Scams...

[bankworking]

Few little facts:

--If you never entered a lottery, you can't have won. And there is no such thing as a country-wide lottery that draws a random name from phone book listings.

--You ESPECIALLY did not win a Canadian lottery that you never entered from within the U.S.

--If you have to cash a check and send money back, IT IS A SCAM! Think about it people! Why wouldn't they just send you a smaller check if they just need some of it back?

--Western Union does not hire people off of monster.com to mystery shop for them

--Neither does Money Gram.

--Legitimate mystery shopper services either give you a company card to use, or have you send in receipts for reimbursement. See above about western union

--Generally, employers actually want to interview you before they hire you.

--NO legitimate work-from-home business will have their clients send you money just so you can forward most of all of that money elsewhere. How does this even make sense? Seriously folks, why would a company ask a newly-hired employee to put THE COMPANY'S checks into the employee's account (or an account opened by the employee), even if they weren't then asking you to send it on elsewhere?

--However much in love you are with that guy (or girl) who you met online. However much you would love to meet them. WHY would they need YOU to cash their check and send them back the money for the plane ticket? Have them cash their own check and buy their own ticket.


There are more, but those are the scams that I just have trouble believing how many people try to fall for them...

[Dips]

Oooh. Working in a bank, I bet you've seen the fallout from a lot of these scams. Do your customers try to fight you if you try to tell them it's a scam? Or try to blame you when they lose their money?

[Sheldonrs]

I used to believe these were all scams too until I was given 27 Billion dollars from Prince Whatsisname in Zimbabwe. Woohoo! I'm rich I tells ya!!!

[Wade]

Or, if you want even more fun, scam the scammer. There's an art to it, which I am far from proficient at, but I've heard some pretty funny stories about reverse-scamming. Tried it once myself on the Nigerian "inheritance" scam, but they only got pissy/impatient and moved on to their next victim.

[MadMike]

Or, if you want even more fun, scam the scammer. There's an art to it, which I am far from proficient at, but I've heard some pretty funny stories about reverse-scamming. Tried it once myself on the Nigerian "inheritance" scam, but they only got pissy/impatient and moved on to their next victim.

There's info about that sort of thing here.

[MannersMakethMan]

I used to believe these were all scams too until I was given 27 Billion dollars from Prince Whatsisname in Zimbabwe. Woohoo! I'm rich I tells ya!!!

If they're Zimbabwean dollars, the e-mail's worth more.

Actually, the e-mail's worth more than what you'll get anyway...

[Soulstealer]

I keep getting lottery winnings from the UK, I've never been to the UK. I've also had a European one, Russian one, and for some reason the UN wants to give me money. I don't remember anymore why the UN wants to give me money.

[sirwired]

Didn't you know that through the Economic Stimulus Program, (you know, the one that HASN'T PASSED YET), the government is going to just hand me "grant" money! Just because I ask!

SirWired

[Mr Hero]

It's not a scam. You tell them all of your credit card numbers, and if one of them's lucky, you win a prize.

[mandaliz8704]

Or you tell them your name is Ms. Dawn Keebals from the farm, and tell them to take a picture while holding a sign that reads "I Love Dawn Keebals!" and aspire to have it posted in the trophy room at 419eater.

They never did take that picture for me.

[Kogarashi]

Hubby got one of the phone call ones from Jamaica claiming he'd won a lottery by buying something online. He knew right away it was a scam, even if I hadn't overheard the start of the conversation ("I won a what? A lottery? I didn't enter one....") and stood there frowning in his general direction, and tried to lead the guy on by asking all these questions about how he got entered. He even told the guy he was perfectly glad to pay the IRS fees to get the 4million dollars instead of handing out bank account info to dodge it by paying a "smaller" transfer fee. He also Googled the scam and asked the caller about why these websites were calling it a scam.

The caller finally hung up on Hubby.

[BarbieGirl]

I love the ones where they say so and so died and YOU'RE their last remaining heir!!!!! 'wow I never knew I had an uncle Georgio in tunsania, why didn't you ever tell me about him mom?!?' 'We'll he just made too much money so we all disowned him.'

[Kogarashi]

Oooh, how about the phishing/virus/keylogger/whatever e-mails coming from the webmaster of my domain name telling me my account will soon expire?

I am the webmaster. ::drums fingers on desk::

[Setsunaela]

I had a phonecall lastnight that I'm pretty sure was a scammer.. talking about how I signed up for some magazines and did i get them? ( i did sign up for magazines that I never got so I stayed on the phone) and then they started going on about how my first ones were already paid for, and the bonuses I just had to pay shipping and stuff, and then started asking me a bunch of questions, and then started asking for my billing info..
See.. but they already said I'd already paid.. and since I pay for EVERYTHING with my credit/debit card, they'd HAVE that info.. so.. I hung up!

[Imogene]

Woohoo! I'm rich I tells ya!!!

So, why're you still working in retail? Hmm? Masochistic?