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Gotta love them scammers, they will do anything to take your money.
\"Free Government Grant Money\" is one of my favorite scammers.
The name of the company ..... \"Free Government Grant Money\".
Classic example of how the name of the company was intentionally designed to deceive the consumer.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-196743-100x100.png\")
But are they taking this stuff seriously? Somehow I doubt it from this (this was my screen capture):
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-318831-100x100.png\")
@scoosdad: Most of those webform spellcheckers use a dictionary file stored locally on your computer. The website isn't saying spam is a typo, your web browser is.
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Ouch. A few elderly folks in the article.
\"I'm really angry at myself for falling for it,\" she said. \"I don't really have enough to get by to begin with, so this really hurt.\"
Sigh. I don't want to be disemvowelled so I'll shut up.
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@dohtem: Yeah, it looks like the scammers targeted the elderly. The elderly woman you quoted above didn't do herself any favors by signing a ton of sweepstakes cards though. So sad that people lose their money because they were so trusting.
@pecan 3.14159265: I have a friend whose grandfather is CONVINCED that one of these days, him sending a bunch of money to someone is going to pay off. He's spent thousands of dollars so far; the family is considering cutting off the internet to their house, and trying to spend lots of time with him. But you can't convince him otherwise. It's sad.
@SJActress: I don't mean to be rude and insulting here... but why does he think that is true? What convinces him that he will actually get a pile of free money, and makes him believe it much more strongly than he believes his own family members?
If someone walked up to him and said \"you won some contest or something, give me $100 and I'll bring you the $50,000 in winnings tomorrow\" would he gladly hand over $100 to a random stranger he's never met before?
I just can't understand the mindset. Does he think there are people out there who just give away their money like that? He's certainly never met anyone who has done it, or anyone who has benefited from it. How can he possibly think it is real?
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@chocobo: Sometimes elderly people lose their judgment. Sometimes they have dementia. Scammers don't pick on the elderly for no reason.
@dohtem: That's what the saddest part about these scams are. They usually end up hitting the people that already don't have very much at all.
Wait, I saw this in a movie once... Matchstick Men. Not the exact same scam, but similar concept.
@Cant_stop_the_rock: We all know Nicholas Cage's acting is a scam, and yet people still pay.*
* with the exception of National Treasure. I love that franchise. I'm not sure why. But I do.
@pecan 3.14159265: Oh, c'mon! Cage and Travolta wielding 2 pistols each in Face/Off with a little bit of gun kata thrown in?
That, young lady, is quality acting. Do not dispute this. I am right, you are wrong :)
(ok really, he sucks but I'm a fan)
I also liked The Rock... but I probably would have liked it more if someone else played his character.
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@pecan 3.14159265: *growl*Carla was the prom queen.*growl*
*runs off to chase exploding San Francisco trolley*
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Ah, the sweepstakes scammers.
Back In The Day, my first job out of college was managing print production for a company that published coupon books - you know, the ones that banks and other retailers would like to hand out as collateral when you opened an account/bought a car/etc.
Problem was, all of our customers were companies that had the word \"Promotions\" or \"Marketing\" at the end of their names. They would request that the custom books we printed for them had a specific total value of the coupons - most of which came from the handful of \"save $500 off a cruise/RV rental/vacation package\" coupons in the book, and took quite a bit of coupon-juggling to get to the exact number they needed.
Turned out, our customers, who were paying around 50 cents per book in bulk, were using these as \"prizes\" which their victims, er, clients would pay a substantial \"claim fee\" to obtain. The fact that the prize was in coupons, not cash, was buried in 6-point fine print, which I'm presuming none of the recipients could read without a magnifying glass to begin with. Hence the exact value of coupon offers needed.
And more than once, I was told to permanently delete (as in, using Norton's secure delete utility, which took all day to run at the time) all copies of work being done for particular clients who were just raided by the local postal inspectors.
Good news is, it's so long ago that I don't have to put it on my resume anymore...
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-1228022-100x100.png\")
I would really like to see legislation that made caller ID spoofing illegal (if it's not illegal already?). If you want to opt out of displaying any information for privacy, that's fine, but spoofing serves nothing other than a fraudulent purpose.
@UltimateOutsider: What good is making caller ID spoofing illegal when the people making the calls are already breaking the law?
What good does that do?
Seriously.....
FreeCreditReport
Free Government Grant Money
Your Car Company Extended Warranty
..... are all names used to scam people. \"Legit\" names.
\"Legit\" as in, the name or dba registered for the company.
Can't there be a GOOD scammer - one that targets elderly people in order to teach them a lesson, but then gives them their money back?
In fact, if such a scammer exists, people with elderly parents who fall for such things could HIRE such a scammer for their parent to put all their money into, and keep them occupied.
But, it would really be like a bank account, and the money wouldn't be lost. There would be a fee for this service, but a reasonable one.
(Before you say it, yes, eventually real scammers would impersonate these teach-you-a-lesson scammers, but with Consumerist and other consumer websites the real ones could be told from the phonies)
If you really do win a sweepstakes, you will NEVER have to pay anything to collect your prize (other than taxes, and that is done after you get the prize). So any sweeps that claims they need money to fulfill a prize is a scam. I have seen some where in the terms of the winning they say you will have to pay something, I can only assume these are a scam as well. Its perfectly legit if you win a big sweeps though for them to ask you for your SSN number, they need that for taxation purposes.
The scammy ones are usually for vacations and cruises.
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I've gotten at least one of these a while back (trashed it of course). Yesterday I got a Nigerian 411 scam email that was purportedly form the head guy at the FBI. Sheesh the things these idiots will do to scam money.
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@Allen Harkleroad: If you think that's bad, consider the thousands who fall for \"these idiots\"' tricks...
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My sister and I spend quite a bit of time in my parent's e mail cleaning out the nigerian scams, raffle and lottery scams, phishing scams, etc. My dad has never seen a pop up he didn't want to click. I'm guessing most of the elderly that get caught by this don't have anyone to help them with it.
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I received a most excellent nigerian scam email yesterday from the \"ICPC NIGERIA - Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission / United Nations Approved Anti-fraud Unit\" approving my settlement as reparations for moneys lost to nigerian scam emails.
@wickedpixel: Sounds legit. I'll back the money you need to send if you don't mind sharing 30% of what you receive.
@wickedpixel: haha nice