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Warning: Fraud attempt

Sirius Glass

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Joined
Jan 18, 2007
Messages
50,949
Location
Southern California
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As you know I do not have a website nor do I ever post on the internet, yet I received this fraud attempt:
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Sirius Glass said:
As you know I do not have a website nor do I ever post on the internet, yet I received this fraud attempt:
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I hate seeing this type of thing. Thanks for letting us know. That being said, you probably should have scrubbed your email address off of the photo.
 
I like wasting time with these guys, also when they call on the phone and I have nothing to do. Worth the laugh sometimes.
I’d reply and tell frank that my work begins at 50,000 and up.
 
Ces1um said:
I hate seeing this type of thing. Thanks for letting us know. That being said, you probably should have scrubbed your email address off of the photo.
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My email address is not on the posting. Thank you though.
 
fiddle said:
I like wasting time with these guys, also when they call on the phone and I have nothing to do. Worth the laugh sometimes.
I’d reply and tell frank that my work begins at 50,000 and up.
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Yes. Mess with those bastards.
 
fiddle said:
I like wasting time with these guys, also when they call on the phone and I have nothing to do. Worth the laugh sometimes.
I’d reply and tell frank that my work begins at 50,000 and up.
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I do that too. Especially the phone calls that claim that I have to protect my credit card interest rate. I respond and immediately ask them for their name and call back number in case we get cut off. I collect all the information I can. They claim that they can see my credit record, but my credit is locked so they cannot see it. I point that out to them and then I tell them that I will report them and the information to the FCC since I have a do not call number. They start to bluster and hang up. I block their telephone number and then I report them and all the collect information here: https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=39744
 
And they just keep calling.
 
fiddle said:
I like wasting time with these guys,
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I presume you've seen some of the sites with people who've strung along the assorted scammers. Some are priceless.

I've gotten an e-mail kinda similar to OP's, though different verbiage and about 5 years ago. I strung him along for a few weeks and when he asked for an address to mail the check, I gave him the Pittsburgh FBI office. No idea if he sent them a check, though. Almost every time we've advertised an apartment for rental on Craigslist, we've gotten an attempted scammer. Part of why it's now rented to a neighbor's kid.
 
These are the guys that should be in jail. I'm a total dick to people that call. I delete email that I don't know. Jerks!
 
These are the guys that should be in jail. I'm a total dick to people that call. I delete email that I don't know. Jerks!
 
We have had two calls from the "Internal Revenue Service" threatening us if we don't send money, etc. We either immediately hang up or we ask for contact information so someone can call them back after we turn the information over to the Fraud department of our local Sheriff's Department (they have asked us old folks to do this so they and the Feds. can try to apprehend these parasites) When I request the info, they immediately hang up. Since the Sheriff talked about this on TV, we have had no more of those calls. We don't give out any information via phone or email and invite law enforcement agencies to come to the house if necessary to talk things over. If they are legit, we assume they have our address.........Regards!
 
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The best one I got was a scammer attempting an Italian accent. He claimed he was a hitman and there is a contract out on my life that he must fulfill. However, he would give me the opportunity to pay more, and he would cancel the contract.
 
Sean said:
The best one I got was a scammer attempting an Italian accent. He claimed he was a hitman and there is a contract out on my life that he must fulfill. However, he would give me the opportunity to pay more, and he would cancel the contract.
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Just watch out in case there is a decapitated horses head in your bed (Godfather 1)
 
My wife keeps telling the IRS guy to send the Sheriff on over and she'll put on a pot of coffee. Then she asks for a call back number and other information so that the Sheriff can call them to verify he made it to the house. Of course that is about where things come to a screeching halt.
 
I always try to have some fun with people with a heavy Indian accent, who call and claim they are Microsoft employee.
They tell me that there is something wrong with my computer and they need accesss to solve the problem.
I keep them on the phone as long as possible, ask if they work at the Funny Accent Department, fake a bad connection for some time and ask about the weather in Mumbay and then, after 10 or 15 minutes, I sit at my computer and they ask me to push the Windows button, which I cannot find, then they ask what kind of computer I have, which is Apple and then they hang up.
Regards,
Frank
 
I like the calls about my college loans. I paid off my college and grad school loans 50 yrs ago.
 
It is amazing that few internet scammers are capable of writing proper English (or even that garbled version spoken in the UK ). I don't think there is a single grammatically correct sentence in the original email. The words are all spelled correctly (thanks autocorrect).

What would be interesting to know is how the scammer expected to make money. A scam to just get a free print doesn't seem worthwhile. Although I am quite curious, I would not communicate further with the scammer for fear of being exploited in some way.
 
faberryman said:
And they just keep calling.
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This topic is really close to my heart, as a Small Business man with one employee, and my main darkroom workrooms in the basement, we are constantly 7 days a week being bombarded with bullshit phone calls which are so intrusive to our day to day operations, we are
seriously considering not having a phone line... Holy shit what a concept, just run the business with internet and maybe have a unlisted private number that we give to our key clients 20% that we talk to day to day. As I am trying to turn my company to a somewhat Cottage Industry operation with less stress and off the Rat Race the idea of getting rid of the phone is an option... I cannot tell you how many times I have ran upstairs to get the phone to talk to the important American Express tellemarketer trying to give me more credit to hang myself with.

We have woken up to a world where the bankers are just a series of logarithms, the power we consume is not regulated properly , and we have been the govt partner (who never shows up to work ) collecting and managing a very complicated series of levels of tax, workmens comp and local taxes that are just killing small business, and we are worried about Donald Trump, shit he is just a moment in time.


Bitch time ovr. thanks Frank.
 
[QUOTE="Wallendo, post: 2097563, member: 63038"

What would be interesting to know is how the scammer expected to make money. A scam to just get a free print doesn't seem worthwhile. .[/QUOTE]

I echo all the others' sentiments but this would be my first question as well. It has to be more than just a free print

pentaxuser
 
They send you a cheque for much more than the prints selling price and ask you to send them back the difference in a money order. This is an old scam and has many different variations.

My favourite scammers to play with are either the windows tech support virus guys and the you've won a cruise ones. I can string them on for ever.
 
I was a bit nonplussed the first time I received the Microsoft Support scam call at work.

'You do realize that this is a computer support office at a major California University?'

At least the guy at the other end was laughing as he hung up...


My wife had a phone call recently where the called claimed to be her grandson who had been in an auto accident. The voice was off, and some of the references were not right so she hung up. And immediately called his mother, just in case This one I think came from scanning social media - the lad only just got his driving licence.
 
Bob:
Just start telling everybody - customers, suppliers, family members - that you let your answering system screen all your calls and that everyone who phones should expect to leave a message, including when best to get back to them. Then schedule defined times for reviewing your messages and returning calls.
And whatever you do, make sure you have call display, and a way to review your calls and messages from down in the darkroom areas.
 
Eric Rose said:
They send you a cheque for much more than the prints selling price and ask you to send them back the difference in a money order. This is an old scam and has many different variations.

.
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Thanks. I have heard this in connection with e-bay scams. Presumably once the scammer receives the money order from the victim which cannot be stopped then the scammer stops the cheque, leaving the victim out of pocket. However if it is a cheque, then once the cheque clears into your account the money is yours and cannot be stopped, can it? Is the scammer simply relying on the victim trusting the cheque will clear and thus prematurely returns the difference via a money order? Have I got this correct?

So to summarise, provided you wait until the cheque clears in your account which is the advice that is normally given clears then the scam fails?

pentaxuser
 
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