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Sass,
The worst thing about scams, like the one you just described, is that you have to be on your toes every minute of every day. I think, unfortunately, that the Internet has given a big boost to the Con Arts. They have gone international with a remarkable swiftness.
My father was once scammed by some gambling scheme that took him for about the same amount of money. Yet he became defensive about it, and would never admit he was scammed. That's why so many con artists get away with what they do. People can't admit, even to themselves, that they have been suckered. 
posted by
Jack_Flash
on March 25, 2006 at 1:46 AM
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Sass,
I have had scams like that in my email dozens of times. The favorite seems to be some rich attorney or CPA who died in a traffic accident someplace overseas and I need to get into it with a bunch of BS to claim his estate that was not taken care of in his will. All kinds of garbage like that comes in my email. It's set up in such a way that it is almost impossible to filter without going through it manually. The header info is usually all you need to see, but sometimes you have to open it. I usually open them with the text program to avoid virus junk, but it gets to be a real pain.
posted by
Jack_Flash
on March 25, 2006 at 1:29 AM
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Good save on the sauce
As for scam artists, my hubby worked with a guy that lost $5,000 due to a scam that sounded legitimate. He was told to open an account, and that they needed him to deposit the money into it. It was supposed to be an attorney from Africa that needed help with an offshore account or something like that. Everyone kept telling Ken that it was a scam, but he insisted that he prayed on it, and that it was legitimate. It wasn't, and he almost lost his house over it.
posted by
Sherri_G
on March 25, 2006 at 12:48 AM
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Sass,
Thanks for reading. Scams really are getting more hard core. The problem is that it's a little like panhandling--it gets more and more aggressive until it reaches the point of being strongarm robbery.
You do start to wonder how such people can think of themselves humans. Those who are least capable of dealing with them, far too often the elderly, are those who can least afford it.
I, too, generally give solicitors a quick hangup. There are so many that you have no choice. I had a phone blocker, but the problem with that is that it becomes a pain for people who you want calling to get through. To tell the truth, I have become so expert at cutting off scammers and salesmen that I can walk onto any car lot in town with no concern whatsoever. They don't know that I'm a post-grad student in Telephonic Tactics. I have a third degree black belt in Phone Fu, and it works well on car lots.
On that enchilada sauce: I was able to get just enough onto the enchiladas to make them edible. Fortunately, I insisted on an enchilada red for the kitchen paint, so that was pretty easy to clean up. That was a very wise color choice.
posted by
Jack_Flash
on March 25, 2006 at 12:41 AM
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That is some scary chit
It makes you wonder how these people can call themselves humans. Scams are getting more and more hard core. I refuse to talk to solicitors. Maybe you should consider getting one of those phone zapper thingy woppers. I have to ask you, did you manage to get the enchilada sauce on the enchiladas, or did it all go on the wall?
posted by
Sherri_G
on March 25, 2006 at 12:06 AM
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Nanar,
That's what I was thinking. Mostly I was trying to get information about them and find out what they had on me. I'm sure they thought they had hooked a championship Marlin. They weren't about to give up, but I wasn't about to give them a hint of an account number. I believe I talked to every con artist in their International Phone Room. I sure hope I ran up their long-distance bill. I know it was long distance because of the way the phone kept crapping out, but they might have been using the Internet for free long D. Something of an adventure, actually.
Every one of the phone sales/con calls uses the same tactics. I just had one this morning from some nut selling Home Improvement windows. I just put the hang on that guy. He was really an amateur. No fun at all.
posted by
Jack_Flash
on March 24, 2006 at 2:09 PM
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Jack
Wow, they must have thought they had a live one there- you on the phone for 40 minutes!
posted by
Nanaroo
on March 24, 2006 at 7:28 AM
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Babe,
I don't think so. Free stuff is plain old sucker bait, but I don't think I need to tell you that.
If you are really interested, I can forward all of my free offers to you. I get 50 to 100 a day. And do you need a magic weight loss pill, or a colon cleaner, or free prescriptions? I get notices that I have won four or five lotteries a day. And online gambling, are you interested in that? Free trips to the Bahamas? Land in Costa Rica for ten cents and acre? Free meals for giving your opinion on fast food joints? I'm not sure you would be interested yourself, but maybe you have a male friend who would like to have a giant penis that stays up for 12-14 hours. You might like to get that for someone you know. It's supposed to make women delirious with joy.
I have hundreds of offers that I could pass on to you, if you would like.
posted by
Jack_Flash
on March 23, 2006 at 6:29 PM
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fourcats,
It was about the biggest BS scam I have run into. Of course, my email is stuffed with that kind of crap. I now refer to checking my email as ''dumping the garbage.'' I get things from Blogit, friends, family, subscriptions, and a lot of other things, but about 98% is just plain junk. And they set it up in such a way that you have to manually filter most of it. Today, after only about 20 hours, I had 115 pieces of junk.
The entire country, no, the entire planet, has turned into two kinds of people: irritating, high-pressure salesmen that you want to punch in the nose, and con artists. It's become almost impossible to tell them apart.
posted by
Jack_Flash
on March 23, 2006 at 6:08 PM
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So maybe I shouldn't sign up for the free computer?
posted by
babe_rocks
on March 23, 2006 at 11:30 AM
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wow, must be bullshit.
at least, i'm pretty sure that's what i'm smelling! some people will do anything for a scam, hey?!
posted by
fourcats
on March 23, 2006 at 8:56 AM
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fourcats,
I thought about that after posting. I should add it in. They were going to deposit $5000 in my bank account. It was supposedly some kind of free grant money from the Federal Government and I was supposed to be happy about getting it because I was a randomly selected taxpayer. From the Federal Government, yet every one of these guys had a foreign accent, and I could never get straight answers about what agency the grant was from. The only stipulation was that I had to verify that I would not use the money for any illegal activity. Their phone room was loaded with supervisors of supervisors of supervisors.
I should add that to the post before many more people read it. Thanks for mentioning.
posted by
Jack_Flash
on March 23, 2006 at 1:15 AM
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i think i missed something in your post -
"they" wanted to
give you money? what was the reason?
posted by
fourcats
on March 23, 2006 at 12:39 AM
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mpo,
Hi. Phishing is kind of like fishing, but it's for information. I think it started with Web scammers who use phoney front stuff to get information for junk email, and just about anything else they can get. SSN, name, address, on and on. You start getting junk email, junk postal mail, big scam offers, make a million a minute with your PC offers, etc, etc. I got snagged by an official looking sign up for the TV station website thing, and have been getting swamped by junk and scams ever since. They do the same thing by telephone.
Mexican Food? I don't think you could live in the Southwest without becoming addicted to it. I talk about it a lot, but believe it or not, I actually do eat other stuff. Thanks for telling me that I talk about it a lot. I hate to display obsessions publicly. It's not my fault, though, it's one of those addictions I started to talk about here. I probably should sue the government of Mexico for a villa on the Mexican Riviera. Mazatlan, Acapulco, Zijuantanejo, whatever they might have available.
posted by
Jack_Flash
on March 23, 2006 at 12:33 AM
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Okay, I'm really dense ...
what is phishing exactly? I mean, I can sorta get the jist (from the rest of the post).
Btw, do you eat a lot of Mexican food? Cause, it seems to me you mention it a lot.
"Think outside the bun."
posted by
Mademoiselle
on March 23, 2006 at 12:18 AM
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