Most phone calls being made these days are fraudulent and many use spoofed phone numbers. I don’t care if it is the IRS scammers, fake health insurance, or computer scams. They are just rampant. Often the computer scams start out as something else such as an IRS scam. Then the scammers gain access to the computer and then it morphs into a tech support scam. I see individuals, businesses, and government agencies fall victim to these types of scams. Everyone is being targeted and businesses get advertising scams all the time as well. I know I do!
One thing that works for me is to block all PRIVATE and UNKNOWN phone numbers. If they are someone legit, they can leave a message. The scammers called me this way the other day and left a message that I had a legal judgement against me and that I needed to call them back immediately at their law firm.
Scamming is nothing new and many consider it to be one of the “world’s second oldest professions.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World’s_second_oldest_profession The problem is that virtual call centers in the cloud and such have made it super easy to conduct scamming operations. New tech has made it extremely efficient.
I had one texting and e-mailing me for service recently. They wanted to know if I accepted credit cards. Then the payment scheme and shipping methods became more and more convoluted. I told them the price would have to go up for me to do all this. ACtually, the more I charge, the more they can try to scam so that wasn’t a bad thing with them. I messed with them for a while and then I got a call from a paying customer so I let them know I only accepted payment in the form of a Western Union money transfer or Amazon gift cards. I never heard back…
The thing about a flip phone though is you don’t know who it is until you flip it open first. Then its too late.
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Why is it to late I have a flip phone when I flip it open I still have to mash a key to answer.
It seems many of these scams are seasonal of course. Charity scams are big around Christmas. Health insurance scams are also big around this time with the Dec 15 deadline. Then of course there are the IRS scams that start right after the holidays and ramp up until right after April 15. I am not sure what the scam of the day is right now but there is a website that will tell you.
I see people sharing the “Two free airline tickets” or the “$100 coupon to Kroger, Wal-Mart, Lowes, or Aldi” all the time. These are scams that attempt to infect your computer with Malware. I clicked on one and my security software went NUTS, confirming it was a scam. Many of these scams are avoidable if you just use a little common sense.
I found some deals on power tools that looked too good to be true. I looked and realized these tools were 10% of list price or less. They are either fakes or it is a way to take your money. Someone in the fine print it is mentioned that further discounts are given if you use Western Union or a money order which is a big time red flag. I might have fallen for it if they had the prices for 60% of list price. I sent this to one of my buddies who is big into tools and he looked a little further. They had written a script to copy real reviews from the Home Depot site. I guess if you read all the reviews there is mention of people buying tools at Home Depot. I tried forwarding it to someone as a Facebook message and FB immediately blocked it as likely fraud. The site is safe to view. None of my security software reported any anomalies but don’t order anything for sure!
Sorry, that 18V Milwaukee brushless impact wrench set is not $100… I sure wish it was.
The husband of my massage therapist actually fell for the “Grandpa, I’m in jail in Mexico” scam, complete with somebody claiming to be from the US Embassy getting on the line and telling him that he could pay his grandson’s bail with Wal-Mart gift cards. Yeah… that’s exactly how bail payments work…
He is an intelligent person, but–somehow–he fell for this scam and lost $1,200 in the process. When I asked him if the person claiming to be his grandson actually sounded like his grandson, he admitted that the voice was different, but he still fell victim to this scam.
From Band-Aid surgery and herbal cures to political promises of prosperity most of what we are being sold is as phony as a Midway Barker’s shuck and jive. From LOVE-IT’S A SUBARU THING to horse power numbers and star ship control panels we are pedaled images that appeal to market segments while the truth about the vehicles is conveniently left out of view. If aluminum blocks were becoming common because they benefited the buyers they would have steel cylinder liners. Aluminum blocks are lighter but the greatest improvement in using them is the machining to manufacturer them is much, much easier and cheaper.
I just ran across this and couldn’t let it pass
I heard several different iterations of the “Mississippi, the best small business state” on various radio talk programs while driving home Friday. It’s just so easy to fall for compliments regardless how dishonest they are.
The average cost of the scams I see people fall for are in the $800-1200 range. Yes, many request gift cards for Wal-Mart, Amazon, iTunes, or whatever else. I had some poor woman calling me once and she was all mad at the local Kroger store. A scam message had popped up and blocked access to her computer. It demanded she call a number, which she did. They then directed her to go to the local Kroger and purchase about $1000 in Apple gift cards. She went and the local Kroger store refused to sell her the cards. She was telling me how she was all mad at Kroger for refusing to sell her the cards. She had stood there and argued with them for 45 minutes but they would not sell the cards. Anyway, she wanted to know what she should do at this point. I was like “The first thing you need to do is return to the Kroger store and thank the people for not selling you the card. Now at least you have money to pay me to fix the problems that these people have caused by giving them access to your computer.”
As for aluminum blocks in cars, they seem pretty solid these days. I mean how many old cars from the 1950’s-60’s ran all that well past 100,000 miles? Having cars go 250,000 without much more than routine maintenance is not uncommon these days. You don’t want to overheat those aluminum blocks as they are not very forgiving to that but they will run far longer with far fewer issues for the most part.
I hear stories about how cars used to routinely burn a quart every 500-1000 miles and this was just normal. No one thought a thing about it.
As for scams, even the BBB is kinda sketchy if you ask me. Basically the worst company in the world can pay their dues and become “accredited”. They automatically get an A+ rating to boot! They are useful as a guide as the company with an A+ rating can have hundreds of thousands of negative customer reviews to tell you the real truth but I would never pay these people money as a business.
HomeAdvisor is the one I had a run-in with. As you can see I am not the only one who thinks this is the biggest scam on the planet.
Somehow Apple has been able to keep control of its ecosystem pretty well. Unfortunately it is far from an open platform with proprietary components that are very hard to service and expensive to replace. They are nice computers but seem like the BMW 7 series of the computer world if you ask me. While the BMW and other similar makes depreciate RAPIDLY, Apple devices actually hold their value surprisingly well.
Someone was telling me that BMW and such are “status cars” and that many who own these always want the latest model, leaving lots of older ones undervalued. To me Apple products seem like a “status computer” as well. A comparable Windows PC is basically worthless in resale value while a several year old Apple system may be worth 2/3 of its original value, if not more. That is almost unheard of in the electronics industry. I do not dislike Apple products but they would never be my first choice for this reason. One thing I do like about them is that they don’t prostitute themselves out to companies like Wal-Mart that insist they sell the cheapest product even if it means making major compromises in product quality and performance. They are about the only company that doesn’t do this and I admire that. I still don’t understand how they can hold their value so well in an industry where basically everything else is considered disposable.
As for BMW and others, they are also well-made but not easy or economical to work on. I know some people who buy Mercedes and such. They trade them in on a newer model at around 6 years because they are concerned about the cost of repairs once they are out of warranty. Everything is electronic.
Some customer of mine had decided he wanted to switch over to all Apple a couple years ago. He then ended up not liking it and he had several MacBooks and iPads just sitting around collecting dust. I was asking him about setting them up again and trying them out. I also let him know that leaving the batteries discharged will kill them and that they are not easy to replace so should at least charge them up every 6 months or so. He picked up a MacBook Pro and just handed it to me and was like “I don’t want it. You can have it.” Anyway, that unit is still worth just shy of $2000.
I remember reading something about JD Power. It seems that they were involved in a “pay to play” rating much like the BBB is.
Remember that the 2008 housing crisis was largely caused by banks buying ratings from the credit rating agencies. Again, fraud seems to be proliferating in just about every industry these days.
I think a good percentage of the public wants guarantees that will pay for anything that might be out of pocket expenses. I get calls and letters wanting to sell me an extended warranty on my car. I get letters from the power company wanting to insure the power from my meter to the circuit breaker panel. The water company wants to accept a monthly billing charge for the water line from the meter into the house. I just bought a new dishwasher and I got a letter from the manufacturer about extending the warranty. These may not be scams, but are certainly profitable for the companies.
On an automobile or appliances, the manufacturers’ warranties should be sufficient to cover most manufacturing defects. There is a statistical distribution that is used to predict failures. I have never had an electric line or water line failure that would be covered under these plans. My previous dishwasher ran for 29 years.
I save money by being my own warranty company. The money I save on not buying these warranty plans has more than covered repair/replacement costs.
I think scam artists prey on people who are scared of out of the pocket expenses. Our refrigerator is 24 years old. It has never had that first repair. An extended warranty would have not been worth it. Our washing machine is 27 years old. Over the years I have spent about $350 in repairs–much less than an extended warranty. I prefer being my own insurance company which is all extended warranties are–,<expensive insurance plans.
I think some of the extended warranties are decent. Life is a numbers game and these people know the odds and how to charge so that they will come out on top in the end.
Basically if you get one of those “You must sign up right now for this offer to be valid, you know it is basically a scam.” Basically they want you not to think about anything. That is how it works. They force you to make a decision quickly whether it is a car warranty or getting your kid out of jail. If you thought about it, you would realize that no one gets bailed out with Amazon gift cards!
Many car salesmen are bad news but that is the oldest scam in the book when it comes to the auto industry! My GF needed a new car a few years ago. We went to a new car dealer and they basically wanted to run a credit check and go through 90% of the process of buying the car before anything about price was mentioned. I got the feeling they were more interested in selling financing than the car itself. More was mentioned about the monthly payment and deferred payments than the car itself. They also didn’t want to sell her the car she was interested in because it was a cheaper model. We ended up going elsewhere.
Some of the power company warranties might not be a bad idea where I live in Missouri! I see lightning hits all the time in my line of work and took one last year. All the sensitive electronics inside my house are on high dollar UPS units and all came through unscathed.
I was home when it hit and my electric fence box blew and sounded like a gunshot. That was $300 and I thought that was the only casualty. Then the well quit 3 days later. I tried some troubleshooting and called the well company. The came out and realized the breaker had cooked because the well pump was pulling way more current than it should. It was working but on borrowed time. So, $1600 later I get a new well pump that day. Then the electronic modules in my water heater fried a month later and I end up getting a new one of those as well. I bought a $69 whole house lightning arrestor and wired it into the main panel so hopefully that will help next time. I figure the electric fence is a lost cause in situations like this but we will see.
The car warranties are basically overpriced insurance as stated. I would probably only buy one if I knew it covered a known defect that was expensive to repair. For example, I bet certain engines like the Chrysler 2.7L are omitted from coverage. They may also always be able to get an out if you don’t do things exactly as they require as well.
Unfortunately it is necessary for car dealers to screen their customers, so many people enjoy “shopping” even though their money for the next 10 years is already spent. Nobody wants to spend 4 hours with a customer only to find that they have no money and no credit.
I talked to another dealer and he said that like 60% of cars that are traded in have no current insurance and the owner has bad credit. I can imagine this problem. That is why I will no longer diagnose any problem without some money upfront. The ones that refuse to pay or don’t have the money won’t have the money when the repair is complete and the bill is due. I used to do free estimates but no more. This reduced my problems with customers by 95% or so. I wouldn’t do it any other way anymore. I would spend hundreds of dollars on a repair and then be left with abandoned property that wasn’t worth what I just put into it. Most people would just say they would pay in a week and never call back, then some would ignore my calls, then others got threatening when I wouldn’t return their equipment without payment. I totally understand screening customers and do it myself. There are other key words that some people use that stand out as red flags. Basically these customers want to scam you and any other service business, ranging from HVAC to auto mechanics.
Basically we wanted to get a price on what they would offer the car to her for and they wouldn’t even talk about it. The funny thing was that we got a mailer right after she had signed on the line for a car at another dealer and it had a price listed for the exact car she had looked at. If they had come out with that price she probably would have bought the car. The place where she ended up buying the car didn’t pull any of this nonsense.
The offending dealer called back a few days later and wasn’t happy she had bought the car elsewhere. I let them know exactly why and informed him of the mailer from their dealership with a stated price waiting in the box that night when she got home with the new car. There was like 30 seconds of silence.
The water line failure insurance at least where we live is an independent scam job not associated with the utility, and yes My car is an 03, and I get the warranty calls, I am a computer guru and get the fake calls about my computer, and people get put in jail for stealing a loaf of bread, Why is it so hard to nail these ripoff artists fine them and jail them and shut down the company? How about a $1 tariff on out of the country calls?
