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Volmarias
Dec 31, 2002

EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...

EL BROMANCE posted:

Probably would’ve been a fake PayPal email or something.

That's my guess, or an actual PayPal payment but whoopsie daisies turns out the PayPal account was actually stolen?????????

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goatsestretchgoals
Jun 4, 2011

It's probably a good time for a password change! They weren't planning on paying you anything, but your account was important enough for them to try.

pliable
Sep 26, 2003

this is what u get for "180 x 180 avatars"

this is what u fucking get u bithc
Fun Shoe
Eh well, it doesn't take a sleuth to figure out my PayPal lol. I've got 2FA and randomized passwords for it tho so I should be good.

Such a loving bizarre way to wake up tho. I thought at first he was part of Cavern of Cobol goons wanting to help me get a job but, nop lol.

EL BROMANCE
Jun 10, 2006

COWABUNGA DUDES!
🥷🐢😬



So, my mother in laws company is being sold and one of her duties is to find people who bought shares like 20 years ago and tell them if they fill out a basic form or so they'll get their value which is like $10k or so.

As you can imagine, this has not been an easy task.

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

EL BROMANCE posted:

So, my mother in laws company is being sold and one of her duties is to find people who bought shares like 20 years ago and tell them if they fill out a basic form or so they'll get their value which is like $10k or so.

As you can imagine, this has not been an easy task.

How is that a scam? I'm sure it's difficult but doesn't seem to be a thing that's in the spirit of the thread (?)

My grandmother, who died 10 years ago, owned a small amount of stock in a company called Frontier Communications and I still get shareholder letters and statements from them. By "small" I mean like a $1.37 small.

I'd have to re-open the estate to claim it but I think the statements are a legal requirement.

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

BiggerBoat posted:

How is that a scam? I'm sure it's difficult but doesn't seem to be a thing that's in the spirit of the thread (?)

My grandmother, who died 10 years ago, owned a small amount of stock in a company called Frontier Communications and I still get shareholder letters and statements from them. By "small" I mean like a $1.37 small.

I'd have to re-open the estate to claim it but I think the statements are a legal requirement.

it's difficult because people think it's a scam even if it isn't

DiabloStarCraft
Oct 12, 2006

What is there in this world that makes living worthwhile?"

CATS. CATS ARE NICE
🐱🐱🐱💀🐱🐱🐱

BiggerBoat posted:

How is that a scam? I'm sure it's difficult but doesn't seem to be a thing that's in the spirit of the thread (?)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsYoeoEE3ww

EL BROMANCE
Jun 10, 2006

COWABUNGA DUDES!
🥷🐢😬



Tunicate posted:

it's difficult because people think it's a scam even if it isn't

Yup, this. Not getting many hits because people think they're wise to the scam, when in reality they're leaving money on the table.

e: I do appreciate the MASSIVE YACHT video being shown to a poster named 'BiggerBoat'.

EL BROMANCE fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Feb 24, 2021

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.
Oh, I see. Yeah that sucks. I guess the designated difference is that always that if it's real (someone owes you some stock money or something), you'll never have to pay a fee to receive your money but, still, just confirming your identity and DOB is touchy these days. Plus, I imagine a lot of people just hear the message and and call bullshit if they don't recognize the number someting.

The poo poo that scammers get up to loving ruins everything and it crosses over into so called legit advertising and marketing. I made an advertising thread somewhere that gets into it. I've been job hunting and the amount of bullshit MLM calls and emails telling me what a great salesman I would make has almost led me to miss some legitimate offers and inquiries now that my email and phone are blowing up. I almost need a separate phone and dedicated email address JUST for seeking employment opportunities.

Even putting my contact info and portfolio up on LinkedIn has led to a barrage of highly suspect incoming cheesy bullshit. I'm an illustrator, graphic designer and sign maker with a background in printing. There is NOTHING in my skill set or job history that would lead someone to think I'd be good at selling life insurance or anything else let alone managing a sales force but apparently I'm "really sharp" and "just the self starter their team is looking for".

Parallelwoody
Apr 10, 2008


Lol oh yeah those insurance sales or "account manager" jobs are a complete scam. I get a bunch of replies from them too. Got to the point where I would gently caress with them and see how far I could push things until they pulled an interview. "Hi, sorry I don't remember applying with you, but I drink pretty heavily and take pills that make me black out. What is this job for?" "It's for an account manager position! Can we confirm a 10am interview tomorrow?" "Ohhh sorry I have a hard time getting up before the crack of noon. Always down to party ya know what I mean?" "Ok will 2pm work for you?"

hyperhazard
Dec 4, 2011

I am the one lascivious
With magic potion niveous
One of the first jobs I "interviewed" for out of college was Aflac. I say "interviewed" because when I arrived, I found 20 other equally confused people sitting in front of a projector screen.

Turns out it was a super skeevy way to rope people into becoming independent contractors for Aflac (basically door-to-door salesmen trying to convince people to sign up for insurance). The whole thing felt like an Amway presentation, complete with the guy boasting about how much money he made and how they only took the best of the best and were looking for people who would put in enough work to achieve their dreams.

It sucked because I'd applied to an actual listing that had nothing to do with sales, and I figured a big-name company would be legit. I'd prepped for hours and dressed up and even asked a friend to drive me there so I wouldn't risk taking a bus and being late.

loving Aflac.

BiggerBoat posted:

Even putting my contact info and portfolio up on LinkedIn has led to a barrage of highly suspect incoming cheesy bullshit. I'm an illustrator, graphic designer and sign maker with a background in printing. There is NOTHING in my skill set or job history that would lead someone to think I'd be good at selling life insurance or anything else let alone managing a sales force but apparently I'm "really sharp" and "just the self starter their team is looking for".

I know this isn't a Job Advice Thread, but as someone also in the arts & farts industry, you need to find yourself a good recruiter if you haven't already. There are so many scammy postings looking for writers or graphic designers, it's almost impossible to find a real job with a real company. I was unemployed for a year before I started working with one, and I had a legitimate interview lined up a week later.


hyperhazard fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Feb 25, 2021

Mister Kingdom
Dec 14, 2005

And the tears that fall
On the city wall
Will fade away
With the rays of morning light
I've gotten several emails from "Google" letting me know "your photo has been chosen". That's all it says and there's a link to "Google".

I don't use Google to store photos, so there's that.

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

Mister Kingdom posted:

I've gotten several emails from "Google" letting me know "your photo has been chosen". That's all it says and there's a link to "Google".

I don't use Google to store photos, so there's that.

No way. Your photo was chosen?? Look at Mr Bigshot up here. Lucky.

Blue Moonlight
Apr 28, 2005
Bitter and Sarcastic
I got an email the other day from Warren Buffett himself saying he wanted to give me 2.5 million dollars. He helpfully suggested that if I didn’t know who he was, I could Google Warren Buffet or visit his web site, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett.

He signed the letter “Warren Buffett Billionaire Investor” and even gave me his personal email, wbuffer803@gmail.com.

:roflolmao:

Volmarias
Dec 31, 2002

EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...

Blue Moonlight posted:

I got an email the other day from Warren Buffett himself saying he wanted to give me 2.5 million dollars. He helpfully suggested that if I didn’t know who he was, I could Google Warren Buffet or visit his web site, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett.

He signed the letter “Warren Buffett Billionaire Investor” and even gave me his personal email, wbuffer803@gmail.com.

:roflolmao:

Obviously not, I've been in constant contact with him for years at warnbuffet@bayivdexje.co.tw, even through multiple burner accounts of his!

MisterOblivious
Mar 17, 2010

by sebmojo

Mister Kingdom posted:

I've gotten several emails from "Google" letting me know "your photo has been chosen". That's all it says and there's a link to "Google".

I don't use Google to store photos, so there's that.

Google does actually send out updates to tell you how many people have viewed your photos if you take pictures at businesses. You'd think the scam mails would at least attempt to emulate the legit mails, but they don't.

Also half my spam is in cyrillic these days for some drat reason.

DACK FAYDEN
Feb 25, 2013

Bear Witness

hyperhazard posted:

One of the first jobs I "interviewed" for out of college was Aflac. I say "interviewed" because when I arrived, I found 20 other equally confused people sitting in front of a projector screen.

Turns out it was a super skeevy way to rope people into becoming independent contractors for Aflac (basically door-to-door salesmen trying to convince people to sign up for insurance). The whole thing felt like an Amway presentation, complete with the guy boasting about how much money he made and how they only took the best of the best and were looking for people who would put in enough work to achieve their dreams.

It sucked because I'd applied to an actual listing that had nothing to do with sales, and I figured a big-name company would be legit. I'd prepped for hours and dressed up and even asked a friend to drive me there so I wouldn't risk taking a bus and being late.

loving Aflac.
This exact thing happened to me too, I applied to an actual quantitative job to use my degree in mathematics and drove an hour and a half each way because it was in the city I wanted to move to. On the one hand I'm very slightly glad it's not just me but goddamn :(

bamhand
Apr 15, 2010
Do you not ask them about the specific role and responsibilities before taking an interview? That's huge red flags if there's not a discussion first.

hyperhazard
Dec 4, 2011

I am the one lascivious
With magic potion niveous

DACK FAYDEN posted:

This exact thing happened to me too, I applied to an actual quantitative job to use my degree in mathematics and drove an hour and a half each way because it was in the city I wanted to move to. On the one hand I'm very slightly glad it's not just me but goddamn :(

:(:hf::(


bamhand posted:

Do you not ask them about the specific role and responsibilities before taking an interview? That's huge red flags if there's not a discussion first.

This was 10+ years ago, so I honestly don't remember if it was even a phone call. It might have been an auto-generated email from HR, which isn't that weird for (non-government) entry level jobs tbh. Both my first and second post-college jobs were absolutely nothing like the job postings.

goatsestretchgoals
Jun 4, 2011

They got sucked in by a campus cattle call. IDK how it works in COVID times but in the early 2000s it was a hot girl who handed you a piece of paper with a phone number and some bullshit LLC name like Vector Marketing*. When you showed up it turned out it was some MLM bullshit for vacuum cleaners or lovely kitchen knives or whatever.

*Come at me Vector Marketing, if a company by that name exists today I'm pretty sure you're not the same one.

Original_Z
Jun 14, 2005
Z so good
Those whole "exclusive contractor" jobs are a scam anyway. Yes, a company that exclusively deals with signing up for a specific service is completely unrelated to the parent company! Sucks for both sides, the employees get no benefits and are encouraged to lie and do anything to get a sale so when the customer calls up the main company to complain they can just be "woah now don't complain to us, that's a completely different company and we have no liability, go contact them!"

goatsestretchgoals
Jun 4, 2011

They always seem to have shiny badges around their neck that imply the company without using the name or a logo.

E: I'm not touching your copyright!

hyperhazard
Dec 4, 2011

I am the one lascivious
With magic potion niveous

goatsestretchgoals posted:

They got sucked in by a campus cattle call. IDK how it works in COVID times but in the early 2000s it was a hot girl who handed you a piece of paper with a phone number and some bullshit LLC name like Vector Marketing*. When you showed up it turned out it was some MLM bullshit for vacuum cleaners or lovely kitchen knives or whatever.

*Come at me Vector Marketing, if a company by that name exists today I'm pretty sure you're not the same one.

One of my friends in high school got suckered into Cutco (aka Vector) and basically hit up all of our families for pity sales. It's one of those MLMs that has the veneer of authenticity (like Avon, Mary Kay, Bath & Body Works, Longaberger, etc) because it has physical stores and isn't just facebook friends pinging you with "Hey Hon 😉!"

Verviticus
Mar 13, 2006

I'm just a total piece of shit and I'm not sure why I keep posting on this site. Christ, I have spent years with idiots giving me bad advice about online dating and haven't noticed that the thread I'm in selects for people that can't talk to people worth a damn.
when i was in college my gf at the time got into selling some loving knives and sold some to a friend of mine who still swears to this day that the knives are great but since he was the first person she talked to other than me it just tripled the "well your friends are happy for me why cant you be" god i loving hate those knives

Rabite
Apr 13, 2002

Dynamiet Rab
The knives are good, the business sucks.
Vector used to do this thing that if you didnt sell to a client, they would still want a survey paper filled out as proof to get your hourly wage.
Ill gladly fill out a paper to exploit them.

DACK FAYDEN
Feb 25, 2013

Bear Witness

goatsestretchgoals posted:

They got sucked in by a campus cattle call.
I wish. It was an Indeed posting. So it was two back-and-forth messages and a five minute phone call before an interview and the saddest part is that wasn't anything out of the ordinary because gently caress job searching.

Eric the Mauve
May 8, 2012

Making you happy for a buck since 199X
The knives actually are pretty good (or were when I saw them 25 years ago), but you can get as good or better for less money at a store. Or, y'know, this being 2021, Amazon.

Inspector 34
Mar 9, 2009

DOES NOT RESPECT THE RUN

BUT THEY WILL
We've got some Cutco steak knives in our drawer that I think my wife was gifted when she first moved to Oregon back in like '06 and honestly they are pretty decent. They're ugly as sin and the blade is really short for a steak knife but they definitely cut better than the Kai (cheap Kershaw/Shun brand) set I had when we first moved in together. Didn't know anything about Cutco until reading about it here in this thread.

uranium grass
Jan 15, 2005

my best friend got suckered into selling cutco for vector. i don't think she actually sold a single set but they sure did work when we needed to slash some tires

Pharmaskittle
Dec 17, 2007

arf arf put the money in the fuckin bag

my parents bought some expensive water vacuum cleaner from a door to door salesman back in the early 90s, but they still use the loving thing 3 decades later so I guess the product itself isn't awful

Volmarias
Dec 31, 2002

EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...
I got suckered into selling cutco, and still have the demo kit knives. Aside from eventually getting a sharpener for the chef's knife and paring knife, they've held up very nicely.

Sanford
Jun 30, 2007

...and rarely post!


A young woman I know called Josie got into some MLM selling healing crystals, soothing bath salts, etc earlier this year. I think it's homeopathic nonsense but she found and lost three jobs during Covid so whatever. She's made a small profit selling them on local facebook and similar - she says she's up about 20% on her initial investment, with about a quarter of her original stock purchase remaining.

Her mum was telling me yesterday they had a team call where she was first pressured and then straight up insulted for not buying any of a new range "until she sells what she's got". Then she got publicly shamed for being the only person in the local team not to bring anyone in on their regular calls for new recruits. Then finally they asked if anyone would like to talk about their success, which a handful of people did, including Josie. She was the only one to reference making a profit, which one of the leaders said she should reinvest. Josie said she'd like to but she's got bills to pay, and was reprimanded for "not having the right attitude."

Expecting to pay bills with profits from your MLM = the wrong attitude. Actually I can see where they're coming from...

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

Sanford posted:

A young woman I know called Josie got into some MLM selling healing crystals, soothing bath salts, etc earlier this year. I think it's homeopathic nonsense but she found and lost three jobs during Covid so whatever. She's made a small profit selling them on local facebook and similar - she says she's up about 20% on her initial investment, with about a quarter of her original stock purchase remaining.

Healing crystals are bullshit, but even without scamming sick people, if you can sell individual crystals you can buy them in bulk and make way more than 20%.

Sanford
Jun 30, 2007

...and rarely post!


Tunicate posted:

Healing crystals are bullshit, but even without scamming sick people, if you can sell individual crystals you can buy them in bulk and make way more than 20%.

Haha you are not wrong, the most popular thing she sells is a mood necklace thing where you put a different crystal in to reflect how you're feeling. The necklace is £15 and additional crystals £5 each and it is literally the first result for "healing crystal necklace" on AliExpress: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/330...earchweb201603_

To be as fair to her as I can, I just had a sneaky look at her FB page and it's a lot of "soothing" and "calming" and "relaxing" but I didn't see a single "healing" or "medicinal" or anything like that.

Eric the Mauve
May 8, 2012

Making you happy for a buck since 199X

Tunicate posted:

Healing crystals are bullshit, but even without scamming sick people, if you can sell individual crystals you can buy them in bulk and make way more than 20%.

She's also in for a rude surprise when she discovers she owes nearly half her income from the endeavor in taxes.

hyperhazard
Dec 4, 2011

I am the one lascivious
With magic potion niveous

Volmarias posted:

I got suckered into selling cutco, and still have the demo kit knives. Aside from eventually getting a sharpener for the chef's knife and paring knife, they've held up very nicely.

From what I've heard, the demo knives are a step up from the usual ones they sell, to the point where ex-Cutco people will sell those on ebay and such to recoup some of their money. My experience with the regular ones has been mostly meh, but I've never tried the demos.

AngryRobotsInc
Aug 2, 2011

Cutco knives are decidedly okay. We had a set for years, that my partner's parents had gotten as a wedding gift, and they held up for a long time. However, for the price point they sell at? That's why they just get the 'okay'. You can get far better knives for much better prices.

wizzardstaff
Apr 6, 2018

Zorch! Splat! Pow!
That's why the trick is to sign up for their sales team and then quit as soon as they make you buy the demo kit. You get the knives at a reduced price (in exchange for suffering through three days of MLM training).

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

wizzardstaff posted:

That's why the trick is to sign up for their sales team and then quit as soon as they make you buy the demo kit. You get the knives at a reduced price (in exchange for suffering through three days of MLM training).

the trick is to get a demo kit off ebay from someone who quit the program

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BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

Eric the Mauve posted:

She's also in for a rude surprise when she discovers she owes nearly half her income from the endeavor in taxes.

wizzardstaff posted:

That's why the trick is to sign up for their sales team and then quit as soon as they make you buy the demo kit. You get the knives at a reduced price (in exchange for suffering through three days of MLM training).

The trick is for Amway/Cutco/Herbalife to turn the salespeople into the customers, which is why they push recruiting so much since that means more "independent business owners" doing nothing more than buying poo poo from the parent company. There's really nothing more to it. Even the people "making money at it" aren't because what they'll show you is, say, a $500 check they got without mentioning they bought $3000 worth of overpriced poo poo that cost Amway $400 to manufacture.

That check they show you (IF they show it to you) is nothing more than a rebate, plain and simple. It'd be like if I told you could make loads of money buying cars since I got a $2,000 check for buying this Toyota and $100 for getting other people to do the same except the loving car cost me 28 grand.

MLM's also tell their "business owners" that they can write all this poo poo off on their taxes as a business expense. They can't. Especially since 99% of them don't make enough money to even itemize in the first place but more to the point since it's not a "business" and you don't "own" a loving thing.

I mean... except for closets, spare rooms and garages full of unsold soap, crystals, leggings, vitamins and poo poo. You definitely own those, will never resell them and none of that poo poo is tax deductible.

Only way to really make money in an MLM is to start an MLM.

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