I say greenlight this and farkers can discuss protecting us from scammers. (who suck)

PSA trumps Obvious?

Fry 'em all I say.

LOL, InflatableJesus. I fell for it for .5 second, it looked like a farkvertisment...

The scams I see working the best are the ones that target the elderly and people that do not speak/read English fluently. Usually a claim prize deal where the elderly will just fall for it hook line and sinker. The ESL people just don't understand and get tricked into it and the scammer hopes they are illegals so they won't go to the police if they wise up afterwards.

Anybody know what they tell you on the other end of the line? I mean they've already said you won, how to they convincingly get these people to believe they didn't win, and not complain about it or try to sue?

It's true for charities as well as scams.

I gave the ALS Association some money because Curt Schilling's shoe told me to, and they haven't quit bothering me for over a year. I started by politely asking them to remove me from their list -- and paying for the stamp -- but they won't take me off even after I send them rude requests and saying "You pay the postage this time."

I must have made "the list" that they sell to other charities, because this past holiday season I started getting solicitations from 2 others.

the scammers or the elderly?

CastorTroy

They usually say they need your Credit Card to pay for the shipping/handling, processing and taxes. And it is all non refundable.

SlowTimedRapid: ...even after I send them rude requests and saying "You pay the postage this time."

/commits grammar seppuku

I remember back when I was a young lad with no money and no credit I let some scammer think she was leading me on (real life scam not virtual), once she had me help her take pictures of a bunch of people skateboarding while she pretended to interview these people for some magaine, still never figured what that was about. Cabie friend of mine did get scammed by her out of several rides though even though he knew better.. One day she just dissapeared...

i rtfa and it makes no sense. they con people into calling premium rate phone numbers. doesn't anyone remember these numbers that they called? Aren't these numbers registered to someone?

How do the scammers pass around their sucker lists? Do they subscribe to Confidence Monthly? They meet at the library every Tuesday? The article doesn't say.

One of the scariest things about getting old is that I might lose so much of my mind as to fall for such blatantly obvious scams.

Set them on fire before I get old!

SretiCentV: i rtfa and it makes no sense. they con people into calling premium rate phone numbers. doesn't anyone remember these numbers that they called? Aren't these numbers registered to someone?

From what I understand, the numbers are registered to companies, and when the police catch on to the scam, the company folds and the owner disappears.

Some friends of mine once worked in a call centre. Not only was the "free holiday" on offer a scam, but the company a front for a money laundering outfit. The police shut it down and the people running the company disappeared into the night.

Wait, wait, wait... So I'm not going to get that Guinness bar towel?

\How about a Hot Cocoa Sampler Box instead?
\\Ha! Ha! guy?
\\\Slashie!

nytmare: How do the scammers pass around their sucker lists?

It's a database on CD-ROM updated quarterly. You get it by subscrption. The software locks the data so it's impossible to access the data after your subscription expires. Normally, it's an annual fee, but paypal me $39 and I'll FedEx you a one-month eval.

I know somebody in another thread asked if those Nigerians are still up to their old tricks.

While not from them, I got an e-mail this morning that looks suspiciously like someone who took the Nigerian Scam E-mail Writing online course

\I love how the money amount is in parenthesis
\\like he's trying to keep it secret or something
\\\willing to post the e-mail if anyone wants to see

The other day I got an email saying I won the Microsoft Lottery and that I needed to contact so and so to claim my prize, I replied and stated I want all my winnings sent to the "Flying Spagetti Monster Legal Defence Fund" Oddly I never recieved a reply, I think I should send a legal threat now.

Which? gained its results from a survey of 1,050 people last September.

They would have gotten more responses had they offered a non-existant prize.

this is how it works:

you have a *FREE holiday in beautiful sunny Florence Italy! Just call 090blablabla to claim your prize!

You call, a toll # for $3 a minute, and they keep you on the line for 25 minutes through hold muic, recordings, disclaimers and what not until you find out, slowly, what you already knew, the prize isn't FREE, it's *FREE. The * translates to "transportation, lodging, food, tips extra."

And people who either don't know 090 is a toll call in the UK (900 in the US for example) or are terminally stupid, stay on the line as long as required until they hang up in disgust.

If you actually go through the entire call, and book the trip, you get a crappy vacation in Florance, Italy, Mozambique or something.

I can crank out some mighty convincing fake banknotes on my Epson CX6600; anyone ever think to send them phony money?

Just a suggestion. . . . .

Had a former BF that responded to one of these prize postcards (the kind where the shipping & handling you pay equal the value of the prize). After that he got piles of junk mail for these scams. He was stupid, that's why he's a FORMER BF.

Anything unsolicited or not from a company you already do busines with is probably a scam.

olddinosaur: I can crank out some mighty convincing fake banknotes on my Epson CX6600; anyone ever think to send them phony money?

Yeah, and then they'll report you for counterfeiting. Unless you make it oversized money and such to follow the rules. Never know -- THAT might be good for a laugh.

Sadly, I can personally attest to this being true. In 2001, I went through with the product activation and I haven't been able to get off of Microsoft's mailing list since.

SretiCentV: Aren't these numbers registered to someone?

Yeah. Someone in Nigeria.

Good luck in getting Andy and Barney to arrest them.

I get the Nigerian scam on one of my throw away email accounts. So what I do is email a reply using the text from some other Nigerian scammer. Pretty soon they lose interest in me.

\Not all the time
\\I don't have that much time for that bullshiat
\\\Takes away time from me looking at Fark

Maybe it's just me, but why would you include punctuation in your magazine's name. It's called Which?, which makes for awkward looking articles.
/Grammar Nazi'd

Mugatu: "I feel bad for the elderly or mentally challenged who get taken in by these scams but adults with all their mental faculties, I don't have much sympathy for."

And why is that? It's attitudes like that which prevent people from coming forth if they become a victim of these scams - they just feel too embarrased because they're being labelled as 'stupid' or 'greedy'. The repurcussions of this is that law enforcement don't officially acknowledge how much of a problem these scams are (fraudwatchers.org notes that only about 15% of them are reported)

Professor Duck: "I know somebody in another thread asked if those Nigerians are still up to their old tricks."

Indeed, they're very much still at it, and it doesn't look like they'll stop anytime soon.

Blargosaurus: "For whatever reason, my wife is on the Nigerian email list."

There's no real 'reason' - they'll take whatever email addresses they can get ahold of. Often it's just a case of them scouring the internet looking for email addresses wherever they can (e.g. website guestbooks). Try googling her email address and you might find out where they got it from.

By the way, what I meant by 'reason' was that there's not singling out of someone because they're in a certain age group or nationality etc. (just to clarify)

And if you're interested I have this wonderful bridge to sell you...

My wife is a massage therapist. She signed up to a massage therapy listings site a few months ago. After a few weeks, she started getting an email from a guy in the UK that was planning on a "business trip" to our area. He wanted to know what the rates were, and was willing to send a check before he came to pay for the services.

Anyway - after a few horribly misspelled emails - we started wondering if this was a scam. My wife contacted other massage therapists in the list - and lo and behold - they had received emails as well from the same guy!!

Apparantly, one of the other therapists got a check that was $500 over the original amount, and the guy asked if he could get the difference mailed back to him. TOTAL SCAM.