S/O Beggars, Moochers and Scammers

[Tea Drinker]

Most likely, the "time limit" was when a specific police officer's shift ended, and they weren't going to pay overtime for him to wait for someone whose card had been stolen to call back. That sounds like the relevant police department doesn't want to take a lot of trouble about a non-violent crime whose victims are in another state and thus unlikely to call and complain. (There are rules about how long a suspect can be held without charges, but it seems unlikely that they had taken long enough to call your parents for that to take effect.)

[nutraxfornerves]

I was loading groceries into my car yesterday when a woman came up and started talking non stop about how she would never, ever ask for money, but this is terrible, her bank goof ed and all her money was stolen and her kids are starving, and the rent is due, and I don't know what all. I tuned her out and kept loading groceries. Even though I was rather clearly ignoring her, she went on and on. When I was done, I looked at her and said, "sorry, but no" and got in my car.

She might have been more convincing had she not been taking swigs out of a beer bottle.

[Hillia]

My brother's first wife called my mom when he was overseas in Kuwait and told her that she was pregnant and that the Army had messed up his paycheck and she was broke.  My mom sent her money for 'bills' and several care packages of maternity clothes, baby stuff, etc.  Turns out that his paycheck was being deposited just fine, and while she was pregnant, it wasn't with Bro's baby.  She disappeared with all the money from their checking and savings accounts, plus maxed out the cash advances on their credit cards, then resurfaced in New Orleans with her baby daddy.  After he dumped her, she and her parents asked my brother if he would claim paternity so she could have the baby in an Army hospital.  He declined.

[Morrigan]

I just got these two scams in my (works) inbox within 4 hours of each other.  Names changed, but all else is what I got. 

Hello,
 
Sorry to bother you with this. Am presently in Belgium with my cousin who is suffering from a kidney disease and must undergo a Kidney Transplant. I am deeply sorry for not writing or calling you before leaving, the news of her illness  arrived to me as an emergency and she needs family support to keep her going, I hope you understand my plight and pardon  me.
Kidney Transplant is expensive here, I want her to have the surgery at home, Am  wondering if you can help me. I need $2,500 to make necessary arrangements; I traveled with little money due to the short time I had to prepare for this trip and never expected things to be the way it is right now. I'll  pay you back once I get home, I need to get her home ASAP because she is going through a lot of pain at the moment and the doctor advised that she has to be operated on time to avoid any complications. I will really appreciate  whatever amount you can come up with. Let me know, please get back to me asap.
 
Thanks
 
Love Marcy  xx

Hello,
 
Sorry to bother you with this. Am presently in Belgium with my cousin who is suffering from a kidney disease and must undergo a Kidney Transplant. I am deeply sorry for not writing or calling you before leaving, the news of her illness  arrived to me as an emergency and she needs family support to keep her going, I hope you understand my plight and pardon  me.
Kidney Transplant is expensive here, I want her to have the surgery at home, Am  wondering if you can help me. I need $2,500 to make necessary arrangements; I traveled with little money due to the short time I had to prepare for this trip and never expected things to be the way it is right now. I'll  pay you back once I get home, I need to get her home ASAP because she is going through a lot of pain at the moment and the doctor advised that she has to be operated on time to avoid any complications. I will really appreciate  whatever amount you can come up with. Let me know, please get back to me asap.
 
Sincerely
Carl

[gramma dishes]

^^^  Multiple personalities?   

Well, either that or the one woman has a whole bunch of caring cousins who took that trip to Belgium with her!   

[PastryGoddess]

You should email them both back and ask them who is worthier to receive your money. 

[Margo]

Heh! I got one very similar, recently, purporting to be from a client of mine.

Except that it was my client's father who was seriously ill in Belgium and needing a Kidney Transplant, and he urgently needed us to let him have £1,500.

Which seemed odd, for a man who is a multi-millionaire. Party as a result of inheriting his late father's very substantial estate. .

Poor man's e-mail account had been hacked and the message sent to all of his contacts. it was pretty sophisticated as the mail came from his address and was signed in his name

[Carotte]

Heh! I got one very similar, recently, purporting to be from a client of mine.

Except that it was my client's father who was seriously ill in Belgium and needing a Kidney Transplant, and he urgently needed us to let him have £1,500.

Which seemed odd, for a man who is a multi-millionaire. Party as a result of inheriting his late father's very substantial estate. .

Poor man's e-mail account had been hacked and the message sent to all of his contacts. it was pretty sophisticated as the mail came from his address and was signed in his name

I don't remember the details and technicalities but I don't think your email account has to be actually hacked for someone to send mail 'coming' from your adress. Altho if it was signed with the same name then maybe it was, I don't think bots are clever enough or take the time to do that, I should ask a friend who works in IT security.

[Yvaine]

Heh! I got one very similar, recently, purporting to be from a client of mine.

Except that it was my client's father who was seriously ill in Belgium and needing a Kidney Transplant, and he urgently needed us to let him have £1,500.

Which seemed odd, for a man who is a multi-millionaire. Party as a result of inheriting his late father's very substantial estate. .

Poor man's e-mail account had been hacked and the message sent to all of his contacts. it was pretty sophisticated as the mail came from his address and was signed in his name

I don't remember the details and technicalities but I don't think your email account has to be actually hacked for someone to send mail 'coming' from your adress. Altho if it was signed with the same name then maybe it was, I don't think bots are clever enough or take the time to do that, I should ask a friend who works in IT security.

Yes, this. There's some way that the address can come from another person's address book, so the person who was actually hacked might not be the one who's "sending" it. The hacker might hack Bob and the email yoinks Sue's name out of Bob's address book, and then everybody gets a spam email from Sue even though her actual account is fine.

[Yarnspinner]

Here's one for which I am completely stymied:

Sweet elderly male patron calls me to his computer where he is having trouble getting the site to work properly.  After I get the thing working (and he praises me highly) I get a quick look at what he is doing:

He's advertising "an oopurtiny too get in on ground floor OF GREAT INVEsTMENT VenTURE CAPiol GhaNA CORP."  All investors have to do is send him a minimum of $200,000.

I wonder if he even knows what he's doing is illegal.  I DO know from experience that telling him won't work. 

[pierrotlunaire0]

^^^^^^^  You have got to get me the email address!  I am always looking for an oopurnity to make money. 

[gramma dishes]

^^^^^^^  You have got to get me the email address!  I am always looking for an oopurnity to make money.

Yeah, and we all need  suggestions as to what we can do with that spare $200,000 we have just lying around!   

[jedikaiti]

Heh! I got one very similar, recently, purporting to be from a client of mine.

Except that it was my client's father who was seriously ill in Belgium and needing a Kidney Transplant, and he urgently needed us to let him have £1,500.

Which seemed odd, for a man who is a multi-millionaire. Party as a result of inheriting his late father's very substantial estate. .

Poor man's e-mail account had been hacked and the message sent to all of his contacts. it was pretty sophisticated as the mail came from his address and was signed in his name

I don't remember the details and technicalities but I don't think your email account has to be actually hacked for someone to send mail 'coming' from your adress. Altho if it was signed with the same name then maybe it was, I don't think bots are clever enough or take the time to do that, I should ask a friend who works in IT security.

Yes, this. There's some way that the address can come from another person's address book, so the person who was actually hacked might not be the one who's "sending" it. The hacker might hack Bob and the email yoinks Sue's name out of Bob's address book, and then everybody gets a spam email from Sue even though her actual account is fine.

I'm trying to figure out this one... Mom gets an email with a link to some random sales site that says it comes from me, but isn't from my address. Think a sender line like "From: marysmith@domain.com (JediKaiti)". It's like they got my Mom's address, used my name, but didn't bother spoofing the sender address?

[Shalamar]

I enter a lot of contests, and I've actually won a couple of small prizes (an iPod one year, and an iPad the next).  Therefore, when I got an e-mail purportedly from Coca-Cola saying that I'd won a large sum of money, I was very excited ...

... until I realized that the currency in question was British pounds.  I never enter anything but Canadian contests.  One quick Google search later confirmed that this was the Big Scam-ola. 

[WillyNilly]

Heh! I got one very similar, recently, purporting to be from a client of mine.

Except that it was my client's father who was seriously ill in Belgium and needing a Kidney Transplant, and he urgently needed us to let him have £1,500.

Which seemed odd, for a man who is a multi-millionaire. Party as a result of inheriting his late father's very substantial estate. .

Poor man's e-mail account had been hacked and the message sent to all of his contacts. it was pretty sophisticated as the mail came from his address and was signed in his name

I don't remember the details and technicalities but I don't think your email account has to be actually hacked for someone to send mail 'coming' from your adress. Altho if it was signed with the same name then maybe it was, I don't think bots are clever enough or take the time to do that, I should ask a friend who works in IT security.

Yes, this. There's some way that the address can come from another person's address book, so the person who was actually hacked might not be the one who's "sending" it. The hacker might hack Bob and the email yoinks Sue's name out of Bob's address book, and then everybody gets a spam email from Sue even though her actual account is fine.

I'm trying to figure out this one... Mom gets an email with a link to some random sales site that says it comes from me, but isn't from my address. Think a sender line like "From: marysmith@domain.com (JediKaiti)". It's like they got my Mom's address, used my name, but didn't bother spoofing the sender address?

My favorite is when I get one's from myself (when I check the email details its not my email address, but at quick glance to my inbox that's the sender name that come up).