New-to-me scam.

[jmc]

Just curious, what is the location on the postmark on the envelope.

 

[Cougsfan]

The bigger question here is how can we help him spend his new found wealth !
and should it have R1's or R4's !

I have always thought that putting R4's on one side of the tractor and R1's on the other would be a good compromise.

 

[jmc]

Years ago, I knew an elderly gal (likely passed on by now).

She got notification that she had won the London Lottery..... MILLIONS of dollars... only problem is, she had to pay the tax.

She had by happenstance, recently sold some inherited family property so had $400K sitting around that she was looking to invest (this is where I was coming into the picture).....

Sad how a food chain stacks up below the gullible.

While waiting in a bank for a customer service appointment, I couldn't help but overhear the bank rep advising the customer ahead of me. That customer, probably a recent immigrant and not accustomed to life in the US, wanted to withdraw money for an obvious scam. Bank rep warned her and the customer stomped out, seemingly mad at the bank rep.

 

[Yogi05]

View attachment 715540

I assume you goggled that address?
I read a partial tenant list of the building. All legit. But the Laurentian bank website doesn't list that address.
This scammer covers his bases. I guess a lot of them good ones do.

 

[Frankenkubota]

Years ago, I knew an elderly gal (likely passed on by now).

She got notification that she had won the London Lottery..... MILLIONS of dollars... only problem is, she had to pay the tax.

She had by happenstance, recently sold some inherited family property so had $400K sitting around that she was looking to invest (this is where I was coming into the picture).

If I recall the gist of the story, she sent them $200K for 'taxes' as the rest of her $400K hadn't settled the estate process yet.

I spent H.O.U.R.S. with her trying to prove to her that this was a scam.

She finally started to thaw and "someone ELSE" reached out to her saying that she had been scammed by these people.... but THIS entity was going to get her money back, HOWEVER, they needed some funds up front to pay for the detective work to catch the crooks.....


(yes she was falling for 100% of this)

So the guy who's doing the work.... who as I recall lived in Switzerland (how would he know she won the London lottery when he didn't know her and lived in Switzerland is beyond me of course)

GASP, he was on the verge of catching them when.....he had a heart attack, had to go in for emergency surgery..... NOW he needs some funds to pay his medical bills, before he can finalize finding the crooks.....

(to be fair and honest, this was 20 years ago so I'm not as in tune with the details as I was then)

Anyway, somewhere along this process "THEY GOT HER MONEY BACK FOR HER!!!!!"

Yay!!!

Well.....sort of.

They recovered all the cash and were going to PERSONALLY fly from (London, Switzerland??) to PERSONALLY deliver the CASH to her in a suitcase.

Don't you know that they stuffed all that cash into a suitcase, jumped on a plane after getting all that raw cash through security. Flew to the Knoxville airport and, oh, those dunderheads..... when they rented a car at the airport to drive to her house to deliver the cash, they turned RIGHT instead of LEFT on leaving the airport, ending up in the small town south of Knoxville and got LOST.

Having hounded her for a couple years about this, they suddenly either forgot how to use their cell phones or email..... "finally found their way back to the airport STILL with her cash in their hands"...... and simply flew home.


This story had gotten SO convoluted and absurd that her own daughter finally threw her hands up in disgust and gave up on her mother trying to think clearly. This was also about the time I too decided you can't save everyone and with God as my witness, I (and her daughter) gave it a valiant try.

My understanding is she lost the entire proceeds from the estate ($400K)

Totally senseless and stupid of her.

mix greed and hope together and it overwhelms common sence

 

[deezler]

I get 5 of these emails every single day. Some are well written like that, and others in broken english about leftover funds in african bank accounts. So stupid.

 

[Yogi05]

I'm just having a little fun playing weekend detective.

 

[3Ts]

Older folks are hard to understand at times. I suppose there are some things that are "hot buttons" with money and grandkids being in the list so they're easier to take advantage of.

I know of one older lady who got a call (supposedly) from her grandson saying he was out drinking in Canada and got arrested and needed money for bail. (She was aware he was attending the police academy in a nearby town in Texas, and he is the designated driver for his group whenever they go out) She was to send money electronically (it was via a method where anyone with the reference # could go in with no proof of id and get cash), the facility tried to explain it was a scam, but she insisted so they sent it. Two days later she gets a call from the same grandson (never says which one, she has several) needed more money to pay the attorney. Same routine and she sends that money off. A couple of days later she calls the grandson to ask about this and finally figured out she'd been scammed.

 

[MoKelly]

Older folks are hard to understand at times. I suppose there are some things that are "hot buttons" with money and grandkids being in the list so they're easier to take advantage of.

I know of one older lady who got a call (supposedly) from her grandson saying he was out drinking in Canada and got arrested and needed money for bail. (She was aware he was attending the police academy in a nearby town in Texas, and he is the designated driver for his group whenever they go out) She was to send money electronically (it was via a method where anyone with the reference # could go in with no proof of id and get cash), the facility tried to explain it was a scam, but she insisted so they sent it. Two days later she gets a call from the same grandson (never says which one, she has several) needed more money to pay the attorney. Same routine and she sends that money off. A couple of days later she calls the grandson to ask about this and finally figured out she'd been scammed.

My dad got those scams a lot. At least he thought of calling his kids (the parent) first. But, he was ready to believe the grandkid needed help.

These types of scammers (preying off grandparent love for grandkids) are the worst scum and deserve a horrible fate.

MoKelly

 

[Oaktree]

My dad got those scams a lot. At least he thought of calling his kids (the parent) first. But, he was ready to believe the grandkid needed help.

I don't have any kids (that I know of), so if someone tried to pull that one on me there'd be no doubt it was a scam.

My wife almost got caught on a different scam a couple months ago. Message on the answering machine that a purchase of $399.99 at Amazon had been charged to our credit card. Message didn't say who it was for, and we keep our finances separate.
I checked my Amazon and credit card accounts and there was nothing suspicious. I heard her talking on the phone to someone, but didn't pay any attention. Hour or so later, I was out working in my shop and she told me she had to make a run out to buy some gift cards. My reaction was "huh?" She explained that when she called the # to tell them the charge was in error, they "accidentally" credited $3,999.00 back to her card, but she could reimburse them with gift cards. I immediately told her NO! NO! NO!!!!, IT'S A SCAM!! NO LEGIT BUSINESS WOULD EVER MAKE YOU "PAY THEM BACK" WITH GIFT CARDS!!! Finally I got thru to her and she hung up on the guy.
In the process of "showing her the statement" the scammer had somehow tricked her into installing Teamviewer on her computer. That got uninstalled in a hurry, as well as a thorough malware scan done.

These guys can be persuasive, she's not one prone to having the wool pulled over her eyes, but she almost got suckered in.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Glad you were home to prevent it Oak.

Yes, some of these guys are very polished. They rake in millions a year doing this with very small overhead costs. Most are centered in India, where enforcement is very lax.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

There are tons of YouTube videos of people stringing these scammers along just to play with them.
I get lots of calls which I ignore, and still training my wife to ignore.

 

[drssg]

Long ago, there was a website called BustedUpCowgirl. It since has vanished, but there seems to be some archives of it. It was written by a woman who ran an equestrian business, and she was bed-ridden for a good while to recover from some serious injuries. She became so tired of all the scam responses to the horses she was selling, and she had plenty of free time on her hands, so she would get into lengthy e-mail exchanges with them. Her motivation was to waste their time, amuse herself, and she would periodically get them to mail fake checks, which cost them some money. Here is an example of the exchanges she logged. Some of them get quite involved.

Busted Up Cowgirl

Humor, useful information, and more!

www.eagle-wing.net

 

[mikester]

I love the email address at the end

someguy345@gmail.com


Google is the #1 source of computer viruses, trojans, malware, spyware, scammers on the internet.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/arrive-can-app-covid-canada-google-1.6200821

Google happily collects money from these scammers with their adwords. When are governments going to wake up and smell the coffee and start going after businesses making money from the profits of crime?

 

[Looking4new]

I got a call last month from someone with broken English (most likely a Paki) offering to clean my house. The caller wanted to know how many bedrooms I had on the upper floor. I told him 14. I also told him that the girls cleaned their own bedrooms and that there were only girls living here. I told him that it was a cat house. He hung up.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

Thought people who haven't seen this one yet might enjoy it:View attachment 715399

The language is awesome: looky a real English speaker!

The email address: Bull smack

Talking numbers in a letter of introduction: Bull Smackery!

 

[Tinhack]

I used to get email like that. Now, it's an unidentified number calling my cell phone. A guy gives his "name" and says the call is being recorded for security. That statement threw up a red flag for me. He wanted to verify my address for "higher security". He had my address and wanted me to verify it. I told him I don't answer personal questions over the phone. He was insistent and said all I have to do is say "yes" or "no". I repeated I don't answer personal questions over the phone. The phone went quiet and I hung up.

This sounds like the scam to get you to say "yes". Perhaps to use your voice to scam your accounts.

Just a warning in case you get a similar call.

 

[Frankenkubota]

a friend uses one of those cans of compressed air they use at marinas they use to signal with

he says it hurts their ears?

 

[Bearsixty7]

My dad got those scams a lot. At least he thought of calling his kids (the parent) first. But, he was ready to believe the grandkid needed help.

These types of scammers (preying off grandparent love for grandkids) are the worst scum and deserve a horrible fate.

MoKelly

My Dad got that call a few years ago, He simply asked which grandson was he speaking to (Didn't sound like any of them) at which point they hung up abruptly. Fortunately/unfortunately Dad doesn't have a substantial amount of money to be scammed out of anyway.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

My dad got a call from a “grandson” recently. He asked who it was, they didn’t say.