Tell me about common cons/scams: "Thanks, you suck. Hello, this is Linda."

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about common cons/scams: "Thanks, you suck. Hello, this is Linda."

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StormDrain: May 22, 2003; Thirteen Letter

Cage Kicker posted:

Go gently caress yourself, if you fall for an OBVIOUS SCAM you are at least partly to blame for not exercising better judgement.

Oh wow you really don't understand institutional problems in society do you?

# ? Jun 8, 2021 23:36

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# ? Apr 18, 2024 08:06

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Cage Kicker posted:

Go gently caress yourself, if you fall for an OBVIOUS SCAM you are at least partly to blame for not exercising better judgement.

# ? Jun 8, 2021 23:40

nishi koichi: Feb 16, 2007; everyone feels that way and gives up.
that's how they get away with it.

Cage Kicker posted:

Go gently caress yourself, if you fall for an OBVIOUS SCAM you are at least partly to blame for not exercising better judgement.

lol calm down

# ? Jun 8, 2021 23:42

Sydin: Oct 29, 2011; Another spring commute

Cage Kicker posted:

Go gently caress yourself, if you fall for an OBVIOUS SCAM you are at least partly to blame for not exercising better judgement.

lmao piss off nerd

# ? Jun 8, 2021 23:57

BiggerBoat: Sep 26, 2007; Don't you tell me my business again.

Yeah, people need to chill a little bit.

These MLM companies go to great lengths to combat the truthful information that's out there and really REALLY prey on the week and vulnerable. I mean..at it's core, it's quite literally a cult and uses the exact same tactics but I'm not prepared to say that anyone who ever fell into a cult was a big stupid idiot who deserved it.

I fell into Amway when I was like 17 or 18 and it only took me about 3-6 weeks to see how it was bullshit. I realized it when my sponsor started trying to teach me the exact same script he used on me, which you don't really have to do if it's not a con. But you'd be surprised how many regular every day normal people say things like "a lot of people make some really good money doing that" and claim to know so and so who showed drives a Lexus now and showed them a $2000 check .

No they don't make money but they put a lot of effort into making people THINK they do. Amway makes money by recruiting salespeople to essentially be customers.

# ? Jun 9, 2021 00:03

goatsestretchgoals: Jun 4, 2011

Reminder that the Amway family gave us Betsy DeVos and Erik Prince.

# ? Jun 9, 2021 00:49

Blue Moonlight: Apr 28, 2005; Bitter and Sarcastic

Cage Kicker posted:

Go gently caress yourself, if you fall for an OBVIOUS SCAM you are at least partly to blame for not exercising better judgement.

I mean, this is the same argument people have for why it�s OK to pay gig economy workers a fraction of a a fair wage. It�s also the same reason why so many of those workers fight for a job that is so commonly exploitative.

When you have few options, it�s easier to ignore the flaws in what remains.

# ? Jun 9, 2021 01:14

nishi koichi: Feb 16, 2007; everyone feels that way and gives up.
that's how they get away with it.

go gently caress yourself
:qqsay:

# ? Jun 9, 2021 01:19

Haifisch: Nov 13, 2010; Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!; Taco Defender

BiggerBoat posted:

Yeah, people need to chill a little bit.

These MLM companies go to great lengths to combat the truthful information that's out there and really REALLY prey on the week and vulnerable. I mean..at it's core, it's quite literally a cult and uses the exact same tactics but I'm not prepared to say that anyone who ever fell into a cult was a big stupid idiot who deserved it.

Yup. MLMs encouraging people to cut out people who are 'negative' or 'unsupportive'(read: see it for what it really is) is a feature, not a bug. So are the workshops/training videos/etc they constantly pressure people into going to/buying, which reinforce the 'MLM is good, people saying the MLM is bad are TERRIBLE PEOPLE you shouldn't listen to' mindset.

This is also why dealing with someone in your life who's fallen into an MLM is basically a 'you can't do anything to stop it unless they come to their senses themselves' situation. Everyone above them is more than happy to provide scripted defenses for why you're wrong and the MLM is fine actually.

# ? Jun 9, 2021 01:21

EL BROMANCE: Jun 10, 2006; COWABUNGA DUDES!
🥷🐢😬

I feel bad for people taken advantage of by friends and family who are specifically trained to do so. Feel less sorry people for who fall for scams where the aim is to get rich at someone else�s expense.

# ? Jun 9, 2021 01:49

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Cage Kicker posted:

Go gently caress yourself, if you fall for an OBVIOUS SCAM you are at least partly to blame for not exercising better judgement.

# ? Jun 9, 2021 02:10

Cage Kicker: Feb 20, 2009; End of the fiscal year, bitch.
MP's got time to order pens for year year, hooah?

SKILCRAFT KREW Reppin' Quality Blind Made; Lipstick Apathy

EL BROMANCE posted:

I feel bad for people taken advantage of by friends and family who are specifically trained to do so. Feel less sorry people for who fall for scams where the aim is to get rich at someone else�s expense.

# ? Jun 9, 2021 02:46

wizzardstaff: Apr 6, 2018; Zorch! Splat! Pow!

Cage Kicker posted:

This is not even close to the same thing as what you posted earlier.

# ? Jun 9, 2021 03:40

Yngwie Mangosteen: Aug 23, 2007

wizzardstaff posted:

This is not even close to the same thing as what you posted earlier.

Gotta save face somehow after getting dunked on by the entire rest of the thread for being a stupid piece of poo poo.

# ? Jun 9, 2021 06:59

doctorfrog: Mar 14, 2007; Great.

The poster conning itself

# ? Jun 9, 2021 21:13

Ham Equity: Apr 16, 2013; i hosted a great goon meet and all i got was this lousy avatar; Grimey Drawer

cakesmith handyman posted:

I turned 40 the other week and all the ads and spam I'm getting switched over to older man spam immediately, it's depressing.

I'm a few months from 40, and just got a Steam ad for Power Washing Simulator.

# ? Jun 9, 2021 21:28

Thomamelas: Mar 11, 2009

Thanatosian posted:

I'm a few months from 40, and just got a Steam ad for Power Washing Simulator.

The New Balance mods for that are really game changing.

# ? Jun 9, 2021 21:31

peanut: Sep 9, 2007

power washing graffiti
no, not washing it off
washing it ON :getin:

# ? Jun 9, 2021 23:39

Cage Kicker: Feb 20, 2009; End of the fiscal year, bitch.
MP's got time to order pens for year year, hooah?

SKILCRAFT KREW Reppin' Quality Blind Made; Lipstick Apathy

Captain Monkey posted:

Gotta save face somehow after getting dunked on by the entire rest of the thread for being a stupid piece of poo poo.

Saving face implies I care about half the thread's bad opinion

# ? Jun 10, 2021 02:53

Haifisch: Nov 13, 2010; Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!; Taco Defender

"I'm not owned! I'm not owned!", corncob, etc.

# ? Jun 10, 2021 03:13

unattended spaghetti: May 10, 2013

Driveby lurker just here to say you�re an rear end in a top hat OP.

For content: What�s up with these spam text messages that are from weird, nonsensical email domains that are just absurdly long, obfuscated links that nobody in their right mind would click? They just hoping for someone to be inattentive or what? What�s on the other side of those? Like there�s not even a message. Just the weird link. It�s usually <firstname>@some off-kilter spoof of a normal domain.

# ? Jun 10, 2021 03:40

HopperUK: Apr 29, 2007; Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?

It's probably the same thing as usual where if you're savvy enough to recognise a dodgy link, the scam is not aimed at you. It selects out people who know about domain names and link checking.

# ? Jun 10, 2021 03:51

PhazonLink: Jul 17, 2010

so whats with spam texts being sent from email addresses ( gmail or some rando junk), sending a junk url that I assume is has some sort of malware.

is this how text spam is going to be in the future since spoofing phone numbers is getting harder(because of that shaken/stirred thing?)?

# ? Jun 10, 2021 04:24

Zamujasa: Oct 27, 2010; Bread Liar

Most phone providers have had (what we called) "email gateways" where you could send an email to, say, 7025551234@sms.telco.com (the format was always a little different) and it would be delivered largely as-is to that phone as a text message.

You can, of course, spoof the sender's email address, and unlike normal email that has a lot of spam controls at both the server and client side, you would have to rely on your cell provider filtering it out.

A fairly simple scam would be to just send an email to a phone number claiming to be a bank or whatever, and include an obfuscated, shortened link that goes to your usual phishing page. It'd show up like any other text message, and due to the nature of how links in SMS messages are usually shortened, well, your scam suddenly appears a little more legit.

I don't know if the state of these things has changed in the last 8 or so years, though, since the average person is far more likely to have a smartphone.

# ? Jun 10, 2021 05:01

goatsestretchgoals: Jun 4, 2011

Zamujasa posted:

Most phone providers have had (what we called) "email gateways" where you could send an email to, say, 7025551234@sms.telco.com (the format was always a little different) and it would be delivered largely as-is to that phone as a text message.

I worked at an answering service company that legitimately used these gateways. We also got cut off from one of the big 4's gateways because one of my coworkers was bad at loops.

E: Still appears legit, at least for Verizon: https://community.verizon.com/t5/My-Verizon/SMS-Gateway-issues/td-p/881540

a Verizon person posted:

I just tested this and it still works.

Must only contain text, less than 140 characters, no more than 10 numbers per email, no more than 10 emails per session

Vtext.com lets you send text messages to Verizon Wireless devices from your email. However, it's no longer available as a website that you can use to view and send text messages.

To send a text message from your email:

Create a new email.

Enter a 10-digit Verizon Wireless mobile number in the To field, and add "@vtext.com" (e.g., 9495551212@vtext.com).

Send the email and it will be delivered to the recipient's mobile phone as a text message.

Message length is limited to 140 characters, including the email address. Currently, Vtext.com messages can only contain text. Enhanced text messages can't be sent by email to a Verizon Wireless device using Vtext.com.

If you want to send and view messages from a website, you can use Verizon Messages. It's an enhanced messaging service that also syncs your messages across all your devices.

Note: If you have a business account and send high volumes of messages with Vtext.com, you should follow these guidelines:

Use no more than 10 simultaneous SMTP sessions
Use no more than 10 emails per session
Use no more than 10 addresses per email

If you need to send larger amounts of messages, we recommend using Enterprise Messaginginstead.

goatsestretchgoals fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Jun 10, 2021

# ? Jun 10, 2021 06:10

Cage Kicker: Feb 20, 2009; End of the fiscal year, bitch.
MP's got time to order pens for year year, hooah?

SKILCRAFT KREW Reppin' Quality Blind Made; Lipstick Apathy

Yes, because no matter how obvious a scam it is, people are absolved of personal responsibility for making good decisions because ??????

I forgot I was posting on Something Compassionate...

# ? Jun 10, 2021 08:57

teen witch: Oct 9, 2012

Some people understand scams as well as you demonstrate empathy for others. Or at least basic knowledge on how predatory MLMs can be.

# ? Jun 10, 2021 09:11

Weatherman: Jul 30, 2003; WARBLEKLONK

Cage Kicker posted:

Yes, because no matter how obvious a scam it is, people are absolved of personal responsibility for making good decisions because ??????

I forgot I was posting on Something Compassionate...

beep boop

# ? Jun 10, 2021 09:35

Fezziwig: Jun 7, 2011

Cage Kicker posted:

Yes, because no matter how obvious a scam it is, people are absolved of personal responsibility for making good decisions because ??????

I forgot I was posting on Something Compassionate...

Sometimes people don't understand things. I had a guy about a decade ago try to send money via Western Union for a job scan (paying for "training materials"). I didn't send it, but he came back later and thanked me because he figured out out was a scam.

Just because YOU think it's obvious doesn't mean EVERYONE does. Have some empathy.

# ? Jun 10, 2021 14:46

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Don't be so hard on them. Clearly the name of this website is misleading and they just got suckered in.

# ? Jun 10, 2021 14:52

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

If the vulnerable didn't want to be preyed upon they should not have been vulnerable :colbert:

# ? Jun 10, 2021 14:58

Eric the Mauve: May 8, 2012; Making you happy for a buck since 199X

goatsestretchgoals posted:

I worked at an answering service company that legitimately used these gateways. We also got cut off from one of the big 4's gateways because one of my coworkers was bad at loops.

E: Still appears legit, at least for Verizon: https://community.verizon.com/t5/My-Verizon/SMS-Gateway-issues/td-p/881540

In The Year Of Our Lord 2021 does anyone besides scammers ever use this functionality? Answering services are really still a thing?

# ? Jun 10, 2021 16:14

Thomamelas: Mar 11, 2009

Eric the Mauve posted:

In The Year Of Our Lord 2021 does anyone besides scammers ever use this functionality? Answering services are really still a thing?

You will see it used with security systems sometimes. You'll get business owners who want alerts as SMS and the gateways make it easy to do without adding new features.

# ? Jun 10, 2021 16:18

Yngwie Mangosteen: Aug 23, 2007

Cage Kicker posted:

Saving face implies I care about half the thread's bad opinion

whoa! Watch out for that edge, y'all!!!!! We've got a stone cold seventeen year old atheist posting in the thread.

# ? Jun 11, 2021 03:10

teen witch: Oct 9, 2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90AiXO1pAiA

# ? Jun 11, 2021 09:35

Zamujasa: Oct 27, 2010; Bread Liar

goatsestretchgoals posted:

I worked at an answering service company that legitimately used these gateways. We also got cut off from one of the big 4's gateways because one of my coworkers was bad at loops.

E: Still appears legit, at least for Verizon: https://community.verizon.com/t5/My-Verizon/SMS-Gateway-issues/td-p/881540

We used them too, because they were cheaper than actual SMS services like Twilio and the like.

As for bad at loops, well, lol. A payday loan company I was near (but not part of) had a guy do something like this:

code:

$targets = query("SELECT phone_number FROM customers");
// $targets now has 25000 customer phone numbers
$count = count($targets);

for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i += 1000) {
    send_sms("get a loan w/ us!", array_slice($targets, $count, $count + 1000));
}

the problem with this is that array_slice takes the count and the number of entries to return after that, so this would get #1-1000, then #1000-3000, #2000-5000, #3000-7000 ...

the fcc was not very happy with that one

Zamujasa fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Jun 11, 2021

# ? Jun 11, 2021 10:07

Volmarias: Dec 31, 2002; EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...

Thanatosian posted:

I'm a few months from 40, and just got a Steam ad for Power Washing Simulator.

The reviews describing this as a Dad Simulator clinched my decision to just buy this, I'll let you know how it goes.

# ? Jun 12, 2021 05:16

Volmarias: Dec 31, 2002; EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...

Update: this game has extremely powerful Dad Energy. 100% recommend.

# ? Jun 12, 2021 08:01

HopperUK: Apr 29, 2007; Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?

Cage Kicker posted:

Yes, because no matter how obvious a scam it is, people are absolved of personal responsibility for making good decisions because ??????

I forgot I was posting on Something Compassionate...

What's fun about this is that most people who think 'only idiots would fall for such a scam' believe they themselves are too smart/knowledgeable to fall for a scam.

# ? Jun 12, 2021 15:52

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# ? Apr 18, 2024 08:06

unattended spaghetti: May 10, 2013

Also unironically throwing compassionate out as an insult. lol

# ? Jun 12, 2021 16:23

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about common cons/scams: "Thanks, you suck. Hello, this is Linda."

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