S/O Beggars, Moochers and Scammers

[snowfire]

I had someone try to pull the "I'll send you a big check for 'your item' & you wire me the difference" scam on me a while back. 

The thing was, the "item" in question was stud service for our stallion.  Evil Snowfire REALLY wanted to ship them a container of something interesting and gooey, just for giggles but I wrestled her back into her cage. 

[Pippen]

My flatmate Des has a guy who works for his father who has lost everything through a romance scam. Not that he has much to start with but he has borrowed money from everyone he knows. He even approached Des to see if he could borrow several thousand dollars which was highly unusual and Des told him it was a total scam. He never stopped to question why a gorgeous highly successful model would fall in love over the internet with a much older, not terribly attractive man with a minimum wage job. Poor guy even brought tickets to the US he was so convinced she was real.

[faithlessone]

With these, they hack into someone's email account and send the email out to the entire address book hoping to catch someone. It happened to a friend of mine - and he had a hell of a time cleaning his email account up after that (they changed his password so he couldn't get back in to block them out of it!)

The same thing happened to a friend of mine!!

I got a bit concerned, because the reported situation (being stuck in London, bag and phone stolen etc.) was a little plausible. We both lived in a city about an hour's train ride from London, and both often went there. Also, the likelihood of her remembering my email address and not my phone number was fairly high (I couldn't have told you her number either).

However, I decided to give her a ring, just in case, and she answered. Just a hack.

It's a bit scary how convincing some of these scams can be. Some are obviously rubbish, but I can see how some people can be taken in.

[Hillia]

Years ago, my brother was deployed to Kuwait.  His wife was partying her way through the base. She called my mom and told her that a) she was pregnant and b) Bro's paycheck had been messed up by the pay office (this does happen in the military sometimes).  Mom was horrified, of course, and sent cash as well as maternity clothes, baby care books, etc - feeling sorry for her DIL - a young, new mom-to-be whose husband was in a war zone.

Come to find out that Bro's paycheck was rolling in on schedule; she just needed more party money.  There was a baby, but it was demonstrably not Bro's based on dates.  The capper?  After Bro had returned stateside, his (now) ex-wife and her family wanted him to claim paternity so she could have hte baby at a military hospital.  Bro had to provide a DNA sample, in pre-cheek swab days, to prove it was not his baby.

[Barney girl]

A book was serialised on the radio last year chronicling the emails of someone who pretended to fall for a scam. It was one where you had to send your bank details and he spun the scammer out for ages, asking naive questions. I wish I could remember what it was called, as it was very funny as the scammer got more and more exasperated with him.

[jedikaiti]

A scam that has been going around in my neck of the woods is teenagers/young adults calling elderly folks and saying 'Hi, Grandma(pa).  I'm stuck in (whatever) town and need money to fix my car.  Can you wire it to me?'  Then Grandma(pa) says, 'Is that you, Billy?' and the scammer now has a name to latch onto and manages to get the money sent.

I was visiting my own mother when she got one of those.

"Hi, Grandma, it's your grandson!" in a voice that sounded early twentyish. Unfortunately, my mother's grandsons are all pre-teen, so she just said it was a wrong number, and hung up.

I warned her about it, so if she gets a call like that when the boys are bigger, she can tell what's going on.

I got this one via FB message when a friend's account got hacked. This is an old friend I have trouble imagining travelling alone in the US, much less overseas. She messaged me saying she was stuck in London, was mugged, lost her money and passport, and needed help getting home. I laughed, asked what the he** she was doing in London, and told her to call her parents. Then I got her mom's phone number from my mom (I couldn't find the friend's actual number), and called her folks to ask them to tell her she'd been hacked.

[CakeEater]

My PIL are the most gullible people alive. They fall for every scam ever. DH gets pretty exasperated - 'Just ring me and check if your computer needs fixing!'

There was a horse-racing one they fell for a while ago - I can't even remember the particulars, but they lost several thousand dollars on that one.

They're in their very early 60s and this isn't associated with age. The way DH tells it, they've always been the same.

[suzieQ]

For a short while, I had a "cupcake shop". I set up a FB account page for it and included my cell number so people could contact me.
Not too long ago I got a standard scam for this type of business.

First, they contacted me by text.
They texted they wanted to order 300 cupcakes! for an Uncle's wedding. They wanted to use a credit card and wanted them on a date that I was unavailable. I told them I was sorry, I don't take cards and I was unavailable on that date.
Oh, that was ok! They could take them on a different date! (For a wedding?!?!) and they wanted to send me their credit card info.
Sorry, I don't take credit cards.
Again, they ignored that information and texted they would send their credit info and they wanted me to overcharge the card for the cost of paying a refrigerated van they would send for the cupcakes, so I could pay the driver with MY MONEY and get it back from the credit card charge.

Yea, not gonna happen. I informed them that I knew about that scam and they were out of luck.

Just today, I got a text from another person wanting to get "cupcakes to go".  And do I take credit cards? This scammer was at least bright enough to stop after I told them I don't take credit cards.

[kareng57]

Right. I mean, it's something my brother would say jokingly because he's my only brother, but I also recognize his voice. 

If my boys called mil saying "It's your grandson!" She'd say "Which one?"  (the older two are close in age and do sound rather similar on the phone) so the scam wouldn't work on her.

My guess would be that they're also counting on the fact that many elderly people think of what long-distance phone calls sounded like decades ago - static-y, low volume and time delays.  So they're counting on the fact that "Granny" might say in response to a confusing call "this is your favourite granddaughter!"  "?Michelle?"  "of course!"

Yes, I've warned my own mom about this scam, although she'd likely already know if her grandsons were travelling out-of-country.

[Luci45]

Frankly, it scares me that my husband or I fall for some of these someday. Right now, we are very good at turning away scams and we recognize our family members' voices.

We are 69 and 67, and I know I am not as sharp as I used to be, forgetting details and taking a little longer on computer puzzles, for example, so, yeah, it scares me.

[Pippen]

Frankly, it scares me that my husband or I fall for some of these someday. Right now, we are very good at turning away scams and we recognize our family members' voices.

We are 69 and 67, and I know I am not as sharp as I used to be, forgetting details and taking a little longer on computer puzzles, for example, so, yeah, it scares me.

Forewarned is forearmed. I guess the easiest way of protecting yourself is increasing your knowledge and being aware that anyone approaching for favours could be up to no good. If you want something you seek it out yourself and if people are offering you things they are operating for their own self interest.

I got conned into buying a stupid life insurance policy in my first job out of Uni. Some flash harry agent rang me and told me he dealt with all the people at my company and I stupidly believed him and signed up for it. I think someone in HR may have been getting kickbacks from him for passing on information about new hires. I also saw and old friend and flatmate from uni in town one day and he said he had just landed this new job at an insurance company and needed to practise his spiel on someone and could he come to my house and see what I thought and give him some feedback. It soon became apparent he was trying to sell me insurance and it was a big con. I told him it wasn't going to happen and asked him to leave. I have a great aversion to insurance sales people these days.

[Iris]

I am reasonably trusting, so need to watch myself all the time. DH has a great scam radar fortunately. One time I got reverse scammed (if there is such a thing).

Family and I were on holidays, and it was ANZAC day. This is roughly equivalent to Veteran's day and very, very few people work on ANZAC day. Mostly essential services and some shops, and even then most shops are only open in the afternoon. I got a phone call on my mobile from someone purporting to work for Centrelink (who are in charge of all government benefits). The person on the end told me that they had been reviewing my file from when I was a SAHM (a few years before) and it turned out I was eligible for Family Allowance and they owed me $3000! Now, if I just gave him my bank account details they could transfer that money for me.

Yeah, right. I (politely) told them that I don't give banking details to strangers who ring me up and he said "Well....we could send you a cheque, but that could take up to 10 working days". Rolling my eyes at his feeble attempt I said sure, a cheque would be fine. Hung up and discussed it with DH who agreed that it was *definitely* a scam.

Anyhoo, ten working days later I got a cheque for $3000! Best. Scam. Ever. 

[scotcat60]

A chap turned up at my door one afternoon syhaing he had been told to meet someone in my street re: getting a shipping order to send a car to Nigeria. He had been given the street name but no number of house, and a mobile phone number which rang out. Did I know anyone form Nigeria living on the street? I said no. Were there any persons of colour who did? Yes, but not from Nigeria. I told him to contact the police, and shut my door. I did an internet check, and it was a scam, pay me the money, and I'll arrange shipment. I wonder why he diid it, you can surely buy a car in Africa?

[JenJay]

I once got an email that said:

Help!  I'm stuck in Mexico and I can't get home.  I am at my wit's end and I have no one else to turn to.  Things are getting really bad.  Please help me, you are my last resort.

Love,
Shaun.

Out of area phone number

Well, since I didn't know any Shauns, I didn't respond.  Especially since I was eating ramen noodles for breakfast, rolling pennies for gas money broke at the time and couldn't have helped anyone get home from Mexico anyway.  Guess they never counted on sending it to someone even more broke than poor Shaun.

I got one from my boss, who was supposedly stuck in England without a passport, and needed $2,000 dollars to straighten things out. Before the penny dropped, I thought, "Why on earth would he think I would have it? He knows how much he pays me!"

Of course, the scammers think, "It only takes one...."

With these, they hack into someone's email account and send the email out to the entire address book hoping to catch someone. It happened to a friend of mine - and he had a hell of a time cleaning his email account up after that (they changed his password so he couldn't get back in to block them out of it!)

Yep. DH got one of those emails from the account of a friend at work. It seemed odd so he walked over to where his friend was sitting and said "So, you're stuck in Ireland, huh?" Friend had to field dozens of concerned calls and emails for a week.

What was scary was that friend had been thoroughly researching his ancestry and was planning a trip to Ireland a few months later so it was plausible. He figured whoever hacked him combed through his emails for details first.

[dawnfire]

I think this falls under the too good to be true. There was a guy advertising on craigslist cheap inner city apartments in Melbourne. This apartment was in the center of town, walking distances to 2 universities, all utilities including internet included and going for $90 a week when a bed sitter normally goes for $300 a week. They wanted you to send them your bond money and they'd mail you the key. yeh sure