|
My current favorite scam appears several times a day on r/legaladvice. Somebody on chatroulette/omegle/some other thing sends a dick pic to some "girl" and then gets a message from "her father" saying that "she's" 14 and he's going to call the police if dick pic guy doesn't send $400 via MoneyPak/GreenDot/some other anonymous cash sending thing. It always seems to be $400 for some reason. Edited to add: this is a glorious (and ambitious! $4700!) example. AlbieQuirky fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Feb 24, 2016 |
#
¿
Feb 24, 2016 06:36
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 09:43 |
|
|
Earwicker posted:No, you don't need an overseas call center, and it's trivial to get the contact info for people who could potentially be in debt by going through the garbage at an apartment complex. Most people in the US are in debt, so you could just call everybody.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2016 01:28
|
|
|
RenegadeStyle1 posted:I have no doubt that panhandling could net you good money sometimes but it's kind of ridiculous to think they are going home to $300000 homes. How would you even buy a home? You're not making enough to buy one with cash and you technically have no income in order to get a mortgage. Eh, maybe she inherited it from her parents. There are millions if not hundreds of millions of beggars in the world, so it stands to reason that some percentage of them are crooks. Some percentage of everybody are crooks.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 7, 2016 22:54
|
|
|
Multi-level marketing was catching on big in China, but the government has been cracking down. It's also huge in South Africa. AlbieQuirky fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Apr 14, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2016 00:45
|
|
|
Jeb Bush 2012 posted:I wouldn't recommend using herbal remedies for anything, let alone cancer, but you shouldn't believe anything you read in the daily mail unless you've seen it confirmed by a reputable source. Would the Medical Journal of Australia be reputable enough for you? Quoted  here ; the article itself is behind a paywall.Here's a non-paywalled piece from Archives of Dermatology.
AlbieQuirky fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Jun 29, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2016 23:43
|
|
|
The Lone Badger posted:If you're going to scam someone, why would you choose literally melting chunks of them off instead of sugar pills or coloured water or something? Seems like it would be a harder sell. The tingle means it's working! I think the people who sell and promote that poo poo really believe in it, because it was a common treatment in the 19th century and earlier. Of course people treated syphilis with mercury and kept people with cholera from drinking water back then, too, but hey. There's a really good book called Marketplace of the Marvelous that discusses why so much quackery was so popular in the 19th century (spoiler: actual medicine was pretty crap, and sometimes doing nothing or even doing basic things like giving people water to drink was better than the mainstream treatments available) and why it's still popular today (Dunning-Kruger effect, magical thinking, poor understanding of science, statistics, and risk analysis).
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2016 06:00
|
|
|
kaschei posted:Last I heard mercury treatment actually worked and side effects were usually less severe than neurosyphilis, but less effective or safe than modern treatments. This article is the most pro-mercury one I have found, and it's not a ringing endorsement (tl;dr: it may have helped resolve lesions in some patients and could have curtailed further infection if administered early enough). I suppose a better example of completely counterproductive treatments of the era would have been using calomel (mercury plus opiates) to cure colitis.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2016 20:52
|
|
|
Gas station people get paid whatever their wage is, so no need to tip unless they have to go out of their way to help you. It's not like people waiting tables in the states where they get paid $2.50 an hour because it's assumed they'll get tips.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 18, 2016 01:11
|
|
|
There's a great book called God Wants You to Roll about scammers that preyed entirely on churches.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 29, 2017 18:35
|
|
|
BBB is exactly like Yelp for old people, up to and including the point where "member" businesses get negative reviews removed, or their impact mitigated. So it's worth it for a business to take negative reviews seriously, but an absence of negative reviews may not mean the company is great.
|
|
#
¿
May 21, 2017 20:20
|
|
|
PJOmega posted:It's amazing how a business that extorts millions of other businesses has done so without a single scrap of proof. Proof of what? I'm a little confused. Do you think BBB or Yelp should investigate each consumer report they receive?
|
|
#
¿
May 22, 2017 00:35
|
|
|
It seems pretty well documented that Yelp advertising sales staff tell businesses that if they advertise, Yelp will push positive reviews to the top of the page. I guess that's somewhat different from what BBB does, so.
|
|
#
¿
May 22, 2017 20:39
|
|
|
I think we're mostly on the same page that neither BBB nor Yelp is to be taken without a grain of salt. I will accept your argument that BBB games their system more than Yelp does as correct, since you have more knowledge of this than I do. I definitely find Yelp more helpful!
|
|
#
¿
May 23, 2017 05:17
|
|
|
peanut posted:lmao he should look into ancient astronaut consultant positions with the history channel... Needs 300% more hair. The hair is what makes Tsoukalos a star.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2017 23:32
|
|
|
Loot crates.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 27, 2017 03:36
|
|
|
I am going to post triumphantly to this thread when I get my $1.56.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2017 04:36
|
|
|
Anybody who manages to make even a bit of money in an MLM is likely brilliant at sales, and thus should quit the MLM and find a legit commission sales job and make real money.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2017 08:58
|
|
|
We paid $3,000 for our 2000 Honda Civic hatchy in 2009, and it's still our daily driver (including an 11,000 mile drive around the US in August 2016). We do have an amazing mechanic, though. Bought it from a Subaru dealer that had taken it as a trade-in on a new Outback.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 1, 2018 21:10
|
|
|
BiggerBoat posted:Are things like Lifelock and ID protection services generally scams? Not necessarily intentional scams, but ineffective and a waste of money. You can monitor your credit for free.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2018 19:50
|
|
|
therobit posted:Most of them promise to do all the legwork for you in terms of disputing incorrect credit file info and getting fraudulent accounts closed and resolved. If they actually do that then the service is worth something because that poo poo can take hours. If they are claiming to prevent it from happening then LOL. Resolution services (or restoration services, as they're sometimes called) might be worth the money. The actual identity theft protection services are pretty much useless (I saw an ad for Experian identity theft prevention on the TV and lol). Anyway, here's one site's roundup and recommendations on different services.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2018 20:42
|
|
|
MightyJoe36 posted:I remember a year or two ago there was a "Native American" loan company advertising on TV for a short time. Their pitch was basically if you couldn't get a loan anywhere else, you should call them. (The reason I put "Native American" in quotes is that I am unaware of any Reservations here in Ohio). I wonder if it was this guy. Probably the Allegany Reservation in Western New York State, that's not all that far from Cleveland.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 29, 2018 15:56
|
|
|
Sir_Lagsalot posted:Unless you know the email address is one they use, it's more likely spammers harvested the info from social media and set up the account to match. I get emails from time to time with the name of friends/relatives trying to get me to open links, but it's never from the actual address they use. The subject is always something vague like "I thought you might appreciate this". I get that every other day or so, mostly "from" the same three friends who are on Facebook a lot.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 8, 2018 01:49
|
|
|
I think what you have there is what human behaviorists call "a belligerent rear end in a top hat."
|
|
#
¿
May 3, 2018 06:00
|
|
|
JacquelineDempsey posted:Friend of mine just got a text msg saying his Amazon is sending out a package, and he hasn't ordered anything in months. The phone number they list is only 6 digits. What up with this? Could be a scam from the person texting, could be a scam from an Amazon reseller (this podcast describes how some Amazon resellers are astroturfing reviews by sending stuff to actual Amazon customers). Either way, your friend should change his Amazon account password asap.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2018 02:47
|
|
|
greazeball posted:What kind of job can still be competently done by a 100-year-old? Academia? I've got lots of teaching colleagues who are noticeably losing a step in their 70s. Stamp dealer or coin dealer They all seem to be at least 100 Roger Angell still writes great stuff for the New Yorker and he's 97.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 7, 2018 02:47
|
|
|
The Big Short
|
|
#
¿
Oct 15, 2018 19:29
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:I still can't help but wonder who ever is buying cheap steaks of questionable origin from a predator van. It must work on somebody as it keeps coming up but really. A friend's father buys them. Also cryptocurrency. Also a hydrolyzer for his car.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 21, 2018 17:49
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:I think you should be required to get some kind of license before you deposit a check, people clearly do not understand who is obliged to do what in that scenario. In the tiny bank my father used, they had signs about this up at the teller counter.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 26, 2018 00:30
|
|
|
It has literally never happened to me, but also I am super neurotic and ask everyone I know for recommendations to their trusted, non-ripoff shop and will go there no matter how inconvenient. Our current dude is amazing but if he ever retires, everyone I know will get another round of grilling. I definitely hear stories both in person and on line about auto shops ripping people off and/or being incompetent. So far my out of control neurosis has helped me avoid this.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2019 05:19
|
|
|
This is one of the ways it’s cheaper to have money, I guess? When you have money, you have your car serviced regularly by the person you’ve had recommended to you as honest and not a ripoff, so you have a track record of that person being reliable. When you’re broke, you might not have the cash to stick to the service schedule, so you don’t necessarily have a track record with the same shop 
|
|
#
¿
Jan 22, 2019 18:06
|
|
|
My dentist always shows me the cavity on the X-ray
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2019 06:09
|
|
|
Electric resellers also a thing in Massachusetts and New York.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 15, 2019 16:37
|
|
|
BiggerBoat posted:Buncha scam podcasts The AV Club linked: Awesome, those topics look great. Thanks!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2019 05:25
|
|
|
peanut posted:That's really weird, both JW and LDS missionaries always travel in pairs. I’ve seen single men (older) on the subway station detail, but never a single woman.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 6, 2019 02:26
|
|
|
Sanford posted:RUBBISH SCAM ALERT I think that’s more of a protection racket than a scam, exactly. The tool theft was certainly an original touch!
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2019 18:28
|
|
|
tinytort posted:Last I checked, they don't even have payment terminals that can be brought to the table at restaurants. You expect them to have tap-and-go or chip and pin when they don't even have the ability to keep their credit cards in sight when paying at a restaurant? That exists here in Boston, but maybe only 10% of the restaurants I go to use it.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2019 05:51
|
|
|
The Reddit r/antimlm sub has a pretty comprehensive list of what the average participant earnings are for each MLM (compiled from the annual releases that are required in the US by I think the FTC?) It is pretty sad.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 22, 2019 03:05
|
|
|
Inspector 34 posted:I don't think Kinko's exists anymore... Bought up by FedEx, name changed to FedEx Office.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2019 12:38
|
|
|
Undertaking only really became a profession in the US during the Civil War, with the rise of embalming and patent coffins as a way of preserving dead servicemembers’ bodies for transportation. Before that, corpses were washed and prepared at home, coffins were built by local cabinet makers (in cities) and carpenters (in rural communities), and burial was arranged by cemetery staff. So it’s always been (in the US) about commercializing something that had been handled informally by family and community.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2019 15:40
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 09:43 |
|
|
Midjack posted:Where’s the scam here again? 
|
|
#
¿
Nov 13, 2019 02:45
|
|