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Vlonald Prump posted:Poor scamtraining, frustration, or unusual honesty in a scammer? You decide! It's the scammer equivalent of the guy who walks around the bar hitting on every woman there. It requires very little effort and once in the while they happen upon someone stupid enough to fall for it. Just one hit on some naive old person's credit card is worth two weeks' worth of calling random Americans.
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Feb 12, 2018 15:47
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I just got a weird email from a gmail account ostensibly belonging to my late grandma. It had a real weird looking image in it. I hope the preview reading process on the server side didn't get my account hacked, I sent an email to warn my Dad. I keep a burner email in the contacts list of my real email to make it more likely I'll quickly know it if my real email gets compromised somehow. e: dammit, didn't mean to double post 
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Feb 12, 2018 15:49
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"We are calling you from A Common Cable Provider in Your Area with a special offer" LOL, I should have recorded this, somebody got a robocall script and forgot to specialize it.
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Feb 24, 2018 23:33
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Unclaimed Property Scam: Most or all states (U.S.) will hold onto money that you may be due from some transaction that you never claimed. More or less indefinitely, as far as I can tell. An example would be a home sale - there may be things like closing of an escrow account where there is some money left over, maybe you didn't get or cash the check, it was mailed to your old address, etc. Settlement of an insurance claim is another example. The state will usually maintain a publicly accessible database of such unclaimed funds, if you google "unclaimed property" along with the name of your state you can find the state's website for this. You can look up under your name, if you've ever sold a house or received an insurance claim payout you may be surprised to find you have some unclaimed funds. The scam is that certain companies, and there are a few well known ones that tend to change their names around a theme like "RS Clark Associates", will find people who have funds on the database, and if they can get a current address or phone number they will cold call you and offer to recover the funds for you. The scam is that they will charge you like ten percent of the funds whereas you could easily claim the funds yourself for a tiny administrative fee. The state websites with the database will usually have PDFs that you can print out from their site where you apply for the funds yourself, you will usually need some ID verification like copy of driver's license, your social etc. All the scam companies do is mail you the forms that you could have printed out yourself, you still have to fill out and sign the forms and send it back to them, all they really do is mail it in for you. They make you feel as if they are doing you a service and you couldn't have claimed the funds without their help. The key is that they have you sign a form at the start of the process agreeing to contract their services to claim the funds in return for their fat cut, so if you figure out the scam and claim the money yourself they try to come after you for their cut anyway. Now, can someone tell me whether the stuff below are scams? Again sorry if I missed it being covered. Facebook "type the word 'YES' below, or repost this on your own timeline instead of like, to show you are really my friend/care about me, are paying attention etc.": These sure feel like scams, like someone is identifying the accounts belonging to passive idiotic loving dupes so they can target them for other bullshit. On principle I have never responded to any of these because why the gently caress would you insist on some kind of Simon Says condition of proving anything, gently caress you, you loving gently caress. Can anyone elaborate? Thread is long so I may have missed it in the middle. Franchising Opportunities: In the last few years it seems I hear a ton of advertising on the radio relating to great franchises to get in on the ground floor. None of these things sound particularly promising at all, the immediate examples that come to mind are -some generic gym, I think Crunch or Krunch Fitness -some kind of math tutoring businesses -barbershop catering to men with a sports theme, watch sports on TV while getting your hair cut etc. All these things sound so generic that it immediately raises my suspicions that it's an MLM type phenomenon where the actual product being peddled is irrelevant but you get seduced by the idea of becoming a big wheel in the system subleasing your own franchises to lower level marks and so on and so on. Are they a variant of MLM? For that matter what about stuff like Crossfit? That's a little different in that it's a product that a lot of people are in fact actually interested in, but do the franchises spread with the same pyramid mechanism as a MLM?
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Feb 25, 2018 00:58
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Don't know about the others, but Crunch Fitness is a real business, though opening a gym is probably not the best business decision unless there's no local competition for some reason (if there's no gym there already, there's probably a reason). Crunch is ok if you want a cheap gym. Ten bucks a month and they usually have a decent selection of weights. Probably no more than one or two squat racks though. Edit: More specifically to your question, franchises usually require whoever is opening the business to have some sort of minimum investment capability. According to Crunch's website, you need to have a million bucks with four hundred grand in liquid assets before they'll talk to you. MLMs, on the other hand, require that you be breathing and have the ability to buy their product. Wicked Them Beats fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Feb 25, 2018 |
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Feb 25, 2018 01:16
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Zwabu posted:In the last few years it seems I hear a ton of advertising on the radio relating to great franchises to get in on the ground floor. Even if the franchises you're hearing about aren't MLMs or other scams, a lot of scummy stuff can go on in franchising(and that even applies to franchises of well-known companies). Preying on people who don't know much about running a business is a big one there. Just how common that is depends on the company and how strict they are in vetting their franchisees before letting them buy in, of course.
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Feb 25, 2018 01:22
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I doubt the businesses themselves are scams, but you probably won't make money opening a franchise that advertises this way. If it was a profitable investment, someone more sophisticated would have already put money in without the franchiser needing to advertise to the general public.
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Feb 25, 2018 01:28
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Oh, and sort of related to the Unclaimed Property scam, there is a similar thing for boat documentation. In the U.S., boats are required to be documented either through a state DMV like you would do with an automobile, or through the U.S. Coast Guard. USCG documentation has to be renewed annually and has a fee of around 25 bucks or so. There are scam sites with official sounding names that do the same type of thing that the unclaimed property scammers do in that they send you mail and essentially file the renewal for you, but for like three times the normal cost. Then, I assume, if you fall for it they will keep you in their database and send you the renewal stuff every year to keep getting their bite of the apple.
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Feb 25, 2018 01:38
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My rule has always been this: If you're surprised to hear about something, whether it's a threat of some kind, an unpaid bill or fee, unclaimed money, an employment or business opportunity, malware or a virus on your computer, a new service or an upgrade to your current service, or really anything with monetary incentive- it's bogus. On the rare chance it is legit, you should have no problem being able to resolve the issue or take advantage of the opportunity on your own without needing to enlist the aid of the people that contacted you, or whatever advertisement you saw on facebook/a flyer/an infomercial at 3 am.Zwabu posted:Facebook "type the word 'YES' below, or repost this on your own timeline instead of like, to show you are really my friend/care about me, are paying attention etc.": I see these sometimes. Someone will post a depressing or inflammatory anecdote of some kind, ending in some form of "let's see how many people will be brave enough to make this their status update." I don't think these are scams of any kind, just the social media equivalent of chain letters. I've never seen any posts directly asking for a "Yes" comment, but I would imagine it's more in the spirit of the chain letter, not really about trying to harvest scam victims. At any rate, I always ignore status updates like these.
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Feb 25, 2018 04:52
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It’s just about getting engagement stats for the page up, then they sell the page.
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Feb 25, 2018 05:14
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FrozenVent posted:It’s just about getting engagement stats for the page up, then they sell the page. Yeah, it's one way of saying "these are not bots". I'm also super reticent whenever anyone I don't know is deliberately trying to get me to use the word "Yes". I'm always suspicious they're trying to get me to consent to something out of context.
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Feb 25, 2018 08:10
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Proteus Jones posted:Yeah, it's one way of saying "these are not bots". Get you to use what word now?
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Feb 25, 2018 08:12
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Tunicate posted:Get you to use what word now? Usually some word of affirmation. 
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Feb 25, 2018 08:14
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If you need a voice recording of someone saying a single word, just call them up and do nothing but say the word you want them to say. Works surprisingly often.
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Feb 25, 2018 20:00
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My voice is my passport?
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Feb 25, 2018 21:28
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Rusty Shackelford posted:My voice is my passport? God shut UP Werner, you've compromised security like eight times this week because you keep saying that poo poo.
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Feb 25, 2018 22:13
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Zwabu posted:Franchising Opportunities: Sounds like SportClips. Great place. They keep your haircut on file so all you have to say at check-in is 'yes', and then yes or no to the shampoo/short massage upsell, then sit there and watch SportsCenter.
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Feb 26, 2018 02:58
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Zwabu posted:Unclaimed Property Scam: It's a thin line between providing a legitimate service, and a scam in this case. I guess it depends on the size on their fee? I mean, they are providing an actual service by notifying you that you have money to claim... If they are claiming or implying that the only way to get the money is through them, that's clearly a scam though. Hippie Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Feb 26, 2018 |
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Feb 26, 2018 11:32
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MANime in the sheets posted:Sounds like SportClips. Great place. They keep your haircut on file so all you have to say at check-in is 'yes', and then yes or no to the shampoo/short massage upsell, then sit there and watch SportsCenter. I'd prefer if they showed something else. I really don't care about the NBA draft or the PGA standings, just show CNN like every hotel in existence.
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Feb 28, 2018 07:54
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BigDave posted:I'd prefer if they showed something else. I really don't care about the NBA draft or the PGA standings, just show CNN like every hotel in existence. Then don't go there? Their entire schtick is being sports themed.
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Feb 28, 2018 13:24
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Proteus Jones posted:Then don't go there? Their entire schtick is being sports themed. ...I like the hot towels.
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Feb 28, 2018 15:27
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:It's a thin line between providing a legitimate service, and a scam in this case. I guess it depends on the size on their fee? I mean, they are providing an actual service by notifying you that you have money to claim... If they are claiming or implying that the only way to get the money is through them, that's clearly a scam though. The unclaimed property thing is not illegal. They charge a lot more than the administrative fee to claim your money, typically taking like a ten percent cut or so. Of course if the person had no idea they had unclaimed money then they did receive a service. Here's one that someone just posted on Facebook that's been going around:  Apparently it's quite old: http://houston.cbslocal.com/2011/09/02/dont-forward-new-rape-tactic-email/ Reads very similar to the old email FWD about headlights.
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Mar 2, 2018 11:26
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What’s the scam, though? How does anyone benefit from circulating a canard like this one? It’s not like unattended children crying on the sidewalk with address papers in their hands are all that common in the first place. Nor would it be a particularly bad idea to take them to the nearest police station if you found one, assuming they’re white and you are as well.
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Mar 2, 2018 12:50
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That's dumb but I don't think anyone makes money off it...
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Mar 2, 2018 13:31
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Kuiperdolin posted:That's dumb but I don't think anyone makes money off it... I dunno man, how's the alex jones/NRA crowd supposed to easily sell guns and conspiracy books if people aren't perpetually afraid of non-white rapekill machines with their low riders full of free healthcare?
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Mar 2, 2018 14:16
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HerStuddMuffin posted:What’s the scam, though? How does anyone benefit from circulating a canard like this one? It’s not like unattended children crying on the sidewalk with address papers in their hands are all that common in the first place. Nor would it be a particularly bad idea to take them to the nearest police station if you found one, assuming they’re white and you are as well. It's invented to stoke racial tensions and increase or confirm right wing bias against anyone that fails the paper bag test.
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Mar 2, 2018 17:51
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I guess it's not a scam, but has anyone else noticed a trend of huge playlists with 2k+ videos appearing in your recommended videos feed on youtube, with titles like "Garbage playlist do not click" or "Instant regret clicking this playlist". I'm guessing the first couple of videos are the creator's monetised videos an the rest are just a bunch of trending videos so they show up in lots of searches and recommendations, and the title is just reverse psychology?
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Mar 2, 2018 18:03
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A few days ago I got a call from a number I didn't recognize. I let the call go to the answering machine and there was a rusty woman robot voice telling me about how I needed to press 1 to call the operator or press 2 to face the consequences because my IP address has been compromised by hackers in several different countries. The robot voice also made a screeching stutter when it said the word "countries." And no. The number never called back.
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Mar 2, 2018 18:25
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EorayMel posted:A few days ago I got a call from a number I didn't recognize. You just need to send them an iTunes gift card and they'll take good care of you.
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Mar 2, 2018 19:27
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woohoo
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Mar 4, 2018 06:26
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like many people now, i usually let incoming calls just go to voicemail if i don't recognize the number. i got a voicemail the other day from a local area code that started out "hi roger, we have in our records that you have an insurance policy coming due please consider us this time around" and yeah my name is not roger and i don't have that kind of insurance. the guy then goes on to give his name and that it's a local branch of a well known insurance company. it was a real call lol. i wonder if that clueless insurance guy knows he sounds exactly like every scam call in the world
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Mar 4, 2018 08:02
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Lutha Mahtin posted:like many people now, i usually let incoming calls just go to voicemail if i don't recognize the number. i got a voicemail the other day from a local area code that started out "hi roger, we have in our records that you have an insurance policy coming due please consider us this time around" and yeah my name is not roger and i don't have that kind of insurance. the guy then goes on to give his name and that it's a local branch of a well known insurance company. it was a real call lol. i wonder if that clueless insurance guy knows he sounds exactly like every scam call in the world Most spam calls I get don't try for a name.
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Mar 4, 2018 08:09
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I got called "Mr homeowner" once 
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Mar 4, 2018 08:50
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There's a fine line between scam calls and sales calls.
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Mar 4, 2018 11:57
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Most spam calls I get don't try for a name. Yeah most actual spamming is vague as hell. It's always "your student loans!" or "your car warantee!" If somebody was legitimately calling for those things they'd actually know, wouldn't robocall me, and wouldn't be calling from the area code I'm originally from with a number that doesn't exist. It got to the point that they were calling me three or four times a day. It stopped when I finally just bit the bullet, said "yes I'll talk to your human," then just screamed "STOP CALLING ME STOP CALLING ME STOP CALLING ME STOP CALLING ME" into the phone until they hung up.
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Mar 4, 2018 19:49
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The student loans messages I get usually use the name of the guy who had my phone number before me, so they either got his details from somewhere or he willingly gave that up at some point. Been getting them for a year and they’re always due to expire the next day. What luck.
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Mar 4, 2018 19:54
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EL BROMANCE posted:The student loans messages I get usually use the name of the guy who had my phone number before me, so they either got his details from somewhere or he willingly gave that up at some point. Been getting them for a year and they’re always due to expire the next day. What luck. My phone number was caught up in some kind of data breach... under some other guy's name and details. So if I do get a named spam, it's from that.
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Mar 4, 2018 20:15
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EL BROMANCE posted:The student loans messages I get usually use the name of the guy who had my phone number before me, so they either got his details from somewhere or he willingly gave that up at some point. Been getting them for a year and they’re always due to expire the next day. What luck. That sort of thing can be the worst. Before cell phones the land line number I had I guess had belonged to people who had a tendency to not pay their debts. I guess they were the type that would get credit cards, max them out, never pay them back, then change all their details. Like they'd move, get a new phone number, and whatever. I got so many calls I eventually just turned my ringer off. I got real sick of saying "they don't live here stop calling." It's like hey guys I've literally never met those people stop bothering me about their debts. I didn't find out details about them until I bitched about it at work and one of the guys I worked with apparently happened to know them. I guess they'd both been in jail at least twice so I'm like yeah, great people those ones.
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Mar 4, 2018 20:31
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Yeah my number just must be on so many lists, either due to previous owner stupidity or bad luck. I don’t tend to make/take calls super often these days as I tend to use online tools as I speak with people internationally, so my recent calls list for the week tends to look like this. No reason to expect any of these are legit. 
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Mar 4, 2018 21:20
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EL BROMANCE posted:Yeah my number just must be on so many lists, either due to previous owner stupidity or bad luck. I don’t tend to make/take calls super often these days as I tend to use online tools as I speak with people internationally, so my recent calls list for the week tends to look like this. No reason to expect any of these are legit. I'm Scam Likely.
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Mar 4, 2018 21:28
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