The "Deaf" Scam

[Mr. Crow]

This is an old one, but I should tell you guys about it.

A couple of years ago, we had a phone call from a deaf guy asking about expensive bearings. If you don't know, the deaf have a service that they use to comunicate with a operator, who does the talking. I am somewhat fuzzy on the exact mechanics, but the operator communicates exactly and only what they are given by the deaf individual.

So after some time, he settles on bearings that a a few hindred dollors each. Now, the boss is smelling something fishy, but can't quite put his fingure on what it is. Also, the large ammount we are going to make is distracting.

Since he decides not to set up a credit account, whe need his payment up front. He is evasive, but finally relents and gives us a credit card.

So we run it, and it is rejected. We ask about this, he gives us another card, under another name. Which is also rejected. By this time we know this is very very wrong. We tell him we arn't shipping out a thing to him. He gets pissed and I belive shouts discrimination. In the end we eat the shipping charges.

Then we contact the authorities. This is where the story gets very very depressing. First and formost, they tell us, there is absolutly no chance this guy is really deaf. Second this has become a popular scam for a simple reason. It's not a crime in anyway.

The mechanics function as such. If the guy called us directly and pulled this it would be a crime, but instead they act deaf, and use the service. Therefore, legally we were only dealing with the operator, and the "deaf" person is not involved. Also the operator is insulated from any responsability, because, by law, they have to say what the "deaf" person tells them, and they are not respocable for what is said. Therefore, neither the scammer or the operator are legally liable for anything.

The operators almost always know when they are being used as the instrament of the scam, but it would be a crime for them to do anything, other then repeat exactly what is being told to them by the scammer.

[CSR Kim]

When I worked at the jewelry store, we got a memo about this kind of thing. "Deaf" people were calling our stores using these translators, and trying to get us to sell them merchandise over the phone. We don't do over the phone transactions anyway, but I guess some of our stores were dumb and fell for it. I never got one of thos calls. It's interesting the stuff people will try to scam a company.

[Banrion]

I had someone call me in the call center with a relay service, and I have to say I found it quite amusing when the customer started getting irate and swearing, and the operator read it off totally deadpan. No emotion whatsoever. Interestingly though, after about 5 minutes of the customer refusing to provide information and being generally beligerant, the operator informed me that she was going to disconnect the call, then had her sup come on the line and explain to me the reason they were disconnecting and then they explained to the customer.

All in all it was a totally wasted 45 minutes of my time, but they do have the power to end a call.

[Reyneth]

It's called a TDD. To use it, you must have a fairly pricey (although you can get discounts if you really are Deaf) piece of equipment to type into. The TDD relay person reads what comes across their screen. And types back *everything* they overhear - just like you'd hear in a normal conversation.

While hearing people can have and use TDDs (usually to communicate directly with Deaf friends and/or family), it's rare.

I really don't understand how the "deaf" scammer is protected from responsibility. They are the ones saying what they are saying - and the relay operator has a written record - regardless if it goes through another person (who is trained extensively to only report what they are given as far as information) or not.

[Kara]

I had someone call me in the call center with a relay service, and I have to say I found it quite amusing when the customer started getting irate and swearing, and the operator read it off totally deadpan. No emotion whatsoever. Interestingly though, after about 5 minutes of the customer refusing to provide information and being generally beligerant, the operator informed me that she was going to disconnect the call, then had her sup come on the line and explain to me the reason they were disconnecting and then they explained to the customer.

All in all it was a totally wasted 45 minutes of my time, but they do have the power to end a call.

I absolutely love when they do the emotionless cursing.

The problem I have with Relay is that most customers can't type worth a damn. You listen to the operator painfully try to decipher the random peckings on their screen that are supposed to be words and sentences.

No offense, but if you only have one means of communication, learn how to do it for crying out loud!

Another funny deaf story, from a few years back when I was at Circuit City. This deaf couple came in and were trying to buy a cable modem for internet service. The husband had a little notepad, but his writing might as well have been hieroglyphics for all anyone could tell. There were 2 other sales associates and myself trying to help them, and we just weren't able to figure out what they needed. Finally, this sales guy from TV's came over to help because he knew sign language.

The whole time, the wife would roll her eyes, sigh, then ball up a fist and make this motion that looked like she was hitting herself in the forehead. At one point, she did this so hard she about fell over backwards. When the guy came over and started signing to them, the first thing he did was make some motion or other that made her jump and stop doing it. After they left, we were laughing about this, when the coworker who knew sign language told us that was the sign for "asshole" and she was suggesting that's what we all were. What he had signed to the woman was "I am very familiar with signing, my mother is deaf. I know what you are saying and I don't appreciate it."

To which I replied, "That b!tch!"

[draftermatt]

I had a call about the truck I was selling that was similar. They used an internet relay thing. Wanted me to get on YIM to talk about it so I did. The whole IM conversation was odd. Kept telling me to send an e-mail (which I had already) and wouldn't let me go despite me telling them that my wife was throwing up (which was true).

Next day I get a call from "them" again and they want to know if I'm online. I say I'm not. So they tell me to get online. I say look, are you interested in my truck or not? They say yes, will you be able to ship to another country? (Why would anyone want a $600 Ford truck shipped to them? Wire scam anyone?) I told them off and never heard from them again.

I had no idea they were calling businesses for that stuff too.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I don't know how accurate this is, but when I was in college a psych professor told us that some deaf people (especially those who have been deaf all their lives and only used sign language) have trouble with certain words in English, like articles (the, etc.) because they don't exist in sign language (ie SL is not an "exact translation" of the English words). She told us about a university professor she knew who always had trouble with words like "the" in written language because she had been signing all her life and never learned language from hearing it like most people do, so when she learned to read and write certain words gave her trouble because they didn't "exist" for her before then. That may account for some of the typed communication problems (though a TDD operator should be able to work around that, so I could be wrong). Just a theory....

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

I used to get that quite a bit. NJ Relay for the deaf you can make a call to a company via the web site from anywhere in the world.

I'd get people asking me for computers to be sent to some country in Africa.

They start out wanting laptops to which I tell them that I don't sell laptops.

They then ask about computers. I give out prices then they want the computers sent out to the African Country. I tell them that we are local pick-up only and they insist that we send the computers to them.

Thankfully I have an out. Federal Law prohibits the export of supercomputer technology to third-world nations (of which most of the countries named in the call are). Now since the law is outdated, this means that the Playstation 2 and xBox (most powerful consoles at the time) qualify and since my PC's were more powerful, they were poop-out-of-luck and I could ditch them. When they hung up I apologize to the operator since I knew it was the "Buy a shitload of crap with stolen credit cards (usually gleaned from the 419 Nigerian Scam victims) scam"

[BookstoreEscapee]

Thankfully I have an out. Federal Law prohibits the export of supercomputer technology to third-world nations (of which most of the countries named in the call are). Now since the law is outdated, this means that the Playstation 2 and xBox (most powerful consoles at the time) qualify and since my PC's were more powerful, they were poop-out-of-luck and I could ditch them. When they hung up I apologize to the operator since I knew it was the "Buy a shitload of crap with stolen credit cards (usually gleaned from the 419 Nigerian Scam victims) scam"

Further proof that I watch too much TV: I saw an old episode of Law & Order (Lenny Briscoe/Ed Green era) the other day where an electronics store owner is being investigated for sending game consoles to Algeria or somewhere like that.

[CrazedClerk]

Anyone seen those people who wander through malls/fast food restaurants with those "I'm deaf and I'm selling buttons, please buy one from me" cards??

I'm pretty sure most of those are scams too.

[Depot Denizen]

As an aside, I've had to deal with Nigerian scammers before. A few months ago when I was trying to sell my old Compaq laptop, I had to relist it well over half a dozen times because scammers would bid on it (even after I started filtering out bad bidders) and then want to ship it to Nigeria for $200. To make it worse, they would then send a phony PayPal payment, which stated that I wouldn't recieve funds until the tracking number had been sent to them. At one point I had listed it on Craigslist, and someone replied, wanting it shipped to Nigeria. They got ahold of my messenger name when I replied, and started pestering me.

The stories these people tell you are funny, and sad. One guy said he was overseas on a business trip and wanted the laptop to give to an employee as a morale booster. Another said he was from England, but wanted to ship it to his son in Nigeria. Another called me a "fraud star" when I refused to ship it to Nigeria after he won the bid, and threatened to call the FBI. I got a good laugh from that one, and promptly reported him to Yahoo for abuse.

[MadMike]

Anyone seen those people who wander through malls/fast food restaurants with those "I'm deaf and I'm selling buttons, please buy one from me" cards??

"What, I'm supposed to pay $2 for a sticker just because this guy can't hear?"

"HEY! I may be deaf, but that doesn't mean I don't have feelings!


...I mean.... What?"

[Reyneth]

The whole time, the wife would roll her eyes, sigh, then ball up a fist and make this motion that looked like she was hitting herself in the forehead. ... After they left, we were laughing about this, when the coworker who knew sign language told us that was the sign for "asshole" and she was suggesting that's what we all were.

What you are describing sounds more like the sign for "idiot" or "stupid." "Asshole" is a fist but you twist it, thumb towards your face, at your nose.

Reading and writing English is *very* hard for the majority of Deaf ASL signers out there. It is a completely different language with a completely different grammar. "Shirt small red need me" or "Fence cat sit" are correct sign usage and order. So when they are trying to write notes (and they understand the need to do so) to communicate with non-signing hearing people, they are doing so in a foreign language.

To add to that, learning words and spelling is essentially done by memorization. What do you do when you come across a word you don't know? Usually try and sound it out or figure out if it is related to another word you know - both of which are tactics that are useless to Deaf people. You can't use phonics if you don't know how things sound! So the average reading level of a Deaf person is 3-4th grade, there is a limit to the number of words a person can sight-memorize. And many people aren't identified as being deaf until they are 2-3 years old, so they have lost *a lot* of time when language usually develops.

There are some exceptions. My last ASL teacher (Deaf from birth, Deaf family) is amazing and has an extensive vocabulary. Sometimes he'd be trying to figure out how to write a word and he'd be fingerspelling it at his side until he got it right. But he is an exception, not the norm.

So it can be frustrating to deal with Deaf people - there is a huge communication barrier. But they know that (having dealt with it their entire lives) and do try and do the best they can - most of the time, like humans there are some truly Sucky ones out there.

And the peddlers with the alphabet cards or other cheap trinkets? The Deaf Community HATES them. They are scammers - some are deaf, but it lowers society's opinion of Deaf people unjustly because of the actions of a lazy few.

[HappyCthulhu]

While hearing people can have and use TDDs (usually to communicate directly with Deaf friends and/or family), it's rare.

There is now a service on the internet called IP Relay and it's free.
It's used mostly by scamers.
My company refuses to take any Relay call unless it comes from the legitimate State Relay system.

[mrtauntaun]

I feel really bad for the legitimately deaf. I got those calls all the time back when I sold computers, at least one per month. All scams, never once got a real one. We did have one deaf customer, but he always came into the store and was a nice guy.
Eventually, the owner issued a decree that we were not even allowed to take those calls anymore. His lawyer drew up a disclaimer we were to read to the operator and then hang up.