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Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Depressio111117 posted:

http://www.king5.com/mb/money/consumer/ebay-scam-costs-teen-her-college-savings/405358464

Paying for a car in iTunes gift cards. Makes all the sense in the world.

quote:

"It seemed strange, but I don't know how that all works, and it looked legitimate," Gibbons said, referencing the emails with official looking logos.

This is why there will always be scams. Greed makes people suspend otherwise good judgement.

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Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Timby posted:

...any email account that had not had a login in the past 12 months would be deactivated,and the usernames recycled for anyone to use.

Hoiy poo poo.

It's almost like Yahoo was actively trying to be evil.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



many johnnys posted:

The Yahoo stuff is still good and the company is a mess

They massively hosed up Flickr.

And of course, their security appears to be an afterthought and is horrific.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Cyrano4747 posted:

Anyone who thinks fax machines are dead in the west has never worked in government or education.

Or interacted with lawyers.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



CommieGIR posted:

Now I'm imaging a Panhandler's Local Union.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Panhandlers%27_Union

I had to google for it, but I *knew* I'd heard of a Panhandler's Union before.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Thanatosian posted:

The tickets to the Fyre Festival were twelve thousand dollars apiece. For a music festival. No one is starving to death because they got conned there, that's for sure. Also, their refund offer for it is amazing:

http://imgur.com/NRPad0x

Lol at the way the YES/NO choices are worded for "Do you want a refund?"

I love the "You must not be a fun-haver" vibe it has if you actually want your money back.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Watermelon Daiquiri posted:

I'm trying to see what tv channels i get, and i caught the end of a commercial (on some channel in the same tuner package as cspan, QVC esque stuff, and some bible crap) that said "Don't leave your loved ones with your debt, call now!". Now giving the benefit of the doubt that they mean stuff like funeral expenses, thats maybe ok but if that were the case id expect language closer to that. instead, it sounds like they are implying that ALL of their debt will roll over onto their family, which im pretty drat certain isn't the truth (barring pennsylvania). how is this not illegal? Am I wrong?

I know the commercial of which you speak. It's definitely aimed at funeral expenses.

As far as the other, as long as you aren't the co-signer of any loans or cards, you aren't responsible for any debt. Now if you want to keep things like cars or houses, you need to assume the outstanding debt, but credit lines are not assumed by non-signatories. A lot of CC companies are absolutely poo poo-heels and will do every thing up to (but not quite crossing the line) implying you are responsible for your spouse's/kid's/parent's debt, but usually a quick consult with lawyer to write letters is all it takes to get them to go away. I'm not sure if they can go after the estate to recover.

At least that's been my experience in IL.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Straight White Shark posted:

The estate is absolutely responsible for outstanding debts. Otherwise everyone would go on a credit card buying spree for their loved ones before they shuffle off and hey, free stuff!

Makes total sense, I just wasn't sure which is why I asked.

I only know about the house and CC stuff because my once and future sister-in-law had her husband suddenly drop dead in an Ikea and he had a credit card she wasn't a co-signer for and they tried hard to get her to assume the card debt directly. As in keep the account active but transferred over to her. They kept implying she had to so she got a lawyer to straighten them out.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Highbrow Slick posted:

Am I parsing this phrase correctly?

I was probably trying to be too clever by half here.

My fiancé passed away, so she will never be my sister-in-law now.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



teh winnar! posted:

Apps asking for blanket permission should be a red flag. The lack of heavy lockdown options is the thing I hate most about iOS.

I guess I don't understand? The above was talking about Android and how easy it is to open the doors.

On the other hand iOS goes entirely in the other direction and walls off each app (you're allowed to SEND data into the app via a file or clipboard) and you have to explicitly allow apps access to each OS level service like contacts, dialer, location, etc...

What do you want locked down more?

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



BiggerBoat posted:

From forever ago but I recently called Comcast to cancel my cable TV and landline after my mother was permanently hospitalized (she wanted that poo poo). As of now, I'm still receiving cable TV. I haven't gotten a bill yet but why do I suspect that they'll have no record of me cancelling my service even though I turned in almost all of my equipment? I kept the one box because the poo poo still worked, figuring I'd hand that in once the signal went out.

gently caress...now Im worried they'll have no record of me returning the equipment. Comcast is amazing in its fuckery.

Did you turn in the equipment at a depot/servive center? If so, you've got your receipt

Did you ship back for free from a UPS store? If so, your tracking ID is your receipt (UPS scans the serial of each unit into their system)

If you're still watching cable, then you are still on the hook up until the day it turns off. You need to tell them to shut it off immediately. You then have 10 days to turn in (or get to a UPS store) the box.

I went through this about 2 years ago, told them to kill the TV service but keep the Internet, and then shipped the boxes back using UPS. I never checked to see if there was a TV signal after that, but then again I haven't seen a charge for it.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Raldikuk posted:

Except that when you call and try to argue thst you did cancel they'll tell you to pound sand because you were using the cable as they can tell on their network since you had your poo poo plugged in. Exactly like people said. No one said it was contingent on it except that if they screwed you and didn't actually cancel that you would have no evidence of it.

I wish you well and hope Comcast doesn't try to charge you for another month but you're entering the situation everyone warned you about and you're bragging that you were right all along because now you have the REAL cancellation number.

He's got to be trolling.

I refuse to believe anyone is that loving stupid.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



EL BROMANCE posted:

Comcast is 1TB these days, it used to be 300gb. I believe that a $50 surcharge for unlimited is also unlimited, but I'm generally happy with 'allowed to obliterate the caps 2 months in a year' we get.

Is two months in a year? I was under the understanding it was two months *ever* and then your grace months are gone.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Lutha Mahtin posted:

My guess is that it's random. Your idea might work but it would probably cost a lot more to do than just war-dialing every number that seems to be valid. It's cheap to set up an auto-dialer and buy VOIP accounts; it's more expensive to buy demographic data from vendors and then hire people with the skills to interpret it.

In my experience, it seems like the spam calls come and go: I can go weeks without getting any, then there are three days when I get them non-stop. I'm curious if this is a cat-and-mouse game between the spammers and telecom companies, where the telecoms figure out one way to stop or reduce the spam, and then the spammers eventually figure out a way around it.

I got three of them that had the same area code and matched the first three digits of my number today, which is higher than I've seen. Like you, I see it waves for the most part. I'll have to pay attention and see if I get a wave of calls identified with "LIKELY SPAM" from T-Mobile. Those seem to come in waves as well, I just never thought to line up the occurrences to see how they line up or overlap.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Lutha Mahtin posted:

All radio signal receivers produce disturbance in the RF spectrum. CRTs are obviously in an entirely different league than non-CRT technologies like LCD, but your LCD or computer TV tuner card still produces some level of disruption compared to the background level. I don't know enough physics to know if this level could be picked up by a van parked outside a building, but the theoretical basis for detection still exists.

It's barely a ripple and you'd have to inline with the broadcast origin with the receiver between to even have a prayer of picking up such a small perturbation.

Honestly outside of lab conditions and being only feet away, I fail to see how anyone can detect a passive receiver.

quote:

Another way that one could test for this is by trying to detect "smart" appliances related to TVs. For example if you can detect the WiFi MAC address of a DVR manufacturer that isn't used or sold by anyone locally, but supports compatible antenna input, this might be a pretty good indicator that someone is trying to skirt the license.

That would be a transceiver then and you'd be detecting it transmitting, which is why you'd see the MAC since it will tag it's MAC in the SRC of the wireless packet (and of course you'll also see the corresponding DST). However, the chipset in a Samsung BluRay with wireless will have the same OUI as the chipset in a Samsung phone.

Basically, it boils down to: those vans are fake. Unless someone is using a CRT, which leaks a ton of EMF, they're "detecting" poo poo when it comes to who's watching the BBC.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



goatsestretchgoals posted:

Could they even (theoretically) figure out what channel you were watching on a CRT? Someone else upstream said the UK also has ad-supported channels; could the van tell the difference?

This is exactly what Van Eck phreaking is. With the right equipment you can get a fairly accurate realtime recreation from a CRT or the signal leakage of analog signaling like VGA.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Spazzle posted:

Yeah, but I never pick up.

Same. If you aren't in my contacts list you go to voicemail.

I have noticed that T-Mobile spam detector is starting to pull some of these in. I've a had an uptick of "SCAM Likely" showing up in caller ID these last couple of days.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Professor Shark posted:

I'm listening to TAL's "I Am Not A Pirate" episode and drat Somalian pirates are terrible at scamming. Why do they demand exorbitant, insane amounts instead of reasonable ransoms that people will quietly pay instead of going to the government and waiting months, if not years, to get them back?

If I had to guess, I'd say they're looking for that one big hit and get out. As opposed to having to make it a career of small paydays.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



MANime in the sheets posted:

Do these people not have access to native English speakers? Hell, for $100 paid in advance I would clean that up and make it at least read correctly. The first paragraph sounded good, but it reads like someone was having a stroke or getting hit on the head repeatedly as it went on. The English just gets less and less comprehensible as it goes on.

The whole bad grammar and slightly off phrases and spelling are a gatekeeper as well. It's very effective at weeding out all but the people most likely to fall for these.

To most people, it's a hilariously bad attempt to scam money so it gets deleted without further thought. A more well-crafted entreaty would probably garner more scrutiny and investigation from skeptics with the aim of loving with their revenue stream. The way it currently is, only the credulous follow up.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Grognan posted:

Kwisatz Hitothat

:perfect:

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Depressio111117 posted:

I asked this a while back but it's really starting to become an issue - my phone number keeps being used to call other people. I've gotten no less than five calls in the past two months from people pissed off that I'm trying to scam them. Unless I've been trying to scam people in my sleep, I'm pretty sure this isn't me.

I was told by this thread to wait it out a few months but it doesn't seem like it's getting any better (it seems like it's getting worse). Is changing my phone number the only option at this point?

I think that may be all you can really do.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



maskenfreiheit posted:

Try not picking up.

Many of these numbers will mark you as inactive if you don’t answer. They won’t stop completely but it can cut them down significantly

A new # will probably also get lots of misdials

No it's that the number is being used to spoof caller ID by a telemarketer. They're getting angry voicemail/calls from people being called by the telemarketer.

That ain't gonna go away.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



I hope this isn't a sign of things to come, but I've had two voicemails with no corresponding phone call. The voicemail says it's from "+45 2"

The meat of the message:

"This is an urgent message intended for <<Not My First Name>> <<Real Last Name>>. My name is Stephanie I'm contacting you to discuss the matter than has been forwarded to my office for consideration of the legal action including these pending actions which may be filed a lawsuit and complete with the court to discuss an action to be filed against you. You will need to contact the firm directly handling your file."

There's more bullshit, about how if I don't contact them scary, scary things are going to happen.

My question is, how the gently caress are sending a direct VM on my mobile carrier? Is this a case of T-Mobile blocking the call but letting the VM through? Because if that's the case, I'll turn it off and go back to blocking on the phone since that nukes voicemails as well.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



EL BROMANCE posted:

I’m sure I read the other week that republicans had passed a bill allowing exactly that to happen.

Ah poo poo, you're right. I think it was supposed to be for political robo-calls, but once you open the door...

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Herbalife is notorious for preying on the Hispanic community. People have lost their life-savings to them.

John Oliver's episode on MLMs is the one I send people who want to know "what's wrong with MLMs?" This is really worth a watch, and he really, really hates Herbalife.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6MwGeOm8iI

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Pharmaskittle posted:

At a Christmas thing last night I overheard that one of my aunts is selling Avon stuff, is that a mlm thing?

Nope. Avon is structured differently. They do direct sales (so no store presence).

My understanding is your aunt is considered an independent contractor acting as a salesperson for Avon. She doesn't have "recruits" under her and there's no one between her and Avon corporate. You're aunt makes sales at a predetermined price set by Avon and she sends the orders in. I'm 99.9% certain she is not required to maintain any stock, but she may have some on hand as samples. She probably gets a set % commission based on volume.

She's probably not going to make a living at it, but it's probably a nice second income. Also, they won't plunder her bank account while she does it.

As far as I know Tupperware used to be the same way before they decided they could make more money selling through stores.

Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Dec 25, 2017

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Eric the Mauve posted:

Just know what the going rate is for the car you want and what interest rate you can get. The arithmetic from there is very simple to do at home before you walk into a dealership; you'll know that you expect to pay $X per month for Y months. After that the process is:

1. The salesperson will open with a comically inflated initial offer.
2. You tell them "I will sign at $X per month for Y months" and wait 15 minutes while they pretend to negotiate with their manager.
3. After they return and tell you they had to wrestle their manager to the ground and put them in a submission hold to do it, but they managed to get the manager to come down by 1% from the initial offer.
4. You say "Good day" and leave.
5. They'll try ANYTHING to stop you from walking out the door because the business model is built on the concept of fatiguing you into submission. Ignore them and LEAVE.
6. They'll call you later that day or the next day and try to persuade you to return and resume negotiating. Either you get their agreement on the phone to your terms, or you bid them farewell and hang up. (Protip: give dealerships a google voice or burner phone number if you don't want them periodically pestering you until the heat death of the universe.)
7. If they agree to your terms and then, once you're back in the dealership, attempt to alter the deal in any way whatsoever for whatever bullshit reason whatsoever, immediately leave and never return; this is a dealership that absolutely won't sell a car unless they're ripping you off.

For even better advice, the A/T car buying thread is here.

When I bought my first car I remember my dad telling me "You didn't get a good deal if you didn't storm out in anger at least once"

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



RocktheCaulk posted:

I got zero percent financing on my car, so yay Subaru.

Same for my Rav4.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Just freeze your credit info at each of the credit report places. If you need a loan or car or are applying for credit, find out who they use, lift the freeze and then re-apply it after.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Platystemon posted:

Should I help defraud the U.S. federal government. What’s the worst that could happen?

https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/7rzw8v/i_went_in_for_a_job_interview_and_it_escalated/

:cripes:

He keeps talking himself into "well, maybe this one is legit"

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



BiggerBoat posted:

Well, I posted one but I appreciate the post.

I think he means starting *now*. Plus, everyone knows those hidden camera ones on news programs are totally staged for *reasons*.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Van Meat is such a weird thing to me. I had literally never heard of it before this thread. All I've ever had offered to me were Van "Speakers*".



* - aka box with bricks in it.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



BiggerBoat posted:


another said the hidden video stuff was staged.

poo poo, dude. I was being sarcastic.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



FrozenVent posted:

It’s just about getting engagement stats for the page up, then they sell the page.

Yeah, it's one way of saying "these are not bots".

I'm also super reticent whenever anyone I don't know is deliberately trying to get me to use the word "Yes". I'm always suspicious they're trying to get me to consent to something out of context.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Tunicate posted:

Get you to use what word now?

Usually some word of affirmation.

:razz:

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



BigDave posted:

I'd prefer if they showed something else. I really don't care about the NBA draft or the PGA standings, just show CNN like every hotel in existence.

Then don't go there? Their entire schtick is being sports themed.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Hippie Hedgehog posted:

Wouldn't changing your own phone number have been an option to stop the callers? I'm not saying the best option but it would seem better than turning off your ringer (effectively DOS-ing yourself).

You'd have to weigh that against having to update *every one* with the new number. Since this is "Before cell phones", that would be a HUGE pain in the rear end. I remember having to do that when I moved just 10 miles in the mid-90s to a new town. There's no other way than contacting directly, one at a time.

I'd just turn off the ringer at that point and screen via answering machine as well.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Depressio111117 posted:

I didn’t figure out why he really wanted them until mid-afternoon the next day. :downs:

Well? Clue those of us who have a had a few beers in on it. Why did he really want them?

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013




God drat, I'm so glad I had WXRT and an aux port when this song came out. If I've ever heard this song before it never registered, thankfully. What a boring, boring song. It's just so bland and workmanlike as it checks all the boxes of early 2000s pop song.

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Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Jesus Christ, not everything is a scam.

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