Scams on the internet and other places. Got any?

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
The spamming here reminded me of all the people who abuse the internet and also the new ways we have to communicate. Of course all of us know about the Nicaraguan scam where you are told you won the UK lottery and all you have to do is send your bank account information so that a representative for you can receive your huge winnings (cough, cough). Or the one where Miss Smithering died and left you her fortune because she has no heirs and all you have to do is send a check for a lawyer in another country.

I've come across a few other ones and wondered if you had any to add. Thought I'd try a lighter thread after the spamming.

This one is from Craigslist.

We have been looking to rent a house because Sonic isn't going to be able to get into his apartment of choice yet so we need three bedrooms and want to get out of the small town we live in. So I noticed there were a few really nice looking rental homes with a yahoo address, which is odd because Craiglist has it's own e-mail. But I wrote to one anyway and got a response from somebody saying you can't see the house until you give permission for a credit check, which includes sending information about your bank account and a check for $39.90 to some website for the police check.

It has to be working. We can't flag them fast enough and more are on.

Any other scams going around?
 

nerfherder

Active Member
Any other scams going around?

One lady locally got taken in by this one, to the tune of over $1500. Whoever it was tried my mom, I suspect they got all but one very important detail about my daughter off Facebook.

They then got my mom's phone number and called her, saying they were the Goth Princess, they were in Canada, they were in an accident, got busted for a drunk driving charge and needed $500 for a lawyer and a ride home.

So Mom called me, angry and upset, told me this story, and ended with "But why did she call me Grandma, instead of _______ like she usually does?"

The whole time she's telling me this I am laughing quietly, because I'd just talked to her the night before, and she was telling me about a job she'd applied for in town that day. That last bit was just icing on the cake.

Mom had said "Darling, you know I don't have any money, you better just call your father and ask him."

So...

1. I knew where she actually was.
2. She very rarely drinks, has been genuinely drunk once or twice in her life and didn't like it.
3. She still has her learner's permit and is still uncomfortable with that whole "driving" thing.
4. Nobody calls my mom "Grandma."

Takeaway tips:

Make sure your elderly or vulnerable relatives know for certain they are not on the "Emergency Call" list for anyone they care for.
If Grandma or Grampa or Tanta or Ciociu or whatever relative in question has a special name, do NOT share it on Facebook or whatever. It's just another tool for scammers to use. Also have a code word you don't share with anyone but them. If you use that code word, they know it's legit.
Have a plan for relatives - like say, if you DO in fact go overseas and get in an accident where you can't communicate, that there's a way for emergency funds to be accessed by relatives in your home country to send to the place in question - but they have to contact you FIRST for some kind of confirmation.
 

SuZir

Well-Known Member
Most common scam in our hoods is to sell something you don't have. Usually electronics in Craig list and eBay-type places.

Other lately popular, and also at times successful, has been puppies on sale ads. Around here small dogs tend to be pricey. Pure breads are usually from 1500 dollars to 2500 dollars, mutts or 'pure breads' without legitimate paper work are still closer to 1000 dollars. Even if we forget (often smuggled) puppy mill puppies that are sold with false stories, but are actually real puppies (if often in-bread, sick, poorly treated etc.) there has been ads about comparably cheap puppies, but when the person has bought those puppies, there has started to become extra fees to get them to country, for documents and shots and so on. In the end there has been people a grand poorer with no puppy. In these cases there has not been any puppies to begin with, but they have managed to scam quite a many people, because the starting prices have been so low, around 300-400 dollars.
 

dstc_99

Well-Known Member
We have gotten hit by a lady wanting to buy our boat. She can't come see it and has to have it shipped to her location. She will pay up front and everything. Not sure exactly how they would get the money back but I am guessing they really want your banking information.

The other one got my friend. A guy took a picture from a real estate website and put the house up for rent. It was in an awesome neighborhood and cheap. He was in Africa so he would have to mail her the keys. She did a drive by and pulled in to look at it. Guess what? The owners were living there and had pulled the house off the market over a year ago.


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pasajes4

Well-Known Member
I was selling a car a year ago and was contacted by a woman who wanted to buy it for her son.
she was out of the country and needed my bank account so she could deposit the money. Yeah right.......
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Those are good ones...made me laugh. I remember there was something in the pet section at Craigslist that was also a scam, but can't quite remember it. Somehow somebody is giving away a purebred Yorkshire Terrier or some other high priced dog free of charge and all they want you to do is love the dog. That's as far as I can remember. If anyone knows this scam, please post it. Driving me nuts! Has something about a soldier being deployed and although the dog is free the scam is NOT free...lol. And, of course, there is no dog.
 

SuZir

Well-Known Member
You can do damage with just bank account info in your system? As a bank account number? I didn't know that.

Only thing one can do with ours is just pay money to that account. And we do freely give out our account numbers just for that purpose.

Now that I think about it, I remember hearing people getting accused from scam attempts when they have tried to do purchases overseas from private people and having asked account numbers. Around here it is in fact very common practise when private people buy something from each other.
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
I saw one on Facebook that takes the cake! This guy was openly recruiting people to participate in a money order altering scheme! You buy a money order for $5 or $10 or $20 and send it to him ... is anybody really that stupid? He says he will then alter it to a higher amount by adding zeros, cash it, then send you half the money! Suuuuure he will! Of course he's really just trying to scam the dishonest ones though.

I reported it to Facebook and was surprised when I got a message back saying that this did NOT violate their standards! A full six months later I got another message from Facebook saying that they had reconsidered and had removed the guys posts about the money orders. But somehow I have a very hard time feeling sorry for anyone stupid enough and greedy enough and dishonest enough to have fallen for this!
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
When Cory was trying to sell a used truck he got so many scammers. One in particular wanted to buy it sight unseen, send me the money through paypal but I would have to take some of that money and send it to some auto transporter. Cory thought it was a great idea...me not so much...lol. One good reason Cory doesnt have paypal!
 
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