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I don't know how "scammy" this is per se, but I've noticed quite a few verified accounts on Facebook (for example, Bam Margera's just came up on my feed) don't seem to have anything to do with said celebrity but simply post links to the same 'viral' site day in and day out. Are these sites basically buying celebrities accounts from them to post this junk to get people sharing it because they believe their celebrity idol is sitting down reading through clickbait headlines all day? You'd think some of these people would rather retain their accounts to promote their own goings on.
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Jul 29, 2016 21:18
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EL BROMANCE posted:I don't know how "scammy" this is per se, but I've noticed quite a few verified accounts on Facebook (for example, Bam Margera's just came up on my feed) don't seem to have anything to do with said celebrity but simply post links to the same 'viral' site day in and day out. Are these sites basically buying celebrities accounts from them to post this junk to get people sharing it because they believe their celebrity idol is sitting down reading through clickbait headlines all day? You'd think some of these people would rather retain their accounts to promote their own goings on. If it's verified then it's verified, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's that person posting. Realistically it's that person's assistant, or they actually have a person whose sole job is to maintain their social media presence. So it's probably something like Bam going "hey PA I just saw this funny-rear end video on Buzzfeed, post that poo poo on my FB account!" and then that PA keeps posting Buzzfeed links just to keep the account active. Except George Takei, I'm convinced he actually reads and reposts his links on his own; too bad they're almost entirely clickbait garbage.
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Jul 29, 2016 21:22
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Oh, no! I got a call from Microsoft about malware in my computer sending junk through the internet, which was detected by Silverlight Server! 
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Jul 30, 2016 03:18
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MightyJoe36 posted:All of these quicky weight loss scams have the same thing in common. Part of a balanced breakfast. *
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Jul 30, 2016 05:13
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I've been seeing some kind of Book Club pyramid scheme on facebook lately. Shared by reasonably intelligent people. I guess it's probably this one: http://www.thatsnonsense.com/the-36-books-for-1-book-exchange-pyramid-scheme-debunked/ But without even the faux-charitable "this is for the kids" angle.
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Aug 2, 2016 00:32
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evobatman posted:I used to be quite into fake watches, and own a bunch of them. Some are crap and some are of higher quality where you need to know exactly what to look for to tell it's a fake. Sellers of fake watches can't be trusted? Well color me surprised!
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Aug 2, 2016 01:19
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re: scareware/browser hijackers: I actually worked in public security for an ISP, and a significant portion of the calls were people who had gotten hit by these. The most common victims were older people who were more likely to panic, either not think about something like "restart your computer" or assume it was a virus that wouldn't go away, and called the number wanting their computer back. A depressingly large portion figured something was up but simply didn't know enough about computers to get rid of the thing on their own and called the number simply because they thought they had no other alternative. Once you call, their next step is to get remote access. Typically they're going to give step-by-step instructions that involve pure keyboard inputs - remember, primary targets are the computer illiterate. Typically this involves pressing the windows key and R at the same time - which opens the run prompt - and then entering in a command that opens up a new web browser session (which will appear over top of the popup) at a website for remote access, typically a semi-public one like logmein or something like that. Once they're in, they get rid of the popup, and then will usually do something like open up event viewer which is full of a bunch of minor error messages about windows background processes - typically stuff that has no effect on day-to-day use and which you'll never notice - point to the number of errors (which is usually alarmingly high - but, again, these are all irrelevant/benign things that don't really effect you), tell them "look! your computer is full of viruses!", and ask for several hundred dollars. Many also run a bogus antivirus scan (which may or may not be a virus itself), and I've seen some that will run hilarious scripts that open the command prompt and generate (fake) progress bars and then display some ridiculously high number of viruses and that the system is critical. At this point, most people would either pay up in desparation (or because they were sold by whatever props they pulled up on the system to frighten them) and then call us because a frequent line was "look at this IP address, it's a russian hacker in your system  " and they wanted us to secure their network, or disconnect the call and call us because they figured something was up and didn't know who else to call.Cleaning up after was usually easy. As was stated by someone else, these are usually drive-by incidents that aren't targeted - the most they'll do is install a program or a script file and maybe put a word document on the desktop holding payment information. All that really needs to be done is restart the computer and maybe run antivirus. But when you're 70, living alone, uncomfortable with computers, and easily panicked/stressed out, that's quite a challenge. That last point especially was really depressing - a lot of the people who had panicked were already in a bad place (poor health, death of a family member, etc) and that affecting their judgement was part of why they fell for the scam. Really, before I was at that position, if I got one of those microsoft scammer calls I'd just hang up on them, but since taking that job I'll curse them out. They're scum making the elderly miserable for profit, they can die in a fire. President Ark fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Aug 2, 2016 |
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Aug 2, 2016 20:22
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I work at the IT call center at my university, so I am the first one to hear about any tech issues from students or faculty. A huge portion of this is people who clicked on spam emails that phished their university login info. That gets access to the system that controls your scheduling and payment stuff, homework and coursework, and most importantly email. Usually the only change they make is to forward the emails to some random account and amass tons of potentially sensitive stuff. Other than that they just use the compromised accounts to spread more spam. It's mostly new students that fall for it, but since there are dozens (usually 30-40, sometimes hundreds if the chain gets bad) every single day, you are bound to get a professor or tech major that really should know better. We constantly remind people not to click links from "our" emails and staff people 24/7 if they are unsure and want to call. The whole system is a mess and if this group of people doesn't get it I'm not sure who will.code:code:code:code:code:sleppy fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Aug 2, 2016 |
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Aug 2, 2016 21:08
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Super weird, but today i received a phishing email from an address that was firstnamelastname@gmail from a friend i had back in high school. The thing is that this email isnt associated with any social networking site and I havent had contact with that person through this email, ever. Still trying to work out how that happened.
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Aug 3, 2016 04:01
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my guess: spammers scraping real names from the web, or using name data from statistical resources like censuses. if you spam emails with names that are at least somewhat common, you will eventually by random chance send an email to someone who knows a person by that name, just like what happened to you.
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Aug 4, 2016 17:07
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Possible scam? I had a girl come up to me at wal-mart in anchorage yesterday. She said she needed a couple of bucks to buy some chicken or something. I told her I didn't have any cash. She asked if I was paying with card, I said yes. She said well can you take my 3 dollars and buy it with your card, and I said... I'm not going to do that. She looked super frustrated and walked off. I have no idea if that was a scam, but I've already had the distressed woman in parking lot scam tried to pull on me here. There is also a ridiculous amount of homeless people in Anchorage.
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Aug 24, 2016 00:05
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Yeah I'll generally give homeless people a couple dollars if I have cash on me, but anything involving a card I won't deal with.
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Aug 24, 2016 01:18
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I don't think that was necessarily a scam, but I agree with Pharma that anything involving a card is just inviting unneeded trouble. It sounds perfectly reasonable to me that if I only have three bucks, and desperately need something that costs 5, to offer to give someone my three dollars if they'd be willing to purchase the 5 dollar item for me with their card. But on that same note, I also wouldn't begrudge them turning me down because it's a weird situation and charity isn't something you can demand of someone else.
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Aug 24, 2016 02:17
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Yeah any situation that involves me buying something on someone's behalf can easily turn into some goofy quickchange-like situation where, even in the best case situation, I'm aware of exactly what's happening but still make life harder for the cashier. Like I said though, I'll happily give anyone a couple dollars because even if they turn around and immediately buy drugs with it five feet away from me, they currently need those drugs more than I need my coffee or whatever I was going to spend it on.
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Aug 24, 2016 02:56
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Could be seeing where your wallet is?
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Aug 24, 2016 04:46
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Phones are easier and more rewarding to nab in that way, and a lot more people will pull their phone out to give you the time, than people will pull their wallet out to buy you some chicken. Plus, if dude is in a Wal-Mart and about to check out he's going to be grabbing his wallet anyways to pay. Making your presence known and asking for money is just going to put someone on guard and make it that much harder for you to actually steal the wallet. If that were the case, the scammer would be a lot better off to just loiter near the cashier pretending to look at postcards or something, and then walk past and snitch the wallet after the person has paid and has their hands full carrying bags and/or pushing a buggy.
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Aug 24, 2016 07:06
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.... she might have just wanted someone to buy her some chicken.
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Aug 24, 2016 14:00
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Maybe. She wasn't holding any chicken. Also, this was way by the back of the store. I was looking at Hawaiian punch drink mixers. This is also the only wal-mart that I have ever seen that has 1. A complete separate section for alcohol, with their own cashier and security gates. 2. Someone checking EVERY SINGLE receipt as you walk out the door.
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Aug 24, 2016 17:02
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alaska might be one of the states that require liquor stores to be separate from other stores. it isn't super uncommon, we have the same thing here and every Walmart, grocery store, etc. with a liquor store has it in a physically separated area with its own outside entrance
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Aug 24, 2016 17:29
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Yeah I would definitely avoid anything involving money and hungry homeless people
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Aug 24, 2016 17:54
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Yeah I live in Texas and ours are all like that. It might be city to city though.
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Aug 26, 2016 15:17
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Lutha Mahtin posted:alaska might be one of the states that require liquor stores to be separate from other stores. it isn't super uncommon, we have the same thing here and every Walmart, grocery store, etc. with a liquor store has it in a physically separated area with its own outside entrance I believe this is probably correct. I grew up in Fairbanks, and every grocery-store liquor section I can remember was its own segregated area.
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Aug 26, 2016 22:48
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Not sure if I shared this already or not. I was in an area outside of Baltimore that is full of junkies. I had a woman come up to me outside of a grocery store. She looked clean, and not strung out, and was asking for food, not money. I don't know if it was a scam to get free pizza (she asked for frozen pizzas for her and daughter), but she got free pizza. Her story seemed reasonable and realistic, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt. The woman also seemed genuinely ashamed to ask, which lent to her believability. Looking back, I am sure it was scam of some sort, but I was out seven bucks and may have helped out a mom and her kid.
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Aug 27, 2016 05:08
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that's about as close as you can get to knowing it isn't a scam imo. didn't ask for cash, didn't ask for an easily-flippable item (like tide detergent), the item isn't even shelf-stable. yeah, she could have gone and sold it to somebody, but you aren't going to get much for 7 bucks worth of second-hand frozen pizza
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Aug 27, 2016 06:20
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Last week I was going through airport security when a middle-aged woman stopped the guy behind me in the X-ray line with some story that her daughter was going off to college for the first time and she forgot her carry-on and she's just on the other side of security and, could you take this suitcase through and give it to her? Honestly I didn't stick around long enough to find out what happened. I don't know if it was a scam or not. Probably not, it's a strange enough circumstance that it's a plausible story, although frankly I'm not sure how she got past the TSA boarding-pass check to begin hassling people in the X-ray line. Either way, if she had asked me I would've turned her down--I'm not taking responsibility for whatever crap is in that bag. I know that for international travel they actively warn you about not accepting luggage from others, but this was a relatively-small domestic terminal.
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Aug 27, 2016 06:26
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If it's a small terminal then she can go out and come back in, no way I'm screwing around in federal crime territory.
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Aug 27, 2016 07:09
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Aug 27, 2016 08:03
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Aug 27, 2016 10:20
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ExcessBLarg! posted:Last week I was going through airport security when a middle-aged woman stopped the guy behind me in the X-ray line with some story that her daughter was going off to college for the first time and she forgot her carry-on and she's just on the other side of security and, could you take this suitcase through and give it to her? Honestly I didn't stick around long enough to find out what happened. I don't know if that's a scam, but jesus is that risky. No officer, this carryon full of drugs isn't mine! A random woman gave it to me!
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Aug 27, 2016 15:14
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bulletsponge13 posted:Not sure if I shared this already or not. Yeah, to be honest, at worst it's someone trying to get a free frozen pizza (seriously, they would have asked for cash if they were trying to do somehing devious) and most likely someone trying to get a meal for her family. That's why when someone asks me for cash for <whatever>, i offer to juts buy them the thing instead. Like 4/5 of them gently caress off in a rage at this point but the remaining 1/5 are truly grateful. It is true that the few times I've run into this it's been someone sitting in a lovely car with his/her family/kids but to be honest I was out like 5 bucks of gas, or 10 bucks for some lunch meat and bread. I might have been taken for a ride but it's never been for more than 10$. Maybe i just have a weak spot for struggling families, dnno
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Aug 27, 2016 20:41
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ExcessBLarg! posted:I don't know if it was a scam or not. Probably not, it's a strange enough circumstance that it's a plausible story, although frankly I'm not sure how she got past the TSA boarding-pass check to begin hassling people in the X-ray line. Either way, if she had asked me I would've turned her down--I'm not taking responsibility for whatever crap is in that bag. I know that for international travel they actively warn you about not accepting luggage from others, but this was a relatively-small domestic terminal. do airlines not ask you several times about this exact circumstance when you check in anymore? i haven't flown in a few years but i remember even when i was a kid (90s) they would ask whether anyone had asked you to take anything on the plane for them
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Aug 28, 2016 21:02
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Lutha Mahtin posted:do airlines not ask you several times about this exact circumstance when you check in anymore? i haven't flown in a few years but i remember even when i was a kid (90s) they would ask whether anyone had asked you to take anything on the plane for them I guess the reason why they tell you that is because people still fall for it. I asked friends to carry stuff for me before (like an envelope for my mom or something like that), and even then I give them everything open, so they can see what they're carrying. The idea of accepting something you haven't personally checked is bizarre, especially from a stranger, but it clearly happens.
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Aug 28, 2016 21:05
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ExcessBLarg! posted:Last week I was going through airport security when a middle-aged woman stopped the guy behind me in the X-ray line with some story that her daughter was going off to college for the first time and she forgot her carry-on and she's just on the other side of security and, could you take this suitcase through and give it to her? Honestly I didn't stick around long enough to find out what happened. Am I the only one who would report her to security?
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Aug 28, 2016 21:15
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Lutha Mahtin posted:do airlines not ask you several times about this exact circumstance when you check in anymore? i haven't flown in a few years but i remember even when i was a kid (90s) they would ask whether anyone had asked you to take anything on the plane for them "This is a security announcement. Please do not accept luggage from anyone. If you are asked to carry any item for another person, please get in touch with airport personnel" is the common refrain at JFK.
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Aug 28, 2016 21:53
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Lutha Mahtin posted:do airlines not ask you several times about this exact circumstance when you check in anymore? Thanatosian posted:Am I the only one who would report her to security?
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Aug 28, 2016 21:56
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ExcessBLarg! posted:Honestly I'd rather not draw any more attention to myself by merely reporting someone else. If she were an imminent threat or there was obvious evidence that a crime was taking place, sure, that wasn't really the case. The "crime taking place" could be your plane exploding, by which time it would be too late to report it. 
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Aug 28, 2016 21:58
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yeah man "stranger trying to get me to take a bag on an airplane" is a loving gigantic red flag and odds are pretty high that there were drugs or something else super-illegal in that bag I'm not even one of those "if you see something say something" reactionaries, I've ignored plenty of bags people left on a subway platform or whatever (actually, the last time I decided to actually investigate an abandoned bag on an airport shuttle, there was a $200 bottle of whiskey from the Duty Free store  )
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Aug 28, 2016 22:21
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ExcessBLarg! posted:Last week I was going through airport security when a middle-aged woman stopped the guy behind me in the X-ray line with some story that her daughter was going off to college for the first time and she forgot her carry-on and she's just on the other side of security and, could you take this suitcase through and give it to her? Honestly I didn't stick around long enough to find out what happened. The package probably contained several kitchen knives and a copy of the Koran. The woman's hobby is probably getting innocent strangers arrested on terrorism offences and added to the no-fly list.
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Aug 28, 2016 22:28
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drunk asian neighbor posted:yeah man "stranger trying to get me to take a bag on an airplane" is a loving gigantic red flag and odds are pretty high that there were drugs or something else super-illegal in that bag That would have been a fun thing to explain to border control if they had tried to check the validity of your tax-exempt items.
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Aug 28, 2016 22:29
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Absurd Alhazred posted:That would have been a fun thing to explain to border control if they had tried to check the validity of your tax-exempt items. Thankfully, it was on the shuttle from JFK back to NYC  I literally did a double-take when I realized how old it wasThe whole tax-free thing seems to be somewhat spotty, unless I've just gotten lucky. I've bought booze at a Duty Free store twice while waiting for domestic flights (just a bottle each time) and nobody ever asked me for my international boarding pass. Also, I brought like 6 cartons of cigarettes back from China with no issue, didn't have to declare them or anything.
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Aug 28, 2016 22:52
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