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PT6A posted:Lucky you for only having charity muggers that target tourists. You should never give those people money, because there is zero accountability for any of the money they collect (like, they could literally be donating it to a cause the opposite of what you're supporting), but also realize that the people holding the binders are victims, too. Grassroots Campaigns is probably the largest offender in this industry.
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Feb 29, 2016 01:30
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greazeball posted:You can always just start a cancer charity, spin it off into four branches, fill it with family members, raise more than $180 million over four years and then spend 97% of the money on salaries and personal expenses: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/19/us/scam-charity-investigation/ In what the FTC is calling an "historic decision", these people will pay the huge penalty of having their businesses shut down and they'll have to do a lot of paperwork and the government could maybe, in the end, collect about a million in fine money out of them. Even a lot of the "legit" charities end up paying their CEOs a ton and/or spending a ton on administration. Komen for the Cure is a great example. Our outsourcing of government responsibilities to the private sector has gone about as well as expected.
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Mar 20, 2016 11:54
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DrBouvenstein posted:Hell, wasn't Microsoft (and I think Nintendo?) pulling that sort of "scam" back in the day with the X-Box "points" or whatever they called them? There are legit reasons to do this. It allows you to give out "points" instead of cash as freebies, and allows you to have sales on points (which XBox did relatively frequently).
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Mar 22, 2016 20:23
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Xander77 posted:Someone's running a shell game in front of a crowd. You play, loudly announce that the shell is in the middle (or whatever, doesn't actually matter) and flip the other two cups yourself before conman can. Both cups are empty, so obviously the ball must be in the middle one. Do people try that? What happens if/when they do?
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Mar 23, 2016 00:18
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ExcessBLarg! posted:Last week I was going through airport security when a middle-aged woman stopped the guy behind me in the X-ray line with some story that her daughter was going off to college for the first time and she forgot her carry-on and she's just on the other side of security and, could you take this suitcase through and give it to her? Honestly I didn't stick around long enough to find out what happened. Am I the only one who would report her to security?
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Aug 28, 2016 21:15
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Peztopiary posted:I was in NYC near Penn Station and had a guy dressed as a monk (saffron robe, shaved head) slip a Buddha card with a bit of gold on it into my hand. I looked puzzled as hell, and he whips out a book with people's names and money written next to them jabs at it a couple of times. I tried to ask him what it was, and he feigned having no English. He actually handed me the book and a pencil so I wrote my name and 25 cents and gave him a quarter. He jabbed the $20 dollars other people had written down, but since he was pretending not to understand English I pretended not to understand his (probably fake, in retrospect) Chinese. I mean, he still got a quarter out of me. Those twenty dollar entries were written by him, I guarantee.
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Aug 30, 2016 04:09
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_cyberattack_on_United_States
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Sep 25, 2016 08:24
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I'm sure these conferences don't care about accepting bullshit, because plenty of people are probably happy to pay them for the resume padding, because academia is full of bullshit hurdles like that.
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Oct 25, 2016 04:24
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Housing anywhere that people actually want to live is an absolute poo poo show right now. The demand in too many places exceeds the actual supply and AirBnB is just loving things up even worse. Anything involving money at all is going to end up with scammers in it but good god drat is housing a wreck right now. I would love to hear an alternative that you could actually find housing from.
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Dec 22, 2016 01:51
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tinytort posted:The schadenfreude sets in once you find out that most of the attendees were rich white dudebros, who were expecting something like Coachella but more exclusive. (Also, no one actually got hurt or anything, just scammed and disappointed. The nearest town was actually a reasonably short walk away.) http://imgur.com/NRPad0x
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May 18, 2017 00:42
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Avvo (which bills themselves as "Yelp for lawyers") explicitly has their (highly aggressive) sales staff do that. This isn't second-hand, I've received the calls myself.
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May 23, 2017 05:27
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stringball posted:holy poo poo I didn't realize this until you mentioned this just now, the first 3 digits of mine are shared with the other 4 on my family's plan making it even more fun
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Jun 20, 2017 00:50
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CannonFodder posted:Are you also in North Carolina? Or is that bullshit widespread? Definitely happened in Seattle, too.
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Jun 26, 2017 16:21
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I answer numbers I don't recognize because I like to answer political polling, so local politicians think my far-left opinions are representative of their constituents.
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Jun 29, 2017 05:49
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SEKCobra posted:Yay finally caught up. I guess I'm just paranoid in that I'm very careful about what apps I put on my phone, and can't imagine randomly downloading apps for referral points. My phone has financial information, location information, and my phone number isn't something that's easy to change, either in a technical sense or a practical sense (it's been my phone number for ten years), so if it gets onto a bunch of telemarketing lists, I'm fairly hosed.
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Jul 21, 2017 19:31
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:If you're extremely paranoid, even nice hotels will let you use a debit card at check-in. They don't want to do it, they'll put a big hold on your bank account which could last for weeks after you check out, and you won't be able to charge anything to your room, but, hey, nobody else will either. I don't understand how that would protect you from anything. Generally speaking, if your credit card has a bunch of fraudulent charges on it, your credit card company has a problem. If your debit card has a bunch of fraudulent charges on it, YOU have a problem.
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Jul 28, 2017 00:14
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JnnyThndrs posted:That used to be true back in the day, but nowadays debit and credit card protections are virtually the same: Yes, this would be exactly what I'm referring to. Again, how does using a debit card for your hotel room make you "paranoid," and not just "really, really dumb?"
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Jul 28, 2017 04:27
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I hate the "charities" that call, ask for a random common name, and then when told they have the wrong number, say "oh, well maybe you can help me..". They inevitably have hella generic names, usually involving veterans or firefighters.
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Sep 1, 2017 18:53
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I have a cousin who is apparently telling everyone on Facebook that she's making tons of money through an MLM (I don't have Facebook, so am hearing about this second-hand through my mother). I am enormously skeptical.
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Dec 11, 2017 22:21
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Zodijackylite posted:Car dealers are sketchy on their own, but the lenders behind the credit-4-everyone thing are conmen of the highest level. Mother Jones had a good long read (~20m) on subprime auto loans. Not only are they tremendously unfavorable on the terms of the loan, but they are often literally a scam in addition to that.
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Dec 29, 2017 23:48
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But the CFPB is an example of government overreach and overregulation run amok.
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Dec 30, 2017 00:57
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Vinny the Shark posted:A friend of mine was into Amway/Team for a time. They sold XS brand energy drinks that were more expensive, and he would buy a case or two per month. Basically, the company convinces its' distributors that other energy drinks are terrible, don't work and are bad for your health, while XS brand is a "natural" energy booster without all the harmful caffeine, chemicals, or whatever else is in Red Bull, Monster, etc. Also, they sell some BS about how you should buy your products from Amway, since it's money you're going to spend anyway, so why not spend it with your own company instead of Wal-Mart? There was other stuff for sale, like paper products, cleaning supplies and personal care products like mouthwash, hair gel, etc. The real money maker for Amway/Team was selling training materials and having its' distributors attend local seminars and meetings. They sell the "all natural" energy drinks because a shitload of the people who get sucked into Amway are Mormon, and think they're not supposed to drink caffeine.
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Jan 3, 2018 00:28
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BiggerBoat posted:I seriously suspect that within the next 5-10 years all of our SS #'s will be compromised and the government will scramble to fix it, if they're not already. That genie is out of the bottle and it's only a matter of loving time to my eyes. Only thing keeping people secure at this stage of the game is that hardly anyone has any loving money or net worth that would make someone even bother to go through the trouble of stealing it.
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Jan 17, 2018 02:56
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Don Gato posted:I've already had all my information compromised twice in two massive data leaks over the past couple of years (OPM leak and the Experian leak), I'm just hoping there is some new, more secure ID system before the next leak inevitably hits. Equifax is going to make a shitload of money off of this breach. They literally have a disincentive from preventing future breaches. Hell, you could probably make an argument that they're legally compelled not to secure themselves from future breaches, because it's not in the best interests of their shareholders, which are the only interests they're supposed to take into consideration. Ham Equity fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jan 17, 2018 |
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Jan 17, 2018 22:39
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Yuran M. Bazil posted:I tried to buy weed with a fake note once (i didn't print it out myself or some poo poo, someone paid at my parents business with it, we didn't realise it was fake until i tried to use it somewhere else). Can confirm that my dealer called me back about ten minutes later all "Yeah man I can tell this is fake you know". TBF he didnt stab me and he even gave me the fake note back for a real one so it went quite well considering While there may be some overlap, "weed dealer" and "drug dealer" are generally two very different things.
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Jan 24, 2018 01:04
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Jyrraeth posted:Got hit by a recruiter for some shady ... something? Something about advertising?? Gave out my VoIP number to see if it was someone legitimate (however unlikely) or something that I could warn people about. Sounds like MLM.
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Feb 1, 2018 02:50
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I keep seeing advertisements for diabetic dinners, hearing aids (usually "heavily discounted trials"), and stem cell treatments in the newspaper; they all look hella shady, what's the deal?
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Feb 7, 2018 02:29
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Not quite a scam in the traditional sense, but some thread here (I forget which) posted this article about Kirby vacuum salesmen. I think this is probably the same poo poo that Kirby has been doing for decades, it just doesn't fly in this day and age.
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Mar 11, 2018 02:09
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Incidentally the "I heard this 500 times a day for years" is why I absolutely loathe all Christmas music. It started in like early October and didn't quit until early January. The same ten songs that were all a minute long. Over. And. loving. Over. All day. The worst thing was when random pop stars tried to make newer, cooler versions of them and it's like...it's loving Jingle Bells. You can't do much creative with Jingle Bells. Extending it to six minutes just makes it exponentially more annoying. https://xkcd.com/988/ "An 'American Tradition' is anything that happened to a Baby Boomer twice" is maybe one of the truest things ever written.
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Mar 14, 2018 23:24
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Tunicate posted:yeah, the freecreditreport dot com scam The fact that Equifax is almost certainly going to make a shitload of money off of that leak is about the biggest loving scam ever. I really wish the CFPB hadn't been completely neutered by this administration.
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Apr 6, 2018 07:03
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ToxicSlurpee posted:It's also possible that the stack isn't even legit tickets. Or any of the tickets at all, really. I always got told to never, ever buy a ticket from a scalper because there's a real possibility that it won't even be a real ticket. Then you take it to the counter and they're like "sorry you gots to pay full price this ticket isn't legit/from a previous game." If you go back to confront the scalper he won't be there anymore. I have heard this mostly from the people selling the tickets at retail. I'm in Washington, it's legal to scalp tickets here, and have bought tickets to Sounders games several times, and PAX passes for the last 5 years without ever pulling a forgery. A lot of the guys out there are out there every game/event, so while they can maybe make a quick buck doing that, that burns that option for them going forward. Of course, I'm talking about sub-$30 tickets. Don't know if I would trust it for something more expensive.
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Apr 13, 2018 22:48
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Reality television is a scam? Who knew!
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May 22, 2018 20:22
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Eric the Mauve posted:
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Aug 12, 2018 23:12
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https://gizmodo.com/35-states-tell-the-fcc-to-get-off-its-rear end-and-do-someth-1829637040
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Oct 10, 2018 06:43
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Leverage was pretty good.
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Oct 15, 2018 05:17
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baquerd posted:Taking advantage of people who are, perhaps, predisposed to racism based on political alignment but who are obviously willing to see past that? What do you see as the positive outcome here? Because I see this as likely to create more racists.
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Nov 6, 2018 10:35
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Sometimes a check can just legitimately be a better option because I suck up the fact that I'm paying, like, $5 a month extra for utilities to not have to deal with mailing a check. Until a few months ago, I was having to write checks to pay rent, too. Thankfully, they started taking ACH without a fee recently; @ToxicSlurpee, are you sure that fee applies if you're using direct debit from your bank account, and not just if you pay with a credit card?
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Nov 26, 2018 12:01
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is going to
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Khizan posted:I get these all the time, and they always start off the same way:
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Dec 24, 2018 19:55
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Eric the Mauve posted:But since he's usually busy on far more interesting things than oil changes, I'll usually go elsewhere for those. That's how I've found three different shops over the past few years whose business model is to rip off the ignorant. Same M.O. every time: I'll leave the car with them for a routine oil change/rotation/whatever, and they call later in the day and say "it's done, but, uh, I discovered [part] that needs replaced or you're probably going to die before you get the car home (paraphrased), I can do it for $600, is that OK?" Car ownership is a scam.
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Jan 22, 2019 10:25
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stringball posted:Is a chain/franchise going to be more or less likely to scam than a local guy? I have 4-5 chains I could probably push my car to by my apartment (unrelated, why is this a common business thing? You can see the others they're so close if you were at one location, and two auto part stores across the street from each other) but always drive 30 minutes for someone my dad/family has trusted for years
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Jan 22, 2019 17:24
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