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Midjack posted:You get weird fuckery with things like that sometimes; it was not uncommon for industrial equipment to do a bunch of direct access or some homegroan custom interface scheme and sometimes the emulators fall short on nonstandard comms like that. That will be a longer term solution than a shoebox of new floppies if it works though, and if your bossmasters aren't super cheapskates lmao they are it's worth a few bucks of company money to investigate, since they definitely aren't going to buy machines made after the World Trade Center was destroyed. You can get converters made for specific CNC controllers. https://www.shopfloorautomations.com/hardware/floppy-connect/ These folks claim to make 600 models. https://floppyusbemulator.com/check-compatibility
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Jul 10, 2022 16:04
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We just had a kid and my wife got a call from a financial group she agreed to give her info to when signing up for free offers or whatever. The call is from a legit organization that appears to promise you the world when setting up an education plan but has horrendous reviews online ranging from “outrageous fees eat up any gains” to “they promised all fees would be returned as a lump sum at the end but they never deliver”. The calls seem to be laser targeted for sleep new deprived parents/ lonely new moms and my wife was freaked out by how happy she was to talk to another woman who showed interest on the phone. We cancelled the information session that had been set up.
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Jul 12, 2022 12:24
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My sister-in-law gets a voicemail, caller ID says it's the county sheriff, asking for her to call back on a non-urgent legal matter. She is a physician, so sometimes does get weird calls like this to notify a next-of-kin of a death or something. She calls back, and the guy on the other end says he's a cop and she's got a couple warrants: failure to appear and contempt of court, that she was supposed to appear as an expert witness. They'd subpoenaed her and she'd signed it, although the address was an old one and she'd been out of town at the time. They tell her she needs to come down to the sheriffs to turn herself in, and give the address -- and to come alone. At that point, they tell her she has to stay on the line, or they're going to track her by GPS. She's wound up -- it's Saturday afternoon and this seems like a big bureaucratic hassle, not to mention expensive. Up until those last two points, they had me going, also. Once they told her to stay on the line, I was like, this has to be a scam. I found this article, which matches a lot of the setup. She calls a couple lawyer relatives and they arrive at the same conclusion, after getting detail. Call the sheriff's office and they confirm it's not real. So, what's the scam? That part we couldn't figure out. She goes down to the sheriff's office and then what? My assumption is that they ratchet up the pressure when she feels compelled to stay on the phone, and eventually find a way to corner her into giving them funds.
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Jul 30, 2022 22:50
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Was the address actually the sheriff's office or just some random abandoned Walmart?
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Jul 30, 2022 23:31
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Not for sure but it was plausible. I'll check.
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Jul 30, 2022 23:32
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bort posted:So, what's the scam? That part we couldn't figure out. She goes down to the sheriff's office and then what? My assumption is that they ratchet up the pressure when she feels compelled to stay on the phone, and eventually find a way to corner her into giving them funds. Yeah or rob rape and murder her
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Jul 30, 2022 23:33
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"Come alone" gives a giant  vibe, it sounds like what other people said; the best case scenario is that they were going to be robbed by a conman at gunpoint.E: if it was even remotely targeted, there might be a "plainclothes detective blah blah" waiting for them to arrive at the sheriff, and come with them, etc.
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Jul 31, 2022 02:33
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The first time I heard this scam, the person on the line directs you to go to a retailer and send money via Western Union. Usually it's an "IRS agent" telling them they owe taxes, and to lay immediately or get arrested.
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Jul 31, 2022 06:07
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bort posted:My sister-in-law gets a voicemail, caller ID says it's the county sheriff, asking for her to call back on a non-urgent legal matter. She is a physician, so sometimes does get weird calls like this to notify a next-of-kin of a death or something. She calls back, and the guy on the other end says he's a cop and she's got a couple warrants: failure to appear and contempt of court, that she was supposed to appear as an expert witness. They'd subpoenaed her and she'd signed it, although the address was an old one and she'd been out of town at the time. They tell her she needs to come down to the sheriffs to turn herself in, and give the address -- and to come alone. At that point, they tell her she has to stay on the line, or they're going to track her by GPS. yeah somebody pulled this one on my dentist a couple years ago, once they start driving to the sheriffs office and freaking out proper the caller offers to take a bribe, sends the victim to walmart and they successfully took her for $5k of apple gift cards over the phone. Probably the same group even, they seem to like spearfishing doctors because they have a magical intersection of overconfidence, quick access to funds, and too embarrassed to report promptly shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Jul 31, 2022 |
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Jul 31, 2022 06:13
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shame on an IGA posted:yeah somebody pulled this one on my dentist a couple years ago, once they start driving to the sheriffs office and freaking out proper the caller offers to take a bribe, sends the victim to walmart and they successfully took her for $5k of apple gift cards over the phone. This is what I figured would happen. There isn’t a lot of originality in these scams and keeping the victim on the line is common for the Walmart ones.
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Jul 31, 2022 07:01
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Thanks, that makes more sense than the parking lot rape setup.
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Jul 31, 2022 07:36
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The person was unlikely to be in the same country, let alone city
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Jul 31, 2022 13:42
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bort posted:My sister-in-law gets a voicemail, caller ID says it's the county sheriff, asking for her to call back on a non-urgent legal matter. She is a physician, so sometimes does get weird calls like this to notify a next-of-kin of a death or something. She calls back, and the guy on the other end says he's a cop and she's got a couple warrants: failure to appear and contempt of court, that she was supposed to appear as an expert witness. This is a common scam run on primarily female physicians, social workers, etc.. Here’s one scammer who got caught. AlbieQuirky fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Jul 31, 2022 |
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Jul 31, 2022 18:19
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Genuinely can't believe people in this thread sounding like a 2002 chain email saying a scammer is gonna abduct and rape you like cmon. Gonna tell me about how a common scam is if someone flashes their lights at you at night not to flash back because you'll get caught up in a gang initiation murder next.
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Aug 1, 2022 11:35
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AlbieQuirky posted:This is a common scam run on primarily female physicians, social workers, etc.. Here’s one scammer who got caught.
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Aug 1, 2022 16:26
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DiabloStarCraft posted:Genuinely can't believe people in this thread sounding like a 2002 chain email saying a scammer is gonna abduct and rape you like cmon. Telling someone that they're in very big trouble with Authority, and that they need to come to a different location, and come alone, is a recipe for a bad time, no matter the supposed cause. I mean, it's also not new that a creep on the phone can cause you problems without ever seeing you, or that pretending to be a cop and then doing a rape is somehow new (and this ignores all of the rapists that actually are cops, threatening with their real authority to cause A Bad Time Unless) Volmarias fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Aug 1, 2022 |
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Aug 1, 2022 18:22
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Yeah rape happens ALL THE TIME. Because men are loving trash. A woman cannot ever be too cautious against it.
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Aug 1, 2022 21:12
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Okay, take a deep breath. Nobody is minimizing the danger of rape. The thread is about common scams, and financial criminals are far more likely to employ this methodology. Yes, there are the Ted Bundy types out there who both con and have the risk tolerance to rape and murder strangers, but they probably aren’t calling my sister-in-law. Part of what insulates us against cons is clear thinking. Jumping straight to the worst case scenario isn’t usually clear thinking. That's why there is 
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Aug 1, 2022 22:02
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The gently caress is it with auto mechanics? I've brought this up before and several people defended the industry but I swear to god this industry is rife with con artists and liars. Plus, holy poo poo, the arrogant and dismissive attitude. I get it's a stressful job and they probably have to deal with a lot of upset and stressed out people but join the loving club. I had my brakes suddenly start to make a noise, took it in and was told I needed all new everything on all 4 brakes, including hoses BUT I could get a "special deal" if I did x, y an z and signed up for a credit card. I had already had the front brakes done 2 years ago so I smelled a rat. Took it to my regular guy and just needed pads on one wheel. I went to 3 places because my regular shop is closed on weekends and the "customer service", obfuscation, double speak and aggressive sales tactics just led me to wait until monday. I asked one shop if I could keep the copy of the quote but he said it was "his" and "for his records". I asked for a copy of it since I said I was gonna shop it around and you might have thought I asked him to engrave it on a stone tablet and have it notarized by Jesus Christ. Finally settled on taking a photo of it on my phone but dear lord did my man ever act put out. I guess most shops do 95% of their business based on geography alone since, when your car is hosed up, you go to the closest place but "my shop" that I mentioned is a place I am loyal to because they're polite and, near as I can tell, relatively honest. EXAMPLE: One time I took it in and mentioned my windshield washer was busted and another shop said I needed a new pump. 300 bux. It was a loose hose.
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Aug 7, 2022 17:27
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Auto mechanics are the archetypal example of the principal-agent problem for a good reason. My experience tracks with yours: 90% of them are fraudulent thieves.
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Aug 7, 2022 17:40
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A referral to a good mechanic is worth…more than its weight in gold because it doesn’t weigh anything.
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Aug 7, 2022 17:43
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We got burnt recently. A friend recommended us to a mechanic family member. He'd been as far as we could tell great. And then tried ripping us off for a considerable amount. It makes us wonder about other stuff he'd done in the past.
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Aug 7, 2022 18:10
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Eric the Mauve posted:Auto mechanics are the archetypal example of the principal-agent problem for a good reason. I kind of miss those NBC hidden camera undercover shows where they exposed these loving people. Last time I posted about auto repair places, I got a surprising amount of pushback from goons, most of whom happened to have been auto mechanics. goatsestretchgoals posted:
Agreed, but part of the issue with that is if my car breaks down 45 miles away - like if I'm at work or something - it's a bit of a hassle to get my vehicle to "my shop" and most of us are usually at the mercy of whoever is closest since, you know, we need to loving get home and poo poo and probably don't have a wealth of free time or the luxury of being able to shop around. In a lot of ways, it's like picking a hospital when you have a health crisis. You're going to go to the closest place and brand loyalty isn't always a deciding factor in those moments. Thing that got me more than anything was what I read as a really passive aggressive, dismissive and smug loving attitude. You'd think that even if they're robbing you blind, they'd be taught and trained to be smooth, friendly, considerate and pretending to care - as salesman of any stripe have hammered into them in order to be successful. I guess they don't really have to since most of the time your a captive audience but still. I have to imagine that your point person's demeanor, presentation, posture, patience and use of language would go a long way towards getting Steve the waiter with a hosed up ride to go along with the $700 brake deal and the lifetime warranty. I mean, this applies to anything from selling a house to signing you up for life insurance or getting a bank loan. Most sales people who want your business at least pretend to be on your side. The people I dealt with were just dicks who talked over me and acted like I was stupid and they were doing me a favor. They even had a prominent BIG SIGN on the door that read "If you're in by 4:30, you're out by the end of the day - GUARANTEED". I was there at 1pm on Friday and they made me make an appointment for 10am the next day. I didn't point it out to them
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Aug 7, 2022 18:12
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AngryRobotsInc posted:We got burnt recently. A friend recommended us to a mechanic family member. He'd been as far as we could tell great. And then tried ripping us off for a considerable amount. It makes us wonder about other stuff he'd done in the past. If you can’t make money from friends and family, then who CAN you make money from?
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Aug 7, 2022 18:25
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Remulak posted:If you can’t make money from friends and family, then who CAN you make money from? Can you imagine auto mechanics marketing themselves like Tupperware parties?
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Aug 7, 2022 18:27
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BiggerBoat posted:They even had a prominent BIG SIGN on the door that read "If you're in by 4:30, you're out by the end of the day - GUARANTEED". They won't fix every car that gets brought in at 4:30, but they'll schedule it so that they can. The idea is that when you drop it off, you'll be able to pick up your car before they close, since you might not be able to afford leaving it overnight. You got in at 10am, and out again the same day I would guess.
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Aug 7, 2022 19:37
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Xlorp posted:Can you imagine auto mechanics marketing themselves like Tupperware parties? How about a multi level marketing structured thing where you "own your own business" and repair shop that you run out of your own garage/driveway and buy the brake pads and oil filters from your upline over in the next cul de sac up the street? Why, you don't even have to know how to repair a car! Just sponsor people who DO or know someone that DOES! If no one in your "business" knows how to change brake pads or replace an oil filter, take your customer's car up to the Havoline shop, mark it up and write it all off on your taxes! You can even sign up the Havoline manager! Kidding aside, it's really odd to me how gruff and irritable your average mechanic comes off. I know it's a captive audience but so is health care or even a lawyer and most doctor's offices or law firms make at least a token effort at least at being helpful, calm and friendly. They don't chuckle and make fun of you for getting you insurance card mixed up, not having your records in order or not knowing your blood type and then spit tobacco juice in a spittoon telling you take it or leave it. I mean, a lot of them may as well since "gently caress you if you can't pay and go die in the street" but a generally hostile or completely negative or confrontational attitude is fairly uncommon in my experience. Most mechanics are just dicks IME. A lot of old people, kids, single moms and just people in general who know jack poo poo about cars and simply need tires come in and need help but so many of these dudes running the desk at a repair shop just wave their dicks in your face and act like macho know it alls. They don't listen either. I see it from time to time with CPU repair people too but not as often, even though there's a parallel there now that I think about it. Like cars, a lot of folks don't understand fixing computers either but I do (to some extent) and have run into that same smug bullshit along with a lot of what I KNOW are lies; telling me I need a new HD or whatever when I know it's the battery or charger port or something.
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Aug 7, 2022 19:43
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Yeah when I briefly worked at a computer repair desk people would bring PC's in and wouldn't be able to tell us more than "oh it's a bit slower" or "it's acting funky" or whatever. You could have told them anything and they would have believed it, and I'm sure at more unscrupulous shops it's extremely tempting to tell somebody "oh yeah you need a new motherboard which also means a new CPU and RAM because your stuff is old and doesn't work with new boards. Also a new cooler on the CPU would speed it up considerably. That'll be $600 + labor" when really all you needed to do was turn off a bunch of startup programs and uninstall all the lovely bloatware and browser addons the customer had. Granted it's the same problem with any kind of home repair or contractor work as well. I told the story ITT of how my parents were trying to figure out if they needed a new roof or not and everybody they called out said "oh yeah absolutely" but then gave a completely different reason as to why, along with insanely varying prices. Auto mechanics, computer repair, etc the power imbalance is totally in the hands of the expert because they can tell you basically anything and quote any price knowing you a) lack the expertise to make an informed judgement call on what they're telling you and b) this is important to you and needs to get done and every person you turn down to get a second opinion is more time the thing you really need fixed isn't getting fixed.
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Aug 7, 2022 19:56
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Yeah I work at an electronics repair shop and customers are blown away when we do extremely basic stuff like recommend they get a new device instead of paying us more than it's worth to fix it, so it seems like there's a lot of bullshit shops out there
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Aug 7, 2022 20:19
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Computer fixin checklist: -Obvious malware -Obvious adware -Grey zone shitware, don’t uninstall on sight but doesn’t need to start with the OS -8+ GB RAM -SSD Add cooling to the above when necessary (hard lockups under load usually). E: 8+ GB RAM and/or SSD for minimally good performance. I’ve been using my wife’s old laptop with 4GB and spinning rust and HOLY poo poo is swapping painful. 8GB RAM would fix most of it, but an SSD would make the swapping suck a lot less. And to bring it back to the last thing, I’m using my wife’s laptop because my desktop is down for heat reasons. CPU-Z reports 100C across all 4 CPU cores until I press on the heat sink; immediate drop to 80C and falling over time. Yeah I’m too lazy to fix the heat goop. goatsestretchgoals fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Aug 7, 2022 |
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Aug 7, 2022 20:20
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goatsestretchgoals posted:Computer fixin checklist: I can fix that for you for 750 bucks. PM me.
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Aug 7, 2022 20:44
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Midas, Brake Masters, and other brakes "specialists" have lovely schticks where you ask what it'll cost and instead of looking at the pad thickness and test driving or whatever to assess the rotors, they hoist your car up, take off the wheels, take off the brakes, calipers, and rotors, then make sure you can see that through those big windows, then give you the expensive news. Then you ask yourself, "Do I make these guys put my poo poo back together with a grudge after I've told them hell no? Or do I bite the bullet and pay?"
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Aug 7, 2022 20:48
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I may have already posted about it ITT but the greatest gently caress you bait and switch scam is the predatory locksmith assholes. You lock yourself out of your house or car, you've got poo poo you need to do, you google a locksmith in your area, click a link that has a good price for what you assume is a straightforward job for a professional, call and get the price quoted on the phone and then wait a long rear end time for someone to show up and tell you it'll cost 3-4x as much and then probably a little extra gently caress you money at the end. It's so easy and so lucrative that adwords prices were astronomical (this NYT article says $30 per click) and SEO was so insane that legit local businesses could never get listed anywhere people could find them. It's so hosed up and I wonder if Google has done anything at all about it or if these scammers have just switched to moving vans or garage door repair or something else now.
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Aug 7, 2022 23:23
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so, like, how do you find a real locksmith?
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Aug 8, 2022 01:05
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Achmed Jones posted:so, like, how do you find a real locksmith? 1) Look up ones in your neighborhood (ones with storefronts) 2) Call them, see if they do 24-hour service, ask for pricing 3) Make a note of the best offer somewhere on your smartphone e: Alternate suggestion: watch some YouTube videos, learn how to pick your own locks.
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Aug 8, 2022 01:14
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Institutions and apartment complexes will usually have an arrangement with a locksmithing company, find out who they use.
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Aug 8, 2022 01:18
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Achmed Jones posted:so, like, how do you find a real locksmith? call your insurance company or get AAA
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Aug 8, 2022 01:22
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Man, I could go off on mechanics. They seriously all suck. gently caress em Fwiw, the only positive experience I’ve ever had was recently with wrench.com. I know the gig economy sucks but I won’t shed a single tear for the incumbent unregulated industry. It makes so much sense to me that they should be able to come to you and at least diagnose. The guy had a bunch of tools in his truck, figured out the part needed and went and got it and put it on after I approved the quote. There’s obviously stuff they can’t do, but most jobs don’t need a lift and can be done without all that expensive equipment. Good mechanics, I’m sure you’re out there… but your in business with a bunch of shitheads. Locksmith: bring up maps on your phone and find someone local and call them up. Lol at going to a generic search engine to look for a local business. Also learn to pick locks, it’s easy and fun
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Aug 8, 2022 03:08
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AAAA locksmith is better than AAA, they’re listed higher. E: No seriously use the locksmith that the actual AAA/your insurance chooses. Them fucks are good, inflatable bag plus reach in, inside of 90 sec. goatsestretchgoals fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Aug 8, 2022 |
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Aug 8, 2022 03:12
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namlosh posted:
They lie about their address in order to appear on your local map.
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Aug 8, 2022 03:14
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