BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud

Subject: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Cllr
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 05:43 AM

If it sounds to good to be true it is a scam.
if it asks you to forward it to all your friends its a hoax.
If it asks you to give your personal bank credit card details it is fraud.

There are plenty of web sites which tell you about these things. please think and before doing what it tells you in any unsolicited email or phone call or letter or text message remember there is no such thing as a free lunch and people will use your good nature against you to make money. Cllr (dont feed the trolls)

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 09:04 AM

SPECIAL OFFER - JUST RELEASED ONTO THE MARKET - THE MOST AMAZING FREE SOFTWARE OFFER EVER MADE - SCAMSPAM.

Yes, the Scamspan software is available to YOU absolutely FREE when you purchase HUNTAHOAX and FREEZEAFRAUD together for the amazingly low price £49.99*.

*Individual price is £23.50 each. Price indicated is per month in advance payable by Credit or Debit card. Send no money now. Cancellation charges will apply.

Join the Cllr in taking up this amazing offer.



I think I now owe you a pint Mike!

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 09:11 AM

Heloo, heres my credit caard number=
6749 6340 4331 1377
expiry date =06/05
and its a Capital One, Visa card.

please send my thing straight away, i'm not really sure waht it is, but it looks like a real bargain.

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 09:13 AM

ps-security code [last 3 numbers on back of card]=621.

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 10:54 AM

Ah, yes, j0hn, but what name is on the card? If it's not yours...where did you get the card?

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 10:59 AM

name on card=Sir John Evans.

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Cluin
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 11:13 AM

Hoaxes and Scams and Frauds, oh my!
Hoaxes and Scams and Frauds, oh my!
Hoaxes and Scams and Frauds, oh my!

We're off to slit the gizzard
Of a scammer they caught down in Oz

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 11:29 AM

Thank you Sir John Evans, even now your free SCAMSPAM software is winging its way to you and will be delivered to you on Friday evening at the Marlborough Club, Hull. Look out for our corporately badged delivery pigeon and ask him for details of other amazing offers.

Yes Sir John Evans you have been specially chosen for targetting now we have nearly all your personal details. All we need now is your normal inside leg measurement so that we can forward your handy personalised wallpapering suit (see item no. 127 on todays list of extractions from your account @ only £74.99 + carriage). Send no money now, we'll take it for you. Why not get a friend to subscribe and both of you will receive a free recycled AA battery.

Send off now for details of our inexpensive debt management service. No fee no win. Why not mortgage your soul now.

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Cllr
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 04:38 PM

ROTFLMAO HAHAHHHAAAA

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 04:43 PM

Another important point...if it says is isn't a scam, it's a scam!

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Cllr
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 05:49 PM

Tell all your friends = hoax
Dont tell all your friends = fraud
Specially selected   = scam
BT/IBM/goverment department has confirmd = all of the above
hurry now offer ends in one day = please do what we say before you find out it is one of the above

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 07:40 PM

heloo =waht them lettrers meaning=ie = rlofat etc?

ps i send my creirdit card numbers, so make sure you send my bargain stuff, [or else i report you to credit card people]= so just whatch it.

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 11:08 PM

But.t.t. it's the CREDIT CARD Companies that keep telling me I've been "specially selected" ...

And it's "pre-approved" ...

Does that mean that they're running a scam????

(Don't bother to answer that ... we don't want everybody to know.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Cllr
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 03:48 AM

rlofat = roll laughing on/off floor ass the
Ha ha ha = lol

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 06:00 AM

You won't be ROTFLOMING or even LOL'ING when next month's credit card bills come rolling in.

Oh the money I'm making. Wrings hands, counts the moolah, cackles and whoops in Fagin like manner. Once they install SCAMSPAM they're mine for ever!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: GUEST,Chief Chaos
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 10:02 AM

And here I thought this was another thread about the US Presidential election.

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 10:35 AM

My dear Chief Chaos, are you by any chance casting aspersions (or even nasturtiums) at the acknowledged leader of at least a tiny percentage of a small part of the free world?

Worry not. This very afternoon we have despatched a special copy of SCAMSPAM to the President via the electrical telephone word machine (go Freeserve go) complete with super strength limpets. In less than two weeks time the US Treasury will be drained and the SCAMSPAM CORPORATION INC will rule the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 10:47 AM

Damn straight, Ming. 'Bout time somebody took responsibility for this mess.   Tw

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 11:44 AM

Ah, but when I am leader!!!!!

Power corrupts, absolute power costs an arm and a leg. I now have copies of the keys to Fort Knox. Or is it copies of the keys to a Blaw Knox. No matter, if I can't go through the door I'll push the darned thing down.

SCAMSPAM - working for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: GUEST,Chief Chaos
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 03:34 PM

Ming - You only think you will get it all.
Since the government only uses microsoft machines Bill Gates will let you take the fall as his corp. sucks the treasury dry through your system.

All hail Microsoft!

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 03:40 AM

You fools, I'm working with Bill Gates on this.

Yes I'm in league with the Devil himself, but I have an advantage, I know what he keeps in his secret drawer.

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: LadyJean
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 01:48 AM

The devil sold out to Microsoft three years ago.
I was swimming in Nigerian spam last year. I kind of enjoyed them. I tried telling them I was married to a gangster. (I'm single.) that didn't work. So I started telling them I had an uncle who worked for Interpol, who would help them get their money. That worked. I have four uncles. They're all dead, and none of them ever worked for Interpol.

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: GUEST,Microsoft
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 04:37 AM

"Beta Version"

Def:
    1) a scam.
    2)a hoax.
    3)a fraud

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Cllr
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 06:26 AM

Microsoft beta version

Scam = Macs
a haox = O! Ha! Ax
a fraud = (nearly) afraid

which put together means that Microsoft version of scam haox and fraud Is " Ha! afraid o'Macs? Ax "

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 02:40 PM

This seems as good a thread to post to as any, and it isn't worth starting a new one. I don't think.

I refinanced my house recently. The size of the mortgage, the name and address, and general particulars (but not SS# and such) are a matter of public record. As when I bought the house, I am now receiving a slew of scurrilous postings from the dregs of society and various scammers.

The first one had the name of the mortgage lender on the top, to make it look like my mortgage company was offering to let me insure my mortgage payments--something happens to me, the payments are made. But this is some place in Maryland with a word processing program and a copier. The next one was so badly misspelled it was a joke. But today a really scary one arrived, and I wonder how many unsuspecting folks have walked into this one? I'm sure they got my information as a "live address" from the public records.

They mail you a shiny plastic credit card looking thing with a number and your name and a message to call to activate it. They've set it up with tons of "small print" in all-caps so it is barely readable. Lots of underlining and exceptions on the back of the sheet. The gist of it is this "$6500 credit limit" card is a license to rob you blind if you're so stupid as to call and activate this card. $200 a year to have this thing that is an overblown catalog company (remember the catalog company scams about 20 years ago, you had to join to buy anything and they didn't have anything in stock?).

This company is called CCS Credit Service Division, out of Las Vegas. It took a few moments on Google to find this. It looks like that since 1998 they have not ceased and desisted.

Whew! I'm going to have to fumigate my mail box AND my shredder after this one!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 05:38 AM

Stilly -

Possibly some help for US folk at least. This article appeared in a fairly recent AARP mag. This won't stop the worst of them, like the ones that are working off your mortgage, perhaps; but it might get to some of the bulk types.

I didn't find a link direct to the article, so the whole thing was:

Q. We are being inundated by unsolicited credit card offers—220 applications in the last few months alone. We requested in writing that our names be taken off all mailing lists, but to no avail. What can we do to stop the flood?

A. First write to the offending companies and say you want to be taken off all mailing lists.
Then call (888) 5-OPTOUT—or [phone]—toll free. You will reach, with just one call, the three major consumer reporting companies. Tell them to stop giving your information to companies that want to send you pre-approved credit offers. You are required to give your Social Security number, name and address.
You can also have your name removed from many national direct mail lists by writing to the Mail Preference Service, Direct Marketing Association, P.O. Box 643, Carmel, NY 10512. Or, for a $5 fee, you can do this online at www.dmaconsumers.org/consum erassistance.html.
The stream of offers should slow within 30 to 90 days of your request. For more information, go to www.aarp org and search "Unwanted Mail."

John

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 06:12 AM

I thought I proofed it all but there's an extraneous space in the last URL up above at "consumerassistance." If you copy and paste you'll need to back it out.

My excuse will be that I'm on my laptop while the big machine is doing downloads - and I HATE LAPTOP KEYBOARDS AND THEIR ITTY BITTY LCD SCREENS.

This week:

Five notices that renewals are due on magazines I've never ordered and never subscribed to.

Approximately 40 credit card offers.

Eleven very official mailings simulating Veterans Administration forms informing me that "As a veteran I'm entitled to" the same deal anyone can get on Life Insurance, Mortgage Refinancing, Second Mortgages, or "special credit cards with the logo of my choice."

Fourteen very official looking mailings simulating Social Security forms informing me that I can get marvelous deals on the new Medicare prescription insurance. (So official looking that I almost discarded two real SSA letters because they didn't look quite as good.)

Obviously my "no mail" notice hasn't kicked in yet, but it wouldn't have stopped the people who can find out from public records that I have a VA mortgage and am on Social Security.

I also recieved this week approximately 8 POUNDS of other junk that I didn't bother to look at - straight to the shredder. (I weighed it out of curiosity after it was shredded.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 07:52 AM

So you shredded the $100 bills I sent wrapped in brown paper? Lucky I kept the numbers and can get them reissued...

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 02:54 PM

No Fooles - anything wrapped in brown paper would be suspected of being something my kid ordered, so I'd have had to check it out. (I have to insist he shares.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 04:45 PM

"Via gra or Cia-1is for 10¢ a pill. No prescription necessary!!" (Note the creative spelling, geared to slip past attempts to block e-mail containing particular words.)

Through regular channels, getting this stuff would require a consultation with a doctor, and a prescription, and it would run about $10 a pop from my local pharmacy. Even if I needed it (praise God!), I'd be a little dubious of this kind of a deal. I'd a whole lot sooner eat something I picked up off the parking strip. At least I'd have some idea of what it actually is.

My wife and I paid off the mortgage on our old place years ago. In our new place, where we've lived for six years now, we got a short term (couple of weeks) loan, paid for the new place by check, sold our old abode and paid off the bank, also by check (one payment). We have no mortgage. Our car (1999 Toyota Corona, bought new, has about 15,000 miles on it so far) is paid off. We pay off our credit card (only one) every month. In short, we are debt-free. Nevertheless, every day in our e-mail, we get eight or ten offers to refinance our mortgage or give us loans to pay off our credit card debt or our car loan, or in general, to dig ourselves a very deep hole. Sometimes we get four or five of these per day from the same outfit.

And then, of course, there are the offers of real cheap ersatz Rolex watches. What the hell is it with Rolex watches? I have a Casio digital/analog watch with features such as dual-time, stop watch, timer, calendar, five alarms, and top-of-the-hour "beep-beep" that I paid something like $45.00 for about ten years ago. Having once been a newscaster for a network affiliate radio station, I'm in the habit of keeping it right on the second. I check it with Greenwich mean time in the internet every week and note that it gains about a second a week. Since I'm no longer in broadcasting, that's good enough for me. I don't need no stinkin' Rolex! Yet I get about three or four spams a day trying to peddle me a Timex tricked up to look like a Rolex, more often than not from the same source.

I have Earthlink's "spamblocker." They send you all of this stuff, but in three separate batches:   if it's something you have in your address book, it goes directly into your inbox. Then a separate dump labeled "Known Spam," which you can scan quickly for something you might actually want, and "Suspected Spam," which you might want to check a bit more closely. It could contain a newsletter or an ad from Amazon or something like that that you might actually want to look at. Spamblocker is neat. It takes me about a minute and a half to transfer a couple of things to my inbox and then, with a mouse-click, blow the rest out into the ether.

We never—ever—give our credit card number out over the phone unless we initiated the call. Same with buying something off the internet, and then, only from well-known sources (e.g., Amazon, Elderly Instruments).

In snail mail, we average about three credit cards a week. The plastic card gets minced up with a pair of tin-snips and anything else with our names on it goes into the shredder. Same with a whole bunch of other stuff.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 05:43 PM

Exactly the way we do it, Don. I have found it very effective to send to Junk mail anything that is HTML format AND is not from someone in my address book.

For some reason spammers love putting their stuff in HTML format.

I filter off the junk once aday scanning very quickly over senders and headers, and dump the lot with a single keystroke. Despite the vibrant offers from 23-year old blondes to get to meet me.

Somehow I doubt their veracity! :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 05:44 PM

Hoaxes, scams and frauds,
I see them in my in-box every time I log on
Hoaxes, scams and frauds,
But still some simple folk will come around,
And lay their money down.

I was born on the wagon of a travelling show
My momma used to dance for the money they'd throw
Poppa would do whatever he could,
Sell a little snake-oil
Pay for things with nickels that were made out of wood.

Hoaxes, scams and frauds,
I see them in my in-box every time I log on
Hoaxes, scams and frauds,
But still some simple folk will come around,
And lay their money down.



Cheers
Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 09:04 PM

More verses!

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 02:02 AM

Amos:

For some reason spammers love putting their stuff in HTML format.

A reason for this is that most of the "free email" services require you to use html (in your web browser) to access your email. At Hotmail, for example, new free email accounts cannot use Outlook, Outlook Express, or any other "real email" program, unless it's one that handles html. You have to pay for a "super account" for that privilege.

Aside from "that's where the traffic is," the spammers may subscribe to the theory that people who expect "something for nothing" or who are inclined to try to "beat the system" are the easiest to scam.

Who said "you can't cheat an honest man"? They're not looking for honest people, or those with a real grip on reality.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 02:40 PM

JohnInKansas said:

"And it's "pre-approved" ..."

They want you to think it means, "We approved you before we sent this," but it means "We are still in the time before approval."

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 03:15 PM

Just for 'Stroupe:

Picked up a boy just South of Mobile, (with)
A marked deck of cards which he knew how to deal
If you got two Kings, he'd have twenty-one
He'd made his cash in Vegas
But someone caught him counting
And now he's on the run.

Hoaxes, scams and frauds,
I see them in my in-box every time I log on
Hoaxes, scams and frauds,
But still some simple folk will come around,
And lay their money down.

We all live in the wagon of a travelling show
Our laptops always running in the trailer we tow.
Now Wi-Fi connections are the ones we use.
So keep on paying E-Bay
To keep us in the lifestyle that's the one that we choose!

Hoaxes, scams and frauds,
I see them in my in-box every time I log on
Hoaxes, scams and frauds,
But still some simple folk will come around,
And lay their money down.


Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 03:56 PM

Ps. the above was not intended as a slur upon "travellers"

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 03:59 PM

DaveO -

I think I sense that you've realized that credit card offers are now one of the most serious scams going.

The offer always quotes a ridiculously low rate, but in the fine print it's "subject to approved credit." It really doesn't matter if you actually get the rate quoted because -

Also in the fine print:

They have the right to charge "penalties" for late payments or for other undefined "infractions."

They have the right to charge "bad credit rates" for any "change in your credit status."

One of the principal excuses used for changing the agreement is late payment. NO PAYMENT can be credited as "on time" unless it is accompanied by their bill for the current payment cycle. Many of them allow you only 10 days to make the payment, after a fictitious "mailing date" that's pre-printed on the statement - sometimes several days before the statement actually goes into the mail. Regardless of when the P.O. gets the payment to them, it's not "received" until they get around to posting it to your account.

(ALL CREDIT CARD ACCOUNTS IN THE US, with very rare exceptions, currently are posted by "cheap labor" in one or two small towns in India.)

They have total control over whether you CAN MAKE THE PAYMENT ON TIME, and use that as an excuse to charge, in many cases now, an extra $50 per payment. I've seen none recently for whom the late payment penalty is less than $35. The penalty payment does not reduce the balance owed.

One industry spokesman testified in recent Banking Commission hearings that penalty fees average about 30% of their gross income. He was probably fired shortly after.

If your "credit is damaged" by more than one late payment per year they claim the right to raise your interest rate, in some cases to 39% (only the highest common rate I've seen in the fine print on "offers" I've received recently, few claim less than 27% in recent fine print).

They claim the right to, and often do, invoke the same (39%) interest rate if any other credit card or other source of credit claims you are in default in any way on any payment. In a few publicised cases, a protest of a fraudulent charge on one credit card has been used as an excuse by other cards to raise the rate.

The new US Federal Bankruptcy Law that goes into effect tomorrow (November 1) exempts credit card debt from relief by filing of bankruptcy.

And the "wimpout" argument that you can always pay off an offending card by borrowing on another card ignores the fact that if one credit card has put you in a "high risk" category (i.e. has extorted penalty rates) you'll pay the same rates just to get another card.

They can make it impossible for you to meet their terms.
They can extort any interest rate they choose once your name is on their card.
You can't even file bankruptcy to get relief from their extortion.

Why wouldn't they tell you their credit card is wonderful. They just don't say for whom.

They actually are not too happy about new Banking Commission regulations that force them increase minimum monthly payments to the point where someone might actually pay off an account. (Your minimum monthly amount likely will increase by a modest bit on the next statement.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 04:02 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 10:03 PM

*applause*...thanks, John. That is a succinct statement of what I have been quietly believing and seething about for several years!

It is a racket...only those with plenty of money, good credit and religious devotion to regularity in payments can avoid getting caught in one or more of their hidden snares.

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 01:27 AM

Bill D -

As described, "religious devotion to regularity in payments" doesn't help if you don't receive the statement before the "due date."

1. Several years ago, I got a statement, minimum payment due about $60. I mailed a $300 payment within two days of receipt of the statement. Looking back later, I found that the "mailing date" on that statement was 11 days prior to the date on which I received it. Metered mail has no real postmark date. It only shows when they ran it through the meter.

2. Next statement showed no payment, a $35 late fee. Minimum payment due about $62. I mailed another payment of $300 within two days of receipt of the statement. The #2 statement was received approximately 10 days after the "mailing date" shown on the statement.

3. Next statement showed the first $300 payment, but since it wasn't accompanied by the statement "for the current payment period" they again imposed a $35 "late payment penalty. The $300 payment that was posted was not entered until 17 days after I mailed it. The payment I'd mailed with the current statement "hadn't been posted yet."

4. Next statement was taken directly from the hand of the postman who delivered it, and was mailed at the post office window within one hour of receipt with another $300 payment (min due was still about $60.)

Guess what. Still late. Statement #4 was recieved 14 days after the "mailing date" shown on the statement. It ultimately was posted to the account 23 days after I mailed it back.

By that time I'd made arrangements to pay off and cancel the card, and on my threat to take "unspecified legal action" they agreed to cancel all the late payment fees "to keep the account." (They probably weren't impressed by my threats, but may have been impressed by my "assertiveness.") Then I told them the payoff check's in the mail. I had already authorized the balance transfer to a "more efficient" source.

Unfortunately, if the same thing happened now, I would probably not be able to get a new card or other credit to pay off any significant balance, since a complaint from the one you have a dispute with will be used by all the rest of them to charge you the same extortionate rate.

You may not be able to terminate business with the extortionist who's screwing you.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Hoax and Scams and fraud
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 07:21 AM

And that, Folks is how they make Loan Sharks Legal!