Scam Warnings – non religious

[unapologeticParticipant]

To complain or warn others about scams.
Let’s get the two obvious ones out of the way:
(1) Religion. The whole of AZ is about the god con. So talking about it in this thread would be redundant.
(2) Trump. Need I say more? I hope you know by now 95% of what he says or does is a con.

So what scams have you fell for, or escaped from?

 

[unapologeticParticipant]

A new one to me. On my phone today:
“Hi, This is (crackel) from (crackel)ity.
Your 60% discount on your monthly bill will be deactivated today unless confirmed. to keep this (crackel) active
please call the number to split(?) down your caller ID immediately. Thank you.” Also a bunch of short (crackels) between the words.
Right. Am I dumb enough to call and ask ‘You’re who? from where?’ because I don’t want to loose my 60% discount on something I don’t have or want.
Maybe “(crackel)ity.” is Infinity. Which I don’t have or want.
All my monthly bills come via USPS. and would tell me of any changes well in advance.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

This is a variant of a common scam. Ignore. Do not call back. It is not a personalized call, specific to your number. It is just bots calling random numbers.

[UnseenParticipant]

I got this email attempting to blackmail me out of $1950 in Bitcoin. He refers to me as “Venus” not knowing my real name. Probably pulled it off my email address. If you know anything about me, you’d know his threats didn’t exactly have me shaking in my boots. It came in the form of a pdf which I converted to a jpg so you could see it.

[_Robert_Participant]

He’s gonna distribute a “physical tape”.  Who da phuc even has a VCR anymore? Maybe out in the garage, LOL.

[unapologeticParticipant]

Wow, ‘Venus’.    That’s really nasty. I’d report him. I’ll bet he is not as untraceable as he claims.

If he doesn’t write a follow-up he must think his marks are very gullible. He talks too much. He put everything (except a screenshot of you jerking off) in his first (probably only) letter. He is seriously worried he will be ignored. If it was a real threat it would include that screenshot of you jerking off.

[unapologeticParticipant]

For about 2 months I’ve been getting random messages (at about one a week) from debt relief/tax relief agencies.

Ha. Each gives an ‘opt-out’ of future calls instruction. A give-away that it is a cold call.  I will say, these ladies have really nice voices. I want to call back and ask to meet.

[_Robert_Participant]

Professional Assholes. Maybe they have a trade group. Association of Professional Assholes, APA.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

He’s gonna distribute a “physical tape”. Who da phuc even has a VCR anymore? Maybe out in the garage, LOL.

To be fair, even on TV, where they should know better, I still hear news readers and reporters using “caught on tape” and related expressions to describe scenarios where no doubt the recording was digital onto a card or hard drive.

[UnseenParticipant]

unapologetic wrote:

Wow, ‘Venus’. That’s really nasty. I’d report him. I’ll bet he is not as untraceable as he claims.

If he doesn’t write a follow-up he must think his marks are very gullible. He talks too much. He put everything (except a screenshot of you jerking off) in his first (probably only) letter. He is seriously worried he will be ignored. If it was a real threat it would include that screenshot of you jerking off.

He knows nothing about me. He says he has my contact list but didn’t name one. He says he knows where I live, but offered no evidence. It’s a bluff. He’s making threats that would worry many people who want to be perceived as respectable. I worked in the porn industry as a photographer for fifteen years. My family and friends know it. I think they would assume I consume porn. I assume most of them do as well but are not as up front about it.

Why didn’t I go to the authorities? Simply because it might spark them to look into me to see if I’m into something more untoward than legal porn.

I often tell people this about “See something, say something,” which is to make sure you saw something you know was illegal, because getting someone drawn into the legal system—especially when sex, morals, and/or children are involved—can ruin even an innocent person’s life. For example, if I were to be falsely accused of manufacturing child porn, the ensuing investigation might simply prove inconclusive, leaving people to think it might be true. “Innocent until proven guilty” is a sacred principle in the law, but on the street people are free to think or assume whatever they like. There have been cases of day care businesses accused of abuse, then actually proven false, but the business had to close never to reopen.

So, the reason I don’t report it is that I simply don’t want the attention it would bring me, especially given what police and prosecutors might think about my past. I have found that people assume everyone in the industry is a pedophile or sex trafficker.

I’m sure the way this guy works is to send out hundreds or even thousands of these emails. I’ll leave it to someone with a more squeaky-clean background than mine to pursue it. If he’s sending them out in bulk, as I suspect, one of these days he’ll send it to an FBI agent.

[_Robert_Participant]

Unseen wrote:

unapologetic wrote:

Wow, ‘Venus’. That’s really nasty. I’d report him. I’ll bet he is not as untraceable as he claims.

If he doesn’t write a follow-up he must think his marks are very gullible. He talks too much. He put everything (except a screenshot of you jerking off) in his first (probably only) letter. He is seriously worried he will be ignored. If it was a real threat it would include that screenshot of you jerking off.

He knows nothing about me. He says he has my contact list but didn’t name one. He says he knows where I live, but offered no evidence. It’s a bluff. He’s making threats that would worry many people who want to be perceived as respectable. I worked in the porn industry as a photographer for fifteen years. My family and friends know it. I think they would assume I consume porn. I assume most of them do as well but are not as up front about it. Why didn’t I go to the authorities? Simply because it might spark them to look into me to see if I’m into something more untoward than legal porn. I often tell people this about “See something, say something,” which is to make sure you saw something you know was illegal, because getting someone drawn into the legal system—especially when sex, morals, and/or children are involved—can ruin even an innocent person’s life. For example, if I were to be falsely accused of manufacturing child porn, the ensuing investigation might simply prove inconclusive, leaving people to think it might be true. “Innocent until proven guilty” is a sacred principle in the law, but on the street people are free to think or assume whatever they like. There have been cases of day care businesses accused of abuse, then actually proven false, but the business had to close never to reopen. So, the reason I don’t report it is that I simply don’t want the attention it would bring me, especially given what police and prosecutors might think about my past. I have found that people assume everyone in the industry is a pedophile or sex trafficker. I’m sure the way this guy works is to send out hundreds or even thousands of these emails. I’ll leave it to someone with a more squeaky-clean background than mine to pursue it. If he’s sending them out in bulk, as I suspect, one of these days he’ll send it to an FBI agent.

They target old folks, poor at tech. Still thinking about “tape”, LOL.  What is the guy gonna do, put physical SD cards or thumb drives in mailboxes? I would never plug that that into my computer.

Fear is their thing, so conservatives fall for this bullshit. I read about this retired old guy who thought the world would end when Biden won. Put all his savings ($750K) into a fake gold company. They sent him glossy brochures, but it was a precious metal scam. After he finally got suspicious, he looked into the company and found dozens of warnings all over the web. Thing is, they charged him way above market price, LOL. Even if it was a real gold company, he would have gotten shanked.

According to the FBI, scams targeting individuals 60 and older caused over $3.4 billion in losses in 2023 — an increase of approximately 11% from the year prior.

The average victim of elder fraud lost $33,915 due to these crimes in 2023.

The FBI said older Americans seem disproportionately impacted by scams and fraud, with more than 101,000 victims 60 and over reporting this kind of crime to the agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Center in 2023.

[unapologeticParticipant]

“Innocent until proven guilty”

Right. I know the police are of the opposite opinion. Guilty until proven otherwise.

[UnseenParticipant]

unapologetic wrote:

“Innocent until proven guilty” Right. I know the police are of the opposite opinion. Guilty until proven otherwise.

It’s not the cop’s job to determine guilt or innocence. If police arrest someone, it pretty much has to be done on a presumption of guilt based on a perception of a probable cause (or based on witnessing an actual crime, of course). That’s presuming an honest cop, of course.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

You might find this site useful.

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Users can sign up to be notified if their email address appears in future breaches.

Educational Resources:

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Corporate use to identify breached credentials within an organization.

HIBP was created by security expert Troy Hunt and is widely regarded as a trusted resource for improving personal and organizational cybersecurity.

[UnseenParticipant]

So, my email address has been compromised, but retiring my email address isn’t very practical.

[Author]

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