In August, Google added a feature to Gmail that lets you
make phone calls — for free, if you live in the US or Canada and you're calling someone in the US or Canada. When you make a call, your number shows up as 760-705-8888. Judging by the nine pages of complaints
found here, the service is often being used to prank, harass and scam people.
[more inside]
posted by defenestration
on Oct 2, 2010 -
60 comments
The
American Biographical Institute and the International Biographical Centre have been offering honours for sale for years now. Recipients are offered the chance to purchase space in published "Who's Who" type directories and they can also purchase awards and honours such as "
Most admired man of the decade" or "
Eisteinian Chair of Science." Academics seem mostly to fall for the allure of prestige (including
David Suzuki) but so do some politicians, including
Kamala Persad-Bissessar (MP, Trinidad and Tobago),
Tõnis Kint (Acting President, Estonia),
Adrian Severin (Member of the European Parliament),
Jona Baravilala Senilagakali (Minister of Health, Fiji),
Benazir Bhutto (President, Pakistan) and Gambian President
His Excellency Alhagi Dr. Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh.
posted by salishsea
on Jul 10, 2007 -
9 comments
Clive James on Scams and Hoaxes. "
If the flim-flam man is sensible enough to offer you a return of only twice as much, the scam might even work. I was once defrauded of a heartbreakingly-large sum by a fellow writer who was smart enough to offer no return at all. True to her word, she didn't return my money either."
posted by Blue Stone
on Apr 9, 2007 -
18 comments
Scams. There's always someone trying to get what's yours. They take advantage of the
misery of others, and if you're labeled a
sucker, then you could end up being deluged. Can you
tell what is
real?
posted by viama
on Feb 9, 2005 -
19 comments
An American Ebay seller realises a European bidder is trying to scam him out of a Powerbook (fake escrow site, hijacked ebay account), so he sends him something far better, a
P-P-P-Powerbook! Now, for you non-techies here, a factory model p-p-p-powerbook weights half what it's competitors weigh, comes with an A4 screen, the
latest in internet adventure software, zero boot time, a fullsize keyboard (often with
Key RedundancyTM) and a state-of-the-art laser
bluetooth mouse. This is technology. The seller posts
to a forum and amongst the chatter people follow the package via the
the Fedex tracking page and some even visit the delivery address (a barbershop/internet cafe) and take photos, video, and a seat for their hair cut. The duty tax on this particular p-p-p-powerbook is around £350 (paid for by the scammer) before he sees the package, and a few days later it's released by Customs as
they watch in anticipation. A forum member arrives at the internet cafe, takes a seat and soon the package arrives. The scammer opens the box and there are angry raised voices heard. The barber doesn't understand what's wrong and asks...
"Is it broken?"
posted by holloway
on May 13, 2004 -
57 comments
There's a lot of scammin', griftin', and chicanery going on in the world and
Snopes has always been there, but they usually take some time to do their investigations. But for the quick hit, they've just launched
a new daily scam page carrying just that day's latest scam news from around the country. It's really amazing
how many major scams take place every day, and it helps to know how to spot a scam when you hear about it.
posted by mathowie
on Apr 10, 2004 -
4 comments
Nigerian Email Scam Gone Wrong • Evangelist Ojukwu Damisa contacted a fictitious American pastor--Father Ted Crilley of the "Church of the Holy Cow"-- in search of donations. Though Father Crilley's prank response has become a familiar Something Awful-style troll, it's always funnier when there are
pictures involved.
posted by dhoyt
on Dec 14, 2003 -
7 comments
Scamming the scammer Somewhere along the line I think we've all wondered what would happen if we answered the Nigerian 419 scam email. Now we don't have to. Someone calling himself 'ebola monkey man' has been taking the scammer's on a email journey to the point that he will only agree to send them money if they send him a silly picture of themselves holding up a sign with their name on... [via
b3ta]
posted by feelinglistless
on Jul 4, 2003 -
11 comments
The Nigerian Scam Email also known as the 419 scam, claims a death. People get scammed all the time, hopefully with less dire consequences. The FTC has a list of the
12 most common scams. Has anybody here been scammed lately (it happens to the best of us and most likely all of us, at one time or another)?
posted by ashbury
on Feb 24, 2003 -
17 comments
How would you like to control the entire universe, both what goes within you and what happens with others?
As you can imagine when you can knock down attackers from 10 feet away or heal someone dying from something just using your own energy- that is true personal power!
Others are
skeptical. I think I will hold on to my $19.99. The movies are entertaining, though.
posted by hockeyman
on Feb 15, 2003 -
19 comments
A Mac user scorned is a dangerous thing... Gotta hand it to this guy: persistence pays off. After being scammed with $3000 in forged cashier checques in an eBay transaction, this seller took matters into his own hands. How secure do you feel making transaction over eBay and related services? What kinds of internet fraud have you faced or fear? And most interesting of all, to what extent have you gone to correct evils done to you?
posted by tgrundke
on Dec 12, 2002 -
51 comments
Would you like to be part of my pyramid?
We all know someone who has tried to sell us a "multi level marketing" product.
Usana and
Amway are 2 popular MLM companies. Can you really make money with these pyramid schemes? There are sites that talk about
avoiding scams and others that show support for those who
have been burnt, but they sometimes turn around and support mlm and network marketing.
Does anyone know these people? What kind of cars do they drive? What kind of person gets into network marketing and who are these "successful independant distributers"?
1,
2,
3,
4,
5
posted by tomplus2
on Aug 14, 2002 -
44 comments
"The fraud, the huckster, the salesman are not new phenomena in America; what is new is that they now so strongly control every estate of our society."
For the last few days, I've been reading the
Progressive Review's
Undernews, a sort of progressive news blog-by-e-mail -- and frankly, it's amazing.
One of today's articles blew my mind: it's a spot-on encapsulation of What's Wrong with America Today. (Scroll down to "Derivative America and the Enron Generation." This link is to the "Latest Issue" page. Tomorrow I think it will be archived
here.) Seriously, read it now. It's worth it.
posted by tweebiscuit
on Feb 26, 2002 -
36 comments
Invest now! The SEC has created a
fake website to try and educate the naive. I can't decide if this is a good idea, or if someone has too much time on their hands and is wasting my tax dollars.
posted by FreezBoy
on Jan 30, 2002 -
8 comments
It's probably old news to most of you that Skybiz (which I am deliberately
not linking) recently came under FTC scrutiny for being a pyramid scheme. What I'm wondering is: why is the
original news article about it no longer on CNET News, and why can't I seem to
find any more news about this scam? (Here's the
cached Google copy of the news item.)
Coverup? Or just an "expired" article? (While we're here, anyone with firsthand feedback on Skybiz?)
posted by brownpau
on Aug 1, 2001 -
1 comment
