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Absurd Alhazred posted:I just got a call earlier today from the "Windows Department in Microsoft about my computer". I egged the guy on, told him the whole thing sounded suspicious, then asked to speak to his manager, so he hung up. I recently got a couple of texts/calls from an angry dude here in town that was absolutely convinced that I, a drat-near-40-year-old cook with kids, was pranking him or harassing him by calling his number repeatedly. I had to tell him multiple times that scammers spoof phone numbers, including screenshotting my call log screen to prove the only calls to his number were incoming, before he stopped - never heard back from him so I'm assuming he finally just blocked the number. Fuckin number spoofing is a pain in the rear end.
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Dec 23, 2017 18:18
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Proteus Jones posted:Herbalife is notorious for preying on the Hispanic community. People have lost their life-savings to them. Going to do something I very, very rarely do. Quote a good youtube comment: quote:It's not a pyramid scheme. It's just an upside-down funnel scheme! 
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Dec 24, 2017 02:25
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Terrible video quality but Dateline did a special on this MLM stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5xu6bIFSeE Seems legit and not at all like a mega church or a cult
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Dec 24, 2017 03:40
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goatsestretchgoals posted:you can't easily automate a malware Y/N check. I will bet $1,000 this is mathematically proveable. Send me you bank account UN/PW so I can verify you have the funds and I'll take it at 3:1.
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Dec 24, 2017 11:14
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Re-reading Merchants of Deception and this passage caught my eyequote:We were taught to remain loyal to our product line with 100% self-use, which often This is the business model and the scam in a nutshell. The only people "selling" anything is Amway corporation itself and the use the MLM structure to create millions of blindly loyal consumers. They buy this overpriced poo poo and then get a "commission" check that they convince themselves is "income" or profit. These are the checks that people who say "there's a lot people making money with Amway. my cousin did OK" are shown as proof that money can be made. It's almost like cash back credit card rewards or rebate offers, neither of which are loving "income".
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Dec 25, 2017 17:11
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At a Christmas thing last night I overheard that one of my aunts is selling Avon stuff, is that a mlm thing?
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Dec 25, 2017 19:01
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Pharmaskittle posted:At a Christmas thing last night I overheard that one of my aunts is selling Avon stuff, is that a mlm thing? Nope. Avon is structured differently. They do direct sales (so no store presence). My understanding is your aunt is considered an independent contractor acting as a salesperson for Avon. She doesn't have "recruits" under her and there's no one between her and Avon corporate. You're aunt makes sales at a predetermined price set by Avon and she sends the orders in. I'm 99.9% certain she is not required to maintain any stock, but she may have some on hand as samples. She probably gets a set % commission based on volume. She's probably not going to make a living at it, but it's probably a nice second income. Also, they won't plunder her bank account while she does it. As far as I know Tupperware used to be the same way before they decided they could make more money selling through stores. Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Dec 25, 2017 |
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Dec 25, 2017 19:24
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avon is pretty shady nowadays but they're not an outright scam, or at least they weren't
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Dec 25, 2017 20:13
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Proteus Jones posted:Nope. Avon is structured differently. They do direct sales (so no store presence). Well that's good. She's old and relatively comfortable, so I wasn't going to say anything unless it's actively harmful to the people selling it. Thanks!
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Dec 25, 2017 20:23
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Far as I know Avon is legit and Mary Kay isn't. Basically, if you're encouraged to recruit people to work under you, it's bullshit.
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Dec 25, 2017 21:39
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My wife does Avon stuff and yeah, it's basically a bit of extra money. She posts catalogues through people's doors, they order stuff, she puts the order in, collects the cash from them, delivers them the stuff and then pays for the order. She gets a phone call from them the day before each campaign order is due where they try to get her to order extra items that are on sale, but she basically ignores those. You CAN do the whole "recruit others and profit from them" thing, but they don't seriously push it and they don't expect you to live and breathe it. The worst you can say about it is that it probably takes more time than it's actually worth spending.
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Dec 25, 2017 21:58
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It slowly came out over the course of Christmas dinner that an in-laws spouse worked for a fairly new dental chain in our area that’s a front for Scientology. It was pretty hilarious hearing her go from “well, it’s a little odd” to her husband mentioning cult-like tendencies to her describing the seminars she’s forced to attend as an employee, and all the odd little quirks of the owners. I thought they were expanding pretty aggressively, now it makes sense why. Edit: It's called BrightSide Dental, in the metro detroit area. I'd just go ahead and avoid them. meanolmrcloud fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Dec 26, 2017 |
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Dec 26, 2017 06:38
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well what are they called?
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Dec 26, 2017 07:02
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Lisa needs an auditing!
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Dec 26, 2017 09:57
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I mean, Avon is probably one of the less exploitative MLMs but it's still an MLM, one of the oldest and most well-established ones. The fact that they focus more on sales just helps to legitimize them, but I doubt anyone would see significant money without pushing recruiting hardcore just like any other MLM (also lol if they think they'll be making significant money with that either). The bits to look out for are "which is more important, recruiting or actual sales?" "do they track product sales to customers or only to consultants" and "are you encouraged to keep a massive inventory of poo poo you will likely never sell". Bonus points for "does the product actually do anything" and "does it work better than something you can get from the drugstore for $3" Any MLM that hits any of those red flags is not worth even spending the effort to listen to a pitch for, because it's guaranteed to be Mary Kay/LuLaRoe/ItWorks! level of scammy garbage e: also, in tangentially related news, every single facebook post from a "millenial" MLM (LLR/Scentsy/ItWorks/etc) is a copy/paste from their upline and/or the company website. I see a lot of people (not necessarily here) wondering why every MLM shill post has the same feel to it, well, that's why. TheKennedys fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Dec 26, 2017 |
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Dec 26, 2017 18:37
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TheKennedys posted:I mean, Avon is probably one of the less exploitative MLMs but it's still an MLM, one of the oldest and most well-established ones. The fact that they focus more on sales just helps to legitimize them, but I doubt anyone would see significant money without pushing recruiting hardcore just like any other MLM (also lol if they think they'll be making significant money with that either). I like the MLM recruitment posts where they do everything they can to not tell you what the product or service actually is. Just about how much you can make and how happy they are because they're an entrepreneur and why wouldn't you want to be an entrepreneur too! If you won't even mention the name of your company, you can bugger off
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Dec 26, 2017 19:23
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BiggerBoat posted:Far as I know Avon is legit and Mary Kay isn't. Basically, if you're encouraged to recruit people to work under you, it's bullshit. Its this for sure. Most places have some sort of referral component but if your main revenue stream comes from recruiting people then it is a scam. Always look at the product and it's pricing structure and ask yourself how it compare yo products you already know. Almost always it is clearly overpriced and offers no additional features or benefits to the competition. It is a cover to try to make their pyramid scheme legal since selling a product or service beyond recruitment is required to differentiate it from a pyramid scheme. But if the product is poo poo you'll never make money from it. My favorite was a MLM in the early 00s that went defunct which just resold sprint service under its own name. Exactly the same as a Sprint contract (amusingly they made this a selling point to give it legitimacy) but with a healthy markup. Who on Earth would buy the same exact thing for more? And from some random stranger? It is insanity. But the pitch was all about how easy it would be to get your friends involved and all of those downline opportunities! Raldikuk fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Dec 28, 2017 |
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Dec 28, 2017 05:33
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A common one that I have encountered at my job are Buy Here Pay Here Auto Loan scams. I will be at work and a customer will tell me that they have a loan through lets say Arizona Shady Car Dealer. They literally get the loan through the dealership and make their payments in cash monthly to the dealership or they get repoed. Often where I am those targeted are Navajo people who might have language barrier issues. The thing about these loans is they aren't real. They don't show up on your credit app, they don't have any records, the vehicles remain titled to the dealership and I suspect that they are often at illegal interest rates. In addition the customers have no common protections and their vehicles are often erroneously repoed despite being paid up. Its pretty heart breaking talking to a customer who thinks they have been building their credit for the past five years and explaining to them that they have never had an actual loan before.
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Dec 28, 2017 06:06
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Subprime auto loans are their own type of scam, or predatory business, if you're generous. Basically, they're ~30% interest car loans given to just about anyone, banking on repossession/fees/interest, and often given on exaggerated terms by car/loan sellers who get favorable terms for signing someone into debt slavery.
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Dec 28, 2017 07:02
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I just went threw buying a car and the whole process is a scam you have to watch carefully. I found a car I liked and they worked up some numbers, and they looked acceptable until I looked at the numbers... theys were trying to saddle me with an 84 month loan @ something like 7.7% interest, and I have stellar credit. told them to get hosed and I started to put my coat on. They said "Well, just wait a minute" . The guy left and came back and said "Oh, he made an error and the interest is actually 3.2%" . Then they did the whole "I've never seen my manager lower a car by so much... your are getting a steal!!!" (Which I've heard multiple times in the past from numerous dealerships). Buying a car loving sucks and anyone planning to do so needs to know the prices of what the car they are looking at is selling for locally , know your credit score and what type of interest rate is acceptable to you and make sure it's a fixed rate. Also be prepared to be a dick because I was in a total loss accident that wasn't my fault, and I could write a whole mega post on the scams I experienced from the other guy's insurance company to buying a car after shopping at several car dealerships. All I can say is that if your only transportation is totalled by someone else, RIP because the law is not on your side and you will need to be sharp on your game not to be hosed by the insurance company
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Dec 28, 2017 15:27
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Never finance through the dealer. The entire car dealership business is built on scamming people who don't read the fine print and lock them into really lovely loans. That's why a lot of dealership chains are so upset with Tesla selling directly from the factory to the customer and have been trying to lobby for laws against it.
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Dec 28, 2017 17:15
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Dr.Caligari posted:I just went threw buying a car and the whole process is a scam you have to watch carefully. I found a car I liked and they worked up some numbers, and they looked acceptable until I looked at the numbers... theys were trying to saddle me with an 84 month loan @ something like 7.7% interest, and I have stellar credit. told them to get hosed and I started to put my coat on. They said "Well, just wait a minute" . The guy left and came back and said "Oh, he made an error and the interest is actually 3.2%" . Then they did the whole "I've never seen my manager lower a car by so much... your are getting a steal!!!" (Which I've heard multiple times in the past from numerous dealerships). Then there's bullshit like this, to get you roped into looking at the payments and ignoring the full cost.
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Dec 28, 2017 17:44
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Collateral Damage posted:That's why a lot of dealership chains are so upset with Tesla selling directly from the factory to the customer and have been trying to lobby for laws against it. Tesla is a bad example, since they don't actually sell cars, more just the EULA to drive one. They also refuse to publish service manuals, except in like one state (Mass.?) that has a strong enough right-to-repair law. If you live there, you can go to the Tesla store and pay an hourly rate to sit at a computer terminal to view the repair manuals, but you aren't allowed to print them out. Another thing is that the OBD2 terminal in Tesla cars isn't connected to anything. This is the standard diagnostic connector that has been in every car for over 20 years, because it's mandated by law. Every other carmaker has it hooked up to the car's electronic systems and you can plug in a computer to read all kinds of diagnostic and error information. Not Tesla, though! The reason is that the law requires the car to have an OBD2 port, but it doesn't require the port to do anything.
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Dec 28, 2017 17:45
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Dr.Caligari posted:I just went threw buying a car and the whole process is a scam you have to watch carefully. I found a car I liked and they worked up some numbers, and they looked acceptable until I looked at the numbers... theys were trying to saddle me with an 84 month loan @ something like 7.7% interest, and I have stellar credit. told them to get hosed and I started to put my coat on. They said "Well, just wait a minute" . The guy left and came back and said "Oh, he made an error and the interest is actually 3.2%" . Then they did the whole "I've never seen my manager lower a car by so much... your are getting a steal!!!" (Which I've heard multiple times in the past from numerous dealerships). Car Dealerships are shark tanks, if you go in without knowledge someone their is likely to take advantage of that fact. You have to walk in knowing what loan you are approved of, what fees are applied to the sticker, ( standard is going to be tax, registration, probably a $200 security etch and a $450 dock fee. Some places though are going to put a $500 Desert Package, or a 500 coating and you will spend the negotiating energy you have arguing to remove those things. ) You also have to know that I am teamed up with my manager to a certain extent. I as a salesperson will sometimes lie to a manager and sometimes I will collude with them. I had a deal two nights ago where I felt the customer was being honest with me that they wanted the price to 23,000. I knew the deal was not going to happen unless we dropped the price to that exact number. So when I took their offer to my boss I told my boss their offer was $21,000. Because I knew if I had been honest with my manager he would ended up around $24,000. I really can't recommend this podcast enough, its pretty accurate though some moments are highly dramatic and made me roll my eyes. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/513/129-cars
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Dec 28, 2017 18:49
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I share this anecdote whenever car buying comes up. When I was shopping around for my first car I went down to a local dealership to take a look around. I notice there aren't any prices on it (usually you see them stickered atleast on the windshield) so I ask the guy patrolling the lot and he says 'I dont know yet, we havent looked at your credit'. I laughed and left immediately.
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Dec 28, 2017 19:52
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Collateral Damage posted:Never finance through the dealer. The entire car dealership business is built on scamming people who don't read the fine print and lock them into really lovely loans. I wouldn't say never, but always show up with an existing offer to finance through your bank. When we bought our last car the dealer started with some crazy loving rate (6% or something like that and we have really good credit) and only came down after we showed them our bank's offer. They wouldn't quite meet the bank rate, but agreed to knock a few thousand off if we took half a percentage point higher than the bank was offering. I did the math and we came out ahead with the discount but the higher rate. Like anything else it's a bit of leverage to use in the negotiation. Of course all of this was over two hours of jerking each other off with "we're ready to leave" and "My manager has NEVER authorized something like this before." Goddamn I loving hate the whole car buying process and industry.
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Dec 28, 2017 20:13
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Just know what the going rate is for the car you want and what interest rate you can get. The arithmetic from there is very simple to do at home before you walk into a dealership; you'll know that you expect to pay $X per month for Y months. After that the process is: 1. The salesperson will open with a comically inflated initial offer. 2. You tell them "I will sign at $X per month for Y months" and wait 15 minutes while they pretend to negotiate with their manager. 3. After they return and tell you they had to wrestle their manager to the ground and put them in a submission hold to do it, but they managed to get the manager to come down by 1% from the initial offer. 4. You say "Good day" and leave. 5. They'll try ANYTHING to stop you from walking out the door because the business model is built on the concept of fatiguing you into submission. Ignore them and LEAVE. 6. They'll call you later that day or the next day and try to persuade you to return and resume negotiating. Either you get their agreement on the phone to your terms, or you bid them farewell and hang up. (Protip: give dealerships a google voice or burner phone number if you don't want them periodically pestering you until the heat death of the universe.) 7. If they agree to your terms and then, once you're back in the dealership, attempt to alter the deal in any way whatsoever for whatever bullshit reason whatsoever, immediately leave and never return; this is a dealership that absolutely won't sell a car unless they're ripping you off. For even better advice, the A/T car buying thread is here.
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Dec 28, 2017 21:55
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Eric the Mauve posted:Just know what the going rate is for the car you want and what interest rate you can get. The arithmetic from there is very simple to do at home before you walk into a dealership; you'll know that you expect to pay $X per month for Y months. After that the process is: When I bought my first car I remember my dad telling me "You didn't get a good deal if you didn't storm out in anger at least once"
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Dec 28, 2017 22:00
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Or you can just go into Carmax and get ripped off conveniently. Saves a lot of stress and time. I'm making GBS threads on Carmax but I did buy a car from them once that I was quite happy with and it took maybe 90 minutes. I probably got ripped off though.
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Dec 29, 2017 00:49
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Last car I bought I paid with a cashiers check because I had an insurance payout. The dealer forced me to sit through the finance guys talk and they almost tore up contract (probably a bluff) when I was refusing. And of course when I denied all their crap like financing and extended warranty the dude negged me hard. He also talked a lot of poo poo about how I must have poo poo credit to not finance etc etc. Whole buncha poo poo but then again that's where all their margin is so whatever.
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Dec 29, 2017 01:39
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Proteus Jones posted:When I bought my first car I remember my dad telling me "You didn't get a good deal if you didn't storm out in anger at least once"
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Dec 29, 2017 03:05
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When I was car shopping back in 2012, a Suburban Ford dealership offered me $2000 for my trade in. Later that day, I went to another Suburban Ford dealership and they offered me $500, telling me that "your transmission is slipping." When I asked why literally a few hours earlier another dealership of the same franchise was willing to offer 4 times as much and never mentioned such a serious defect, the sales lady tells me "our mechanics are really good." They didn't get the sale.
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Dec 29, 2017 03:15
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Vinny the Shark posted:When I was car shopping back in 2012, a Suburban Ford dealership offered me $2000 for my trade in. Later that day, I went to another Suburban Ford dealership and they offered me $500, telling me that "your transmission is slipping." When I asked why literally a few hours earlier another dealership of the same franchise was willing to offer 4 times as much and never mentioned such a serious defect, the sales lady tells me "our mechanics are really good." Isn't it more like the first place was gonna offer more but make it up on the sale and hidden costs?
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Dec 29, 2017 15:15
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Everyone read this book and make everyone you know read this book. https://www.amazon.com/Bargaining-Advantage-Negotiation-Strategies-Reasonable/dp/0143036971 Big shout out to the BFC negotiating thread for introducing me to it.
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Dec 29, 2017 16:00
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BiggerBoat posted:Isn't it more like the first place was gonna offer more but make it up on the sale and hidden costs? The first place " Shot you in the foot" they knew you were leaving so they wanted to make sure you didn't buy anywhere else. So they gave you a ridiculous amount for your trade so that when you went anywhere else you would be offended by their offer/
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Dec 29, 2017 22:38
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Car dealers are sketchy on their own, but the lenders behind the credit-4-everyone thing are conmen of the highest level. Mother Jones had a good long read (~20m) on subprime auto loans. Not only are they tremendously unfavorable on the terms of the loan, but they are often literally a scam in addition to that. Some choice quotes: quote:it wasn’t uncommon to find customers saddled with interest rates as high as 30 percent. Borrowers typically paid twice what the car had cost the dealer, and often those vehicles didn’t outlast the loans that financed them. Eventually, Credit Acceptance and other subprime lenders would even start requiring borrowers to install starter kill switches that allowed the companies to incapacitate their vehicles from afar, “pretty much guaranteeing that the car loan is the first one people pay every month” http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/car-subprime-bubble-auto-loans-credit-acceptance-don-foss/
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Dec 29, 2017 23:46
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Zodijackylite posted:Car dealers are sketchy on their own, but the lenders behind the credit-4-everyone thing are conmen of the highest level. Mother Jones had a good long read (~20m) on subprime auto loans. Not only are they tremendously unfavorable on the terms of the loan, but they are often literally a scam in addition to that.
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Dec 29, 2017 23:48
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The no-questions-asked used car lot in my parents' town introduced the auto kill switches last year.
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Dec 30, 2017 00:49
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But the CFPB is an example of government overreach and overregulation run amok.
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Dec 30, 2017 00:57
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rjderouin posted:The first place " Shot you in the foot" they knew you were leaving so they wanted to make sure you didn't buy anywhere else. So they gave you a ridiculous amount for your trade so that when you went anywhere else you would be offended by their offer/ I ended up going to 5 different dealerships before finding the car I eventually bought. Overall, I think I got a pretty good deal. All the other 4 places I went to offered me at least $1500 on my trade in, and none of them mentioned anything about transmission problems. I didn't tell them I had taken my vehicle to other places before they made the offer, either. Sure, some of them may have been planning on making up the money with other fees and costs, but personally I think that one place was trying to hustle me, especially since they gave me such a laughable explanation for the low price. My last vehicle was 12 years old and had over 100k miles on it, so it had its' fair share of problems, but the transmission was not one of them.
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Dec 30, 2017 04:42
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