedly re-branded to appeal to different sectors of the market, and most of all, to disguise the fact that this scheme has been around for ages. Unlike the gigantic hierarchies that build up in MLM, there are only four tiers to these pyramids, with membership following an 8:4:2:1 pattern. Raw recruits put in $5k, and when 8 recruits have been found, the person at the top gets a $40k payout and leaves. When this happens, the remainder of the group is cut in two like a flatworm, and each half must regenerate by finding eight bottom-tier recruits. The 'senior sisters' (people who have powered through the cycle several times, on the strength of their recruiting abilities) must know exactly what they're doing. It doesn't need a criminal mastermind to work out that once you get into the payout position, it might help if your half of the flatworm has a shiny new name, ideally one that targets a special-interest group that hasn't been hit yet. Carnival of Shrews fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Apr 13, 2016 |
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Apr 12, 2016 22:22
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Xander77 posted:I'm translating a contract (despite having no accounting experience) and had to find proper translations for some accounting terms. I'm guessing it's just a general "Didn't read the fine print" scam using the language barrier to screw someone over. Actually being able to translate medical and legal terms is a rather niche field. I also have a cousin who works an in-house lawyer for an oil company, and from what she's told me, for a big deal, there are usually more translators involved then there are lawyers. The lawyers can kind of boilerplate the basic deal, but they still have to make sure that nobody stuck in some phrase like arbitration can be handled in the people's court of Iraq. thrakkorzog fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Apr 13, 2016 |
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Apr 13, 2016 07:59
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Why do I keep getting calls from the same goddamn lovely telemarketing company after I've told them I'm not going to respond twice, and then I told them to gently caress off on their third call? Surely it can't be a good use of time to harass someone who's showed less than no interest in buying your bullshit. It's always web marketing nonsense too...
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Apr 13, 2016 17:42
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PT6A posted:Why do I keep getting calls from the same goddamn lovely telemarketing company after I've told them I'm not going to respond twice, and then I told them to gently caress off on their third call? Surely it can't be a good use of time to harass someone who's showed less than no interest in buying your bullshit. If someone is a dick and asks to have their number removed, said number will not be removed out of spite. Call centre 101 bro
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Apr 13, 2016 17:49
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reformed bad troll posted:If someone is a dick and asks to have their number removed, said number will not be removed out of spite. I was polite the first two times. The first time I let him actually do his script, and then told him that I don't accept telephone solicitations or surveys as a policy. The second time I cut him off right away by telling him I didn't want him to waste any time since I don't accept telephone solicitations or surveys, and the third time I told him to gently caress off. Is there a way to actually get your number successfully removed from the list?
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Apr 13, 2016 17:57
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PT6A posted:I was polite the first two times. The first time I let him actually do his script, and then told him that I don't accept telephone solicitations or surveys as a policy. The second time I cut him off right away by telling him I didn't want him to waste any time since I don't accept telephone solicitations or surveys, and the third time I told him to gently caress off. I think you have to tell them not to call you anymore, and to request to be taken off their list or out of their database. Something that can't be interpreted in any way as "I'm not interested" and can only be interpreted as "I no longer wish to receive calls from you, ever". If you can prove that you've done this and they continue to harass you, there can be legal consequences so they typically stop, although there can be a delay between when you request this and when they actually do it. It also depends on who they're calling on behalf of - overseas scammers don't give a gently caress.
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Apr 13, 2016 18:18
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many johnnys posted:I think you have to tell them not to call you anymore, and to request to be taken off their list or out of their database. Something that can't be interpreted in any way as "I'm not interested" and can only be interpreted as "I no longer wish to receive calls from you, ever". Also it relies on the guy at the call center actually giving a gently caress, and the system not overwriting the flag the first time they update their scraped-from-public-data phone number database
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Apr 13, 2016 18:20
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many johnnys posted:I think you have to tell them not to call you anymore, and to request to be taken off their list or out of their database. Something that can't be interpreted in any way as "I'm not interested" and can only be interpreted as "I no longer wish to receive calls from you, ever". I looked up the phone number and it turns out it's an American guy/company targeting Canadian numbers specifically so he can't be pursued by either country. Apparently it's also a complete scam for CC info, not just the garden-variety SEO bullshit scam. Would anyone really be dumb enough to give their CC info to someone who cold-calls them?
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Apr 13, 2016 18:42
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