jensenracing77

I know a very intelligent and strong person that got scammed today. This person knows better but these scammers are getting so good at hacking and using your own public information to mislead you that even the best of us can get scammed these days. This person lost $1200 today and almost lost $7200 more. This person is a little new to the internet and computers with no help from others to warn about scammers.

I know most anyone here knows this and seams to be that I am stating the obvious... Just be sure if you get emails from close personal friends about money, then call them and talk to them on the phone personally. Better yet, Get in the car and go see them in person.

oldcutlass

Its a shame and they are getting better and better at deception.

76olds

Its getting to the point that you can't answer any phone calls or emails unless you know dam sure who the person is calling you or emailing you.
It is a dam shame!!!

ELY442

Only my family, we have a password system. You can say I'm your brother, nephew, uncle, etc, and then I'll say what's the password, if you dont know the password, I'll hang up on you.

marxjunk

i have a young friend..in his 20s and he's a brain...literally, very very smart..and he got scammed and hes the computer generation too..i just shook my head...

He got it on craigslist...sold a 4 wheeler, guy sent a check for too much, he shipped the bike, cashed the cashiers check, sent him almost a grand back, 6 days later..it was a scam..and he did everything wrong...taking a check...refunding some money, and sending the money back with a money gram..AND lost the bike...all in all about 4500.....sad..the sad part he was so stupid to fall for it..very smart guy with no common sense..like many young people..hasnt lived long enough to experience the ugly in the world

442

They are getting more sophisticated. Got a call from a local power company "tech" a few days ago saying their crew was on the way to cut power off at my business address. When I questioned him he gave me a name and number to call at "Dominion Power". I called the number and a woman's voice answers "Dominion Power" and I even hear background call center noise. She puts me through to the contact name I was given and after going around with him over supposed billing issues he says I can pay the "past due" amount now to keep my power on and they will refund it back after their "investigation". At that point I knew it was a scam, so I left him with the comment "Thanks for your cooperation, your call trace is complete". Hope it made them nervous at least. Local police said they knew about this scam going around and had no interest in the numbers or information I offered. I suppose they cannot realistically pursue these common scum.

Olds64

It's always a bummer when someone you know is scammed or their account is hacked. My sister-in-law had her credit card hacked a few years ago.

If I ever get calls from scammers I play games with them by telling them my name is Mr. IP Freely or Amanda Hugankis.

oldcutlass

My inlaws were trying to buy an rv. They got hooked up with a craigslist ad that wanted them to do a paypal gift for the entire sum and presented them with an offsite ebay ad. Luckily they called my wife with a question and my wife showed me the ebay ad and I quickly showed her it was a scam. It took some major persuading to keep the inlaws from trying to make the purchase.

Indy_68_S

Years ago some friends and I fantasized about having the capability that when you got a scam or annoying telemarketer call to do something that would violently detonate the phone on the other end. Now I've expanded that idea to any device (PC, ph, tablet) that is the source.

I am so sick of scammers, too.

I get 2 calls/day on avg from 'Sarah at Credit Card services" or "You've been selected for a $250K business loan" or "Offer from Google marketing" or "Your Microsoft product licensing has expired" or similar. If you hit #1 to "hear more" , you get some turd in Mumbai stupidly trying to get credit card info or wanting you to go buy Apple gift cards and read them the numbers. Haven't had the power company or IRS ones ...yet.

The 'Do Not Call' lists are useless as most of these calls come from outside the US (with spoofed US numbers).

If I've put something on CL, it gets worse. Yesterday I posted a CL ad for a large household item and had 3 scam texts within a couple of hours. Out of state area codes/numbers (probably spoofed) and usually ask you to email your response to them. Googling the email (edithefw@gmail.com is one) sometimes reveals they're scams. The numbers are usually spoofed real numbers.

I occasionally toy with them. I have a (or sometimes make a new) throwaway gmail account for CL ads & yesterday I sent 2 of the scammers an excited email withe my 'full name & address' so they could send a check (with the obligatory extra $$) - which was actually the addy of the local PD & name of a detective. Doubt it will go anywhere.

Had a credit card compromised twice in last 10 years. Both times CC company caught it and notified me.

I get several emails/wk with everything from lethal download links to poorly worded pleas for money.

One thing that might help is people need to learn proper email etiquette. Hey, High School band director, don't put all 300 people's personal addys in the To: line. Now everyone has everybody else's and if one PC goes viral, everyone is compromised so now you get a scam email from an acquaintance.

It's become so bad that I consider almost all inquiries / responses a scam until proven otherwise.

[/rant]

CRUZN 66

Just the other day I listed some items on Craig's List... Almost immediately received several replies... One was for exhaust trumpets and another was for tail light bezels, the wording was identical including a corresponding email address for reply, BUT the phone numbers making the call were from two different area codes... Didn't take me long for the delete button to react...

BackInTheGame

Less than a week after my warning him of such scams, my son was taken in by one to the tune of more than $1200. He needed an off-campus college roommate and placed a CL ad. Within a few hours he thought he had it made. Some girl moving stateside from France - her belongings were "tied up in Customs" in Florida. They texted and FaceBook'd for a few days - I'm sure the FB account was fraudulent, her photo was just too damn pretty, and staged (model's headshot). She sent him a Cashiers check for him to deposit to cover her apartment security deposit and share of rent. She asked him to then wire a portion of that to the "customs" account in FL. He sent $1200. Then he got the bounce notice from his bank that the cashiers check was fraudulent. Then he started getting the bounce notices from his creditors because his other checks were bouncing due to NSF. Hopefully others can learn from his mistake.

jensenracing77

lol, I do something like that. I always pretend that I called them and try to sell them an Oldsmobile.

Joffroi

Cashiers checks are still a good way of paying someone, but don't mail off anything until it completely clears. I tell potential buyers that I won't ship unless they mind waiting about a week until after the check is cashed. If they are honest, they typically don't mind.

But yes, Scammer suck. For CL, if you get the text message saying I can't talk on the phone please email XXXXXX@YYY.com... scam.

deaddds

I love these contacts. CL is the worst for them. I usually get the I can't talk now I'm at an army, navy, af base but please respond. My usual text back is " very good, yes! send monies fast. quiker better, i send stuff fast. great." Misspell the hell out of it and try to keep it lowercase. I'm very easily amused.

marxjunk

lol..

zeeke

We had a scam going on here a while back where they were collecting money for a national burn center foundation and said they were out of Chicago. Most Police and Fire associations do not solicit by phone so I instantly thought scam. Turned it over to the Fire Marshals. Even though caller ID showed an Illinois area code they were located in Brooklyn, NY. Don't know how much they got before getting arrested but I hope not much. When someone solicits by phone I tell them send me something through the mail, it's usually followed by a click.

Indy_68_S

Toyed with one of the scammers via texts over the last few days as he was persistent. Went by the name "Sure Boy". This one seems Africa based due to language and 'Sure Boy' which seems to be to western Africa what 'Ya Mon' is to Jamaica.

For your amusement & education(!) I attach a (long) dump of the texts. My texts are in red. scammer(s) in blue/black, and 'sanitation' edits in green. Timestamps got mangled in the dump. I rarely responded quicker than 60 mins, sometimes several hours. They did try to actually call me quite a few times, but I never answered. Everything after I said 'Walmart wouldn't take my debit card so I sent cash' happened in about 1.5 hours. Toward the end, my son and I were laughing so hard & it was his idea for the closer ( which seemed to have worked because the texts stopped.)

Enjoy

oldcutlass

Thats some funny stuff there...

ignachuck

Well, I can't believe that people are still falling for these scams.

Many moons ago, the dealership I was working for asked me to take over the internet business (2006-ten years ago). I should add that I had just retired from Digital/Compaq/HP so I was computer literate...

I started posting used car ads on Craigs List. Wham, right away I'm getting "I would like to buy your item" and "I will be including additional funds to pay for shipping" blah blah blah "just deposit the check and send the excess to my shipper" TEN YEARS AGO!

At first I called the banks and the companies that the checks were drawn on and they all told me "just don't deposit the check-it's bogus" So I created a collage on the showroom wall and after a while I had over a million dollars of worthless checks!

The best one was a bogus check from Worcester Polytech. My son was a student there at the time. So I sent a note to the scammer and told him/her that I could save the shipping costs and just deliver the car to the college for nothing. The answer back was "what are you, some kind of wise guy?"

So anyway, it's sad to see that people are still falling for the offer to send excess funds back to the scammer.