ksdaddy Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 Phone scams are nothing new, we all know that. There are people with nothing better to do than try to get your money. With times being hard as they are, some companies are stooping to some pretty underhanded methods of drumming up some money and it would probably surprise us how many get rooked. Yesterday they tried to 'get' me but it didn't work. About 3 years ago my wife got some junk in the mail from a company which I will refrain from naming but they represent a gardening club. They offered her a free trail membership and over the next year they sent a bunch of worthless junk, some pruning shears, lopping shears, a Leatherman type POS thing, yadda yadda. I honestly don't recall the details but at some point they offered the full membership with all its bells and whistles for the low price of $whatever. We opted 'no' and figured that was the end. Yesterday we got a call from someone in India or Sri Lanka or New Guinea telling us they were a collection agency and they wanted $225 immediately for the lifetime membership we signed up for but they would settle for $150. I asked where they were located and they said "Cal-ee-four-nee-ah". I asked to speak to a supervisor and got the same spiel. I got my account number from them and then googled the gardening club's parent company for a phone number. I got someone in customer service and they acted like my phone call was quite routine.... they brought up my account and found out we had indeed cancelled our trial membership a year or two ago and we, in fact, owed nothing. I suspect they received many calls like mine and apologized for the error..... in fact there was no error, they just wanted to see what they could get away with. So this makes me wonder about some people who, maybe by confusion, forgetfulness, misunderstanding (fill in the blank) think they DO owe money and dutifully send in money they don't owe. Maybe that's a small percentage, but it reminds me of the guy who walked up to every woman in the bar and asked if they would have sex with him. 19 women out of 20 slapped his face but the 20th one went home with him. I think that's the angle these creeps are taking. Back in '92 my mother in law passed away and a few weeks later my father in law received a case of light bulbs from some disabled workers' group. A few weeks after that he began getting exorbitant bills for the light bulbs and also received semi-threatening phone calls. The bills were in his (deceased) wife's name. The angle, of course, was to make him think she ordered this stuff before she died. I finally intercepted a call and basically told them to f-off and thanked them for the free case of light bulbs. The d1ckwads sending out the light bulbs were scouring the obits for customers. Gird your loins. If you thought it was rough out there before, it's going to get worse. Know what you're signing up for and be wary of 'free' stuff. The creeps are after what little bit of money we have left. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 I hear you. I got a "challenge" in facebook supposedly from my friends to take the IQ test. I took it and scored high, I have taken IQ tests before and have scored high so I guess I wanted to tickle my own testes. So they text you the results, I input my phone number thinking it was facebook. Not so much, no, my next phone bill had a $10 charge for the text. Nowhere did it say that this would happen. They started sending me texts regularly at a charge. Yea, I was not feeling oo smart by then. So I called the company and a guy with an Indian accent answered, I told him I wanted to be removed from this "service" and he said sure, what is your name and address? I replied promptly -oh, I am not giving you my name and address. That cost me only $10 but lesson learned. I got off for cheap. like I tell my wife "be careful with your information and what you sign, people want your money and they don't necessarily want to work for it" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wicked1 Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 We were getting about daily calls at one point from a credit card company with customer "service" people who must've been located in Bangladesh or something. I couldn't understand them--they couldn't understand me. You know the routine. One day, our then-brand-new daughter answered the phone. But she didn't pick up until after the answering machine did, so we got the whole conversation on tape. (At the time, she spoke about a dozen words of English and they weren't very good). CS Rep: May I speak to Mrs. Homz? (in thick Indian accent of some sort) Daughter: She not here. (in thick Vietnamese accent) CS Rep: May I speak to Mr. Homz? D: She not here. CS Rep: When would be a good time to reach her? D: She not here. After that, we got calls in English! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GingerSG Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 I remember a while ago, I received a sales call at home, where the sales person wanted to speak to my dad, obviously with the intention to try and flog a new mobile phone contract. I told them he was at work and all of a sudden I started getting offers from the same guy if I wanted to change my contract. I promptly told em to bugger off. Its all well and good trying to flog a deal to whoever answers the phone, but what would have happened if I wasn't so smart or indeed several years younger, would I be signing a deal I had no clue about and have been taking for a financial ride without understanding what i was getting myself into... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichCI Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 I bought a new car in April last year and, every few months, I get robocalls from some company that says that my warranty might have expired and to press "0" to speak with a representative. I knew it was BS because I had purchased an extended warranty from the dealer. I always hang up on the machine message but last time I spoke with the rep and told them I had an extended plan already and to stop calling. They called again a week later... if it keeps up, I'm going to look into taking stronger action. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AXE® Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 Mrs Homz . That was priceless, and has given me an idea... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeRom Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 I hear you. I got a "challenge" in facebook supposedly from my friends to take the IQ test. I took it and scored high' date=' I have taken IQ tests before and have scored high so I guess I wanted to tickle my own testes. So they text you the results, I input my phone number thinking it was facebook. Not so much, no, my next phone bill had a $10 charge for the text. Nowhere did it say that this would happen. They started sending me texts regularly at a charge. Yea, I was not feeling oo smart by then. So I called the company and a guy with an Indian accent answered, I told him I wanted to be removed from this "service" and he said sure, what is your name and address? I replied promptly -oh, I am not giving you my name and address. That cost me only $10 but lesson learned. I got off for cheap. like I tell my wife "be careful with your information and what you sign, people want your money and they don't necessarily want to work for it" [/quote'] Yep. The wife started to do that, luckily I saw the fine print before she hit go - Those challanges are random, pick a name off of your friends list type of thing, then put up some BS about being challanged by them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted March 13, 2009 Author Share Posted March 13, 2009 My friends know better than to challenge me to an IQ test. I'm too busy out in the yard looking up at the rain with the turkeys. My oldest daughter is a college freshman and last night I made the mistake of trying to help her interpret something in her philosophy textbook. My brain hurt so bad I put my guitar down and went to bed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wicked1 Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 Mrs Homz . That was priceless' date=' and has given me an idea...[/quote'] Apparently, the secret is to let it go on for as long as possible. I think our machine records up to 4 minutes and it was full of "She not here..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elantric Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 I bought a new car in April last year and, every few months, I get robocalls from some company that says that my warranty might have expired and to press "0" to speak with a representative. i get that same robocall both at home and on cell phone. Once a week on the cell phone, 5 times a week at home. The robot girl says: " This is the second attempt to reach you regarding your new car warranty . . . . . . " Last time I bought a new car was 1992. I've never been able to connect with a real person, to get my number removed. Let me know if you succeed - that one is horrendously annoying, completely fills my home answering machine on a weekly basis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thundergod Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 You know... aorund here most cellphone users use what here we call "pre paid" phone lines, they have to buy time and enter a code, then they can talk... I hate that method because you can get out of time when you most need it, so for more than 10 years I've only used the "post payment" method, in which I can talk as much as I want and they charge my credit card at the end of the month (this is better also because the cost per minute is less than half). Ok, so, some a-holes came with the idea of calling you and telling you you had won something (a cellphone, a computer, hell, even a car). So they called you and asked you to buy 10 $20 pre-paid codes and tell them those codes and then they would send you the prize (car, computer, plane ticket, whatever). The most incredible thing is, more than 1000 people fell for it in a single day... And it made the news, so from that day on, eveyone knew about it. That was 5 years ago, and they still trick people with the same trick. Of course they are not the same people doing this, there are lots of people. They called me once... I always sleep with my cellphone on, and close to the bed so if there's any emergency whoever needs me can get to me fast. So if anyone calls me I know. There's no way I can have a voice mail message if the phone didnt ring. This time it didnt ring at all, when I woke up I had a message, I listen and they say "we are from channel 4, last night we had some contest and you won a car"... I was a little dizzy so I didnt even understand... what does an inteligent person do? CALL CHANNEL 4. They said that it was the 5000 call they got for the same reason and sadly I was the only one that called them first (the other people called them asking why their car wassnt there). So I call them guys to that phone... surprise it was a public phoe booth (here they have a different authomatic answer than normal phones). To my surprise after calling that number I get a call from those people... they asked me for my ID number, my cellphone number (didnt they have it? how did I win becasue of my number but they didnt have it? They even went so far as to ask me for my credit card number...to all of those questions I answered as if I really believed them (of course I lied). Then they told me they would come to my house with the car and cameramen so they could have me recieving the prize on the 12:00 news. They went to jail a little more than 4 hours after that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRV-Zeppelin Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 Even after signing up for the Canadian no-telemarketers list, I still get tons of solicotor calls- so I don't even answer the phone anymore. seriously. I'll let it ring until the answering machine picks up, and if someone starts leaving a message I'll pick up and talk to them. Otherwise, I don't see the point in getting up off the couch or putting down my guitar (or both) just to have someone tell me about the latest greatest offers from Company X. I've got more important things to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Howlin4Hubert Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 A year or so ago my wife got a call at work from some joker saying she had won a cash prize and he just needed to get her bank account number so he could transfer the money to her. She told him there was no way she was giving him her account number. The guy actually got mad at her and was almost yelling at her. He said that she was being ridicules because that information was public since it is given it out on any check you write. She laughed at him and then thanked him for confirming that it was a scam saying basically that "if she had any doubt if it was legitimate or not by getting mad at her he just confirmed it was a scam". Click. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boston004681 Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 BOZOS[-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 Here's the old newspaperman talking. <grin> It seldom does the victim much good, but at least in little states like South Dakota, the attorney general's office has a consumer protection agency. A call there can help at times. Yeah, at least all the Anglophone countries seem to share this problem. We had one case here where the scam guy was "in business" in Canada. RCMP or whatever they're called now went after the fellow and discovered several "addresses" that really weren't and now the nasty fellow likely is in Nigeria or somewhere. On the other hand, sometimes the AG's office can help with the bank if they've got some paperwork going on a scam. The way to get this sort of help may be through the local police... maybe not. I know the SDAG office is working now with a local lady on a nasty one - the second "burn" on a nice older gal. I'm 63 so you can imagine what I consider "older." <grin> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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