Scams You've Encountered

There was a thread on cc many, many moons ago where some guy did an incredible job scamming one of the “nigerian prince” scammers and got the scammer to do some artwork and ship it to the initial targeted “victim”. It was hilarious.

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Uh oh, I replied with my zip code to the USPS message.

How about Tupperware? I ordered from them, but nothing has come. At least, I was not charged.

Do not give any further info. Delete the email.

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People are falling for these scams. I just saw a colleague sitting next to me click on a pretty picture of a gift box with a note “management sent you a gift” in an email message! Thankfully, the colleague’s click opened a brightly colored page that said, “You got PHISHED ! “ it was a test message from IT, phew. Sigh.

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I had IT “phish” me once. It was a very very powerful reminder to stop being a sucker.

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Byers beware!

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Ugh. More jerks.

And don’t pay any site that offers to help you with a computer (or other) problem for $1! My husband fell for that once and was surprised to see a $27 monthly charge after that. We contacted our credit card company and they canceled it.

Last week, he was having trouble with Adobe and fell for it again!!! Fortunately, he entered his credit card number incorrectly so the transaction didn’t go through, then I walked in and had a cow. :sweat_smile:

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IME, the men are less savvy than the women. Just sayin’.

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Feeling pretty good about my Firefox web browser choice right now! :slight_smile:

This morning I received a voicemail message from a women with an English accent. She claimed to be calling from Walmart and said she needed to discuss with me a “preauthorized” purchase of a Playstation 5, totaling $900+, that was charged to my account. It was very urgent that I call back. I wonder how many people will fall for such calls, especially at this time of year.

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If you can’t read this due to a paywall, LMK and I’ll post the entire article.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2024/post-elder-scam-family-support-recovery/?itid=sr_aio_carousel_1_0e66e76a-13fe-4b08-8c29-4489ef9fbb4a_54445b41-2f63-417d-a2b9-fb6257514be4

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DH received a text message that the USPS could not deliver a package, and he needed to reply to the text. We are expecting some packages, but assume the USPS informed delivery will notify. Plus there was no indication that text was from a legitimate USPS number. Another “this time of year” issue.

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Not fully a scam but definitely scammy …. DH wanted to renew his passport online and somehow clicked on a non-government site. He began getting emails Indicating he needed to fill out more forms which would come in the mail and would need to include a check to the US Government ( he though he’d already paid for his PP by CC online). He followed all instructions :woman_facepalming:t3: got weekly updates from his “customer service” person and the new PP (eventually) arrived. I figured something was off when I saw the CC statement and queried a charge to a company I didn’t recognize. They charged $150+ for something he thought he’d done for himself. Other than paying more than double I doubt there’ll be further repercussions - it’s probably a legit site for possibly complicated document issues but certainly a scam for just renewing a US PP. Moral of the story - government sites always end in .gov

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I would contact your credit card and contest the charge. They tend to rule in favor of cardholders.

My ill son had an annual fee of $120 automatically charged for some online site. He didn’t remember his password and I literally could not figure out how to cancel the charge in 2023. So of course the same charge appeared this year. I called the credit card company and they cancelled the charge and will not allow future charges from the company. Yes, it was a legitimate charge but they agreed to cancel it.

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Yes, thank you. DH so far is very against me doing anything to follow up but maybe he’ll change his mind. At the moment he’s still very grumpy to have been taken in by this. I’ve seen that the company has refunded some of the money to people in similar situations who’ve left scathing reviews online so that’s another possibility.

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Yes, try that first. We’ve had luck doing that.

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I had similar issue thinking I was at the actual hotel website for a London stay. (I had first noticed the place on Booking.com but thought maybe it would be better to book directly so tried google search.) Looked so real. Luckily I figured it out later and was able to cancel the booking.

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It’s really hard to have to be vigilant and suspicious all the time but it seems to be necessary.

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Was it one of those that say something like, “reply ‘1’ to this text, close it, reopen it and click on the link…”? I get those every once in a while. No, not suspicious at all:roll_eyes: