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Post by stepper on Jun 8, 2016 22:20:57 GMT -6
I mentioned in The Never Ending Thread that maybe it was time we had a thread dedicated to scam warnings, or on a broader scale, just plain warnings. My tax problems with identity theft because the Office of Personnel Management couldn't figure out how to encrypt their data could go here too.
As the scams show up in your personal life, or somewhere else, let's share. It doesn't matter how serious or obvious a scam is, a warning here may save someone somewhere a lot of heartache.
The basic warning I have is to watch for misspelled words or poorly constructed sentences. These errors show up frequently.
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Post by Mini Mia on Jun 9, 2016 2:04:52 GMT -6
There are some mentions of scams here. Seems no one has posted in there in a long while though.
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Post by stepper on Jun 9, 2016 16:15:15 GMT -6
I looked for another thread but couldn't find it. We'll see how things fall out.
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Post by Mini Mia on Jun 9, 2016 18:24:48 GMT -6
I forget about that board, and rarely post information in there, sadly.
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Post by stepper on Sept 20, 2016 19:26:25 GMT -6
Got this from within the DoD, but it's been on the news too. You get a call or voicemail from someone claiming to be from the IRS. You’re being sued and this your final notice, the caller says. Don’t panic. And don’t return the call. It’s a scam!............. www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/voicemail-irs-imposter |
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 20, 2016 22:07:09 GMT -6
I got such a call while on my way to pick up Mom at the nursing home to take to the kidney clinic for dialysis a couple of years ago. I giggled the whole time I was on the phone with them. There are videos on YouTube of people who love to play with them.
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Post by stepper on Sept 21, 2016 19:51:04 GMT -6
That sounds interesting - I'll have to look some of them up. Thanks for the idea!
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 21, 2016 23:50:14 GMT -6
You are most welcome.
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Post by stepper on Sept 22, 2016 19:49:01 GMT -6
The one where they called the cop and when he calls back it turns out it's a party line with a couple people already there saying it's a scam, and the person in India in the back ground cursing at them, that one was funny!
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 22, 2016 22:03:04 GMT -6
Yeah. Saw that one.
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Post by Phalon on Sept 23, 2016 5:57:42 GMT -6
I've gotten this a couple of times, and felt very honored that the IRS would take the time to look up my phone number and make a personal call rather than send a form letter letting me know something was wrong with my taxes.
(eye-roll)
How could anyone possibly fall for this? The IRS is calling you? And giving you a final notice? Doesn't anyone stop to think 'Huh...where are all the other previous notices?' Or that any of this might be a tiny bit suspicious.
All it takes is a two-minute drill to search anything that might sound a bit off, and people would save themselves a whole lot of headache.
I realize that unfortunately a lot of the people who might fall for something like this are elderly though, and it's very sad.
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Post by stepper on Sept 23, 2016 17:54:35 GMT -6
Wow! Not once here! The only one I got was a collection agency and it could have been that they were calling everyone with my less-than-uncommon name. They tried to convince me that since I had answered the phone, I had accepted the debt and they wanted their money NOW. I suppose they did not hold their breath while waiting, but they never called back.
It's surprising to those of us who have exposure to such things in one form or another, but clearly they are successful at stealing cash or they wouldn't bother with it. I read somewhere that they are more successful with the elderly because, among other things, they grew up in a different time and are more trusting - especially when some form of authority is being represented (or misrepresented.).
The news was talking within the past few days about an elderly couple who was scammed by their grandson. He talked them into letting him manage their money; then he ran up debt and without telling them he mortgaged their home and failed to make payments. Of course the bank foreclosed. Still he didn't tell them anything was going on. By the time the grandparents found out, they'd lost all their savings and their home. They ended up in a rented trailer that was funded by a Go-Fund-Me account set up by friendly neighbors. I don't know what happened to the grandson but I suspect he could be tried for fraud and elderly abuse, neither of which will resolve the financial crisis in which those poor people now find themselves.
It's foolish to say bad things like this didn't happen "in the good old days", but it sure as heck seems much more prevalent now.
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 23, 2016 20:30:41 GMT -6
Recently, I started receiving calls that claimed to be the "Vet Support Fund." At first, I let my answering machine deal with them, but then they began calling at least 6 times per day on Labor Day weekend, so I then picked up the receiver and hung it back up just to silence the ringing as quickly as possible.
They had done the same with my Mother, a month or two before she went to live with my sister, until she agreed to allow them to send her an envelop where she would send them some money. In exchange, they would leave her alone. She gave them under $30, but they didn't stop calling, or sending more envelops.
I'd already been getting calls where they'd ask if my husband was home, and when I said he wasn't they'd hang up. I Googled the number and learned that they only talked to men, and claimed to be hired by the NRA to get information.
I informed my phone company in case others were also being harassed, and that was the end of calls from either of them.
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Post by stepper on Sept 24, 2016 20:27:24 GMT -6
A sure sign that it's a scam call out center. Only a Debt Collection Agency or a calling center will call that often, and you can make the collection agency stop calling.
I'm sorry Joxcee, but this is precisely why they don't stop. They figure they can wear some people down and they'll get money for nothing. Then they share her name and address with other agencies or flag your name for repeat calls because they call out for more than one "charity". One you've been flagged as a target, it's very hard to get them to stop. The law says that if a company has a working relationship with you, then they have the right to call you even if your number is on the do-no-call list. Since the calling company represents other interests (charities, surveys, whatever) but it's the calling company that has a technical working relationship, they can continue calling you even when you successfully block the one you know about.
That's awfully rude of them. Tell them that if they can't talk to you, they'll never talk to him.
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 25, 2016 1:25:30 GMT -6
I should have just told them I'm not married, but you never know the reason they're asking about a husband.
Yeah. She started getting calls from all kinds of charities. She let the answering machine get them, mostly, probably depended on what her mental state was when each of the calls came in. So, one of the best things about Mom going to stay with my sister was getting her away from all those annoying phone calls. And they've only stopped within the last month or so.
While I was there today, to feed the cat and throw outdated can food in the trash, there was a call from a private number. The answering machine picked up before I could answer, and when I answered no one said anything. My first thought was someone checking to see if the house was empty. My cousin, who lives a small field away, keeps an eye on the place, and so does the guy who lives across the road, so I feel better about knowing they're there.
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Post by Phalon on Sept 25, 2016 5:40:11 GMT -6
I think it's also because that generation was not only more trusting of authority, but was brought up not to question authority.
The elderly are targets, and also young adults who are somewhat naive - remember this topic started (in another thread) because of LX's experience with the employment scam. When I was telling Crazy Cheryl about LX's experience, she said her daughter too got caught up in a similar thing. Looking to make some extra money while at college, she applied for one of those mystery shopper jobs. Unfortunately, she took the "job", and ended up being out nearly $2000, and it took months for Crazy Cheryl to straighten out things with the bank.
The good old days had their fair share of scams, I'm sure - the pyramid scheme has been around for more than a hundred years! My brother and his first wife as newlyweds fell for that in their early twenties, and lost thousands. Out of curiosity I drilled - "scam" became a word in 1963; "swindler" dates back to 1774!
The Internet has certainly made things easier for the scammers though, giving them quick access to a whole lot more people, making their scams more widespread. Fortunately, the Internet has also made it easier for people to find out these scams exist.
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Post by Phalon on Sept 25, 2016 6:16:07 GMT -6
Oh! And I forgot about the whole "Verve" energy drink scam! LX's buddy across the hall in freshman year got sucked into this, and LX nearly was too (she got hooked on the "healthy" drinks too for a while) - she was considering joining, but talked to us about it first; I drilled, and yes it is a different type of pyramid scam specifically marketed on colleges campuses. nypost.com/2013/09/29/energy-drinks-college-push-raising-pyramid-alarms/The real sh!tty thing about this is the orders are auto-filled monthly - meaning sellers are sent monthly shipments of the product whether they sold the previous month's yet or not...and the cost of the product an automatic withdrawal from their bank account, which of course for a college kid is usually next to nothing, putting them in all kinds of financial trouble. Oh, another drill shows, Vemma, the company that makes "Verve" was shut down by the Federal Trade Commission last year for running a pyramid scheme. america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/8/26/vemma-shut-down-for-running-pyramid-scheme.html |
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Post by stepper on Sept 25, 2016 12:48:41 GMT -6
That's the worst problem for many of the victims - it can take a long time to undo the damage. While you are fighting to straighten things out, which is expensive, you can have severe cash and credit problems making life even more miserable.
Never heard about this one until you mentioned it.
But did they seize assets and pay restitution to any of the victims?
Probably not. The victims are still victims.
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Post by stepper on Oct 6, 2016 19:28:30 GMT -6
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Post by Mini Mia on Oct 6, 2016 20:45:03 GMT -6
I wonder which of those men I talked to? 
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Post by stepper on Oct 7, 2016 10:39:30 GMT -6
There's no telling Joxcee. A 30 second drill found this: "A survey carried out by Gallup in December 2013, put India's median income at $616. Data from the World Bank shows that India's per capita income during the same year was $1455."
Last evening the news was taking about this and said they had reports of 900+ people in Texas alone who lost lots of money to this scam simply because the callers are aggressive and the people got scared. Allowing that the normal income is so low, the opportunity to get a lot of money even if it's a scummy immoral way to do so is simply too much for some to resist. The perception that everyone in America is filthy rich means, to them, it's okay to cheat people out of a few thousand dollars - they'll hardly notice it.
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Post by Mini Mia on Oct 7, 2016 20:30:05 GMT -6
The guy who called me didn't get mean with me. He acted like he felt sorry for me. 'God have mercy on me if I don't pay.' I'd imagine, if I'd called the number he gave me, it would have been a different story. Thankfully, I'd already heard of the scam, so I giggled during his whole spiel. Plus, I'd already done my taxes for the year, and the accountant hadn't mentioned any problem/s. He's who I would have went to with questions ... not those asshats.
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Post by Phalon on Oct 7, 2016 23:43:11 GMT -6
The two calls I got were messages on the answering machine; we screen all our calls. One sounded like a recording, the other was a woman's voice. I was over at Xena Sis's for Thursday morning coffee. She asked me to look at her computer; she is way more computer illiterate than I am, if that's possible. Her computer was "being held ransom". I tried running a virus scan - sigh - her free Mcafee subscription had expired, and she never subscribed to the paid version, or downloaded an alternative. I opened Windows Defender for the heck of it, and though it was inactive, I checked the history - trojans everywhere; it looked like her computer had malware long before it was being held ransom. I downloaded Malwarebytes, and ran a scan to see what it'd pick up. The scan took forever -it seemed to get hung up on Wild Tangent game files - I thought of Spock, and wondered if he's had problems lately. The scan was still running when I left, though I told her I was sure it wouldn't solve the problem. She wondered if she should call the Geek Squad - I said that's pretty much the same as paying the ransom. Told her to call Computer Guy Neighbor instead. She did; her computer is being held ransom by the Russians, she said he said, and he'd have to wipe it back to factory specks. I thought she was kidding. Apparently, she's not. www.ibtimes.com/how-stop-ransomware-cyberattack-holds-your-computer-hostage-until-you-pay-2154463 |
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Post by stepper on Oct 8, 2016 20:12:06 GMT -6
At least there's that - but you probably threw him off when you giggled at him the whole time. He couldn't figure out what to make of you.
I didn't replace the answering machine when it went bad. We get too many calls from people wanting money so I make it a habit of not answering the phone unless there's a name I recognize, or if it's coming from the base which doesn't provide name delivery. Most often I simply flick the answer/close buttons quickly and then hang up the phone. Sometimes there will be another call within 60 seconds and it'll be from a 1-800 number which I suspect is the same place calling again. They get the same treatment.
The Geek squad can't save you from a system infected with Ransomware. Computer Guy was easily the better option.
There are two types of Ransomware – one version locks your screen and the other is encryption Ransomware.
Lockscreen Ransomware shows a full-screen message that prevents you from accessing your PC or files. You have to pay money (a “ransom”) to get access to your system again.
Encryption Ransomware changes your files by encrypting the them with an impossible to guess encryption key. You pay the ransom to get the key so you can unlock your files.
Ransomware can get on your PC from nearly any source that any other malware code can downloaded. I recently read that a bank paid off a Ransomware problem - but generally banks are very quiet about that kind of thing. It's a growing problem though and yet another reason that protective software needs to be resident and current.
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Post by Mini Mia on Oct 8, 2016 23:54:49 GMT -6
Before Mom's health got so bad, I always let the answering machine pick up if I didn't recognize the name/number ... but with more doctors, nurses, and such calling I got into the habit of always picking up. I haven't quite got out of the habit yet.
Actually, I don't even know why I have an answering machine. It's over in the corner of the room, and I rarely check to see if there are any messages.
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Post by stepper on Oct 9, 2016 12:08:44 GMT -6
You never can tell - maybe there's a good message or two. Besides, it gives the idiots someone to talk to.
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Post by Mini Mia on Oct 10, 2016 1:48:59 GMT -6
Yeah. Most of the idiots don't talk to the machine though.
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Post by stepper on Oct 10, 2016 14:08:54 GMT -6
That's too bad. You may be missing some wonderful entertainment.
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Post by Mini Mia on Oct 10, 2016 18:31:51 GMT -6
Yeah. And, sadly, some of those I do want to talk to don't talk to the answering machine so that I know to pick up ... such as doctor's offices, etc. If it's a local area code, I'll check through my contact lists to see if the number is in there, and call them back.
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Post by stepper on Oct 10, 2016 19:56:28 GMT -6
That wasn't a problem with mine. The only time things got complicated was when the caller was a robo-call and couldn't tell it was talking to another machine. I got a couple long messages when the calling machine insisted it didn't understand my response. One good thing though, mine recorded onto tape so now I have old messages from friends who are long gone. I'm thinking I should track them down again and transfer the bits I want to a digital source - then back it up.
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