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A fun one I ran into in Germany happened after my wife got a virus on our desktop (she clicked one of those fake play-button popup ads while streaming some TV show off of a shady site). It basically locks everything out at startup and displays a screen covered with German text that my very poor translation skills deciphered as roughly "This is Some Official German Agency, we've confirmed that this computer has been used to access child pornography. Visit this website (how? lol) and input your credit card to pay a €500 to unlock your computer." I googled around a bit on my phone and found out it's pretty widespread, with various threats about illegal activity on that computer always pointing a site to give CC info to pay a 'fine.' It's pretty heavy as far as scams go; I've heard of folks calling as the police about random charges but kiddie porn is about the worst allegation you can throw at someone and I wonder if that ups their success rate. I just had to do a system restore and clear the thing, along with upgrading my antivirus.
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Mar 25, 2016 06:47
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 05:06 |
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Arctic Bunny posted:One time as a teen a slightly disheveled dude came up to me outside a subway station and gave me a sob story how he and his daughter had been stranded in the city and someone had stolen their ids, bank cards and cash, and they needed 10€ for a long distance bus home. He had about 50 cents on him, and I had a few coins in the pocket, so I handed him about 1,50€, figuring that it's at least triple what he has got so far. A few years living in Europe is one of the few times that made me appreciate my military training. Not in a macho way; I'm a weenie that does paperwork all day, so as fun as playing GI Joe and firing a rifle was it was generally useless to my day to day job. But I got really good at staring blankedly at people who had a perceived authority over me while saying "that's not my problem." Which probably saved me at least a few hundred Euros when people tried this strongarm intimidation scam. So many scams rely on folks not wanting to get into a confrontation (this goes triple for a nonresident who already feels vulnerable under a legal system that isn't their own). Thing is, a scammer has nothing to gain and a lot to lose from actually starting a confrontation, so they'll almost always back down. Don't feel scared to call bullshit on what you feel in the back of your brain is bullshit. My favorite one was an older woman who walked straight up to me at a German public rest stop and started begging in German. I ignored her and walked towards my car, a Honda that a German wouldn't be caught dead driving. She switched to English and continued the scam. I stared at her blankly, she moved to French before I finally just got in my car, locked the door and drove off. I kinda wonder how many languages she'd have tried to con me in if I'd stuck around; I was actually pretty impressed. Edit: I should note that it wasn't 'begging' per se so much as the standard "my car is broken down, please give me money to get a taxi despite the pay phone twenty meters away" scam that was so rampant at rest stops that we were briefed about it beforehand. Wild T fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Apr 1, 2016 |
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Apr 1, 2016 17:20
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Lutha Mahtin posted:better than the kids in my neighborhood who steal generic red bull and frozen shrimp from aldi, then turn around and sell it to corner stores two blocks away When I was in Kyrgyzstan the local crime bosses ran the dump, with no poo poo armed guards keeping everyone out. Reason being is the base was run by local nationals, and we'd routinely bust them dropping cases of frozen steak, shrimp or lobster tails into the dumpster, where it would sit most of a day in 100 degree weather. When it got to the dump it'd be sorted out and resold to local restaurants. Random supplies that would sell were fair game, too - once they tried to throw out a 6' wide spool of fiber optic cable cable and got very indignant when we told them to take it out of the trash heap. There were a few locals who were notorious for trying the "walk up to the obvious American, bump into them and drop a broken cell phone on the ground then loudly demand money" scam. I had the same guy try it on me twice in one week. The only one that really got me was this little four or five year old girl whose mother would basically direct towards you and have her beg for cash or whatever else you've got got on you. My daughter was the same age so she always managed to hit me right in the emotions and sucker me pretty good, which meant every time her mom saw me she'd send her over on the double. Probably took me for a good hundred bucks or so over the six months I was there, but whatever, it was a little kid so I didn't feel too cheated. Usually I'd talk her out of taking cash and buy her some food instead which I could tell annoyed her mom but seemed to make the kid happy.
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Apr 4, 2016 16:12
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You can't become a millionaire faking homelessness. You need to get to the point where you hire other people to fake homelessness and profit from them. Ask me about my MLM Panhandling scheme.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:28
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Lutha Mahtin posted:Those are a bit like the old burglar tactic where they buy a cheap business-looking vehicle and some surplus uniforms, so if anybody says "hey why are you taking all that stuff" they can say "oh, this is {similar-sounding address} right? We're the movers". It's just that little bit of misdirection and plausible deniability. Henry Rollins has a great bit about the most surreal conversation he's ever had, with a man who he busted trying to break into his house: http://youtu.be/-bMdTmRae6c Though with his experiences with home invasions in LA I wouldn't be surprised if the encounter was a bit less witty and fun than it's presented on stage.
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May 9, 2016 01:46
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 05:06 |
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The irony is in people not understanding that and flocking to tax scams that stand a very good chance of getting them heavily fined or locked up. And by that part they're so indoctrinated that they shake their fists at the IRS, not even realizing they've been fleeced.
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May 27, 2016 03:05
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