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Hmm. Maybe something is wrong here. More »
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After I didn't roll over for him, he resorted to sending me numerous threats and harassing e-mails, going so far as to threaten harm to my elementary school aged son. I wasn't about to let him get away with this.More »
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—>Mint has a great article on how to protect yourself from getting ripped off by a mechanic. First and foremost, read your car's manual and learn what to ask for when you take it in. Just saying you need a tune up with a modern car flags you as an easy mark. More »
—>88 websites, a good number pretty big name sites, that earned millions, some in excess of $10 million, as partners in the infamous Webloyalty consumer ripoff. Pizza Hut? Say it ain't so. More »
—>News reports are coming in from several states detailing a debit card identity theft scheme in which thieves steal debit card info and pin numbers, then withdraw money from customers' accounts. More »
—>A sneaky DirecTV marketer has bought up toll-free numbers that end in "DISH." When DISH Network customers call up, the operators make it sound like they're from Dish and offering them a free service upgrade, but in reality, they're switching the service and slamming the Dish Network customer into a DirecTV service contract. More »
—>Today the FTC lodged a contempt charge against scammy no-credit-needed electronics seller BlueHippo, saying that the company hasn't honored its prior agreement to stop scamming customers. BlueHippo agreed to pay back $3.5 million nearly two years ago to reimburse customers who never received the computers they pre-paid for, but the FTC says since then the company has sucked another $15 million out of customers. More »
—>In this job market, anything you can do to give your cat or dog an edge is worth pursuing. That's why you shouldn't enroll your pet in just any diploma mill—you want one that's a proven scam. Boingboing points out that there's a Wikipedia page to keep track of animals with fraudulent diplomas to make it easier to comparison shop for that next fake certificate. More »
—>Anthony accepted a job at New Jersey telemarketing company Avaya Inc. in September 2002 but decided at the last minute not to start working for the company. More »
—>MoneyGram International announced today that it would pay $18 million to the FTC to settle charges it allowed wire fraud to happen between 2004 and 2008. MoneyGram's press release notes that they disagree with the FTC's view of the matter, but $18 million is a hell of a lot of money to pay if you don't think you were in the wrong. The press release from the FTC, on the other hand, provides plenty of detail illustrating MoneyGram's negligence, as well as the criminal behavior of some of its employees who were in on the frauds. More »
—>Fortune tellers are sort of like the con-artist version of the website Significant Objects—the more interesting the story, the higher the price you can fetch for an otherwise cheap piece of crap. Unless, of course, the police arrest you for "fraudulent accosting" at the mall and ruin your con. More »
—>Amazing pills that will make me look younger and lose weight? And it comes as a free trial, you say? Of course I'll try it! Here's my credit card number. What could possibly go wrong? More »
—>Since 2007, the FBI and authorities in Egypt have been running an investigation they've called "Operation Phish Phry," sigh, and this week it paid off with 53 charges against U.S. defendants and 47 against people in Egypt. Three of the 53 in the U.S. have been arrested, and the FBI are looking for the other 50. To prove you're not one of the remaining 50, please send the FBI your login credentials to your bank. Ha ha, we kid. More »
—>William wrote to us this weekend to point out how little Microsoft does to fight phishing attacks on their hugely popular Xbox LIVE network. It's unfortunate they don't take this sort of crime more seriously, since so many kids—who by all rights should have less experience with phishing—are on Xbox LIVE. Below is what two different Xbox CSRs told William when he contacted them to complain about phishing attacks. More »
—>The website Consumer Affairs (which is not related to us or our owners in any way) is warning people in Oregon to watch out for calls from people asking for donations on behalf of local police or fire departments. It's a good reminder to everyone that telephone solicitations should be ignored: "At best, the solicitor will probably take the lion's share of your donation. At worst, the caller is an outright fraud," the site reports. More »
—>California requires limited liability companies to register with the state every two years. You could do this yourself by filling out a form and paying $20, or you could pay this shady company $239 to do the same thing. More »
—>Tens of millions of consumers have fallen prey to "free" trial offers and membership clubs offered by preacquired account marketers. These companies insert themselves into your everyday transactions, hoping to trick you into letting them charge your account. More »
—>Online dating has resulted in many happy relationships out here in the real world, but also provides a unique opportunity for different kinds of scammers to quickly gain your confidence and manipulate your emotions in order to get past your normal scam-detecting defenses. So how do you protect yourself? More »
—>Reader Jordan writes in to share a past due "bill" that he received from Bally Total Fitness, where he had previously been a member. It turns out that the letter, which specified the amount Jordan owed and threatened to report Jordan to a collection agency if he didn't pay, was actually a sneaky solicitation to get him to renew his contract. More »
—>Billy discovered how it can pay to read Consumerist. He was charged $20 for a pay phone call from an airport, but remembered our post last year about the NCIC credit card system's exorbitant charges. More »
—>Every Ponzi scheme has to have a gimmick; something to convince marks that they're investing in a legitimate enterprise, even when they're being bilked of every last cent. For Bernie Madoff, it was an investment fund that offered ridiculously steady returns. For Vance Moore II and Walter Netschi it was ATMs, an incredibly prosaic setup that managed to siphon $80 million from investors who believed they were putting their money into cash machines. The only cash machine, of course, was the fund itself, which Moore and Netschi allegedly operated from 2005 to 2008. More »
Nigeria is mad at Sony for its latest ads that suggesting a lot of scams come from the country. Heaven forfend! More »
—>If you live in New York State and purchased a computer from Dell using a Dell-financed "no interest loan," today may be your lucky day, dude. Based on a settlement with New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the computer company will pay $4 million "in restitution, penalties and costs to resolve charges of fraudulent and deceptive business practices that scammed consumers across New York State." More »
—>The are plenty of scams promoted in the backwaters of local radio and late-night TV ads. Most tend to focus on one ripoff at a time; after all, why complicate the message by asking listeners to choose how they want to get fleeced. But a tip from a viewer alerted TV reporter John Matarese to what may be a new trend: Bundling three worthless offers to create one colossally bad deal. More »
—>Fox 11 News in LA went undercover with an intentionally damaged hard drive to find out whether online complaints about Data Recovery Corp, Inc. were true. Can you guess what the result was? More »
—>Advertising rates have fallen in all media. This has helped along the implosion of the print media, led to near-saturation of infomercials on TV, and produced the ads for flatter stomachs, whiter teeth, and vanishing stretch marks nearly everywhere you click on the Internet. We know where infomercials come from, but who's behind these banner ads? Who had the brilliant idea, in a recession, to promise ugly duckling-like transformations at the end of a free trial? Slate's The Big Money decided to find out. More »
—>Here's another reason to have a sit-down with your elderly relatives and make them promise that if they ever, ever find out they've won some money in a lottery they didn't enter, they should tell family members immediately. More »
—>One of the (dis)advantages of having your e-mail address posted on the open interweb is spam, spam, spam, and more spam. This does, however, mean that some very entertaining messages slip through our filters over at tips@consumerist.com, and we'd be remiss in not sharing them. More »
—>Update: We asked the Skywalk to confirm that they have a "no-refunds" policy. Their answer is at the bottom of this post. More »
—>A city in Florida has just warned its residents of a weird scam: someone's been hanging pink notices on doors around town that say, "Due to the water quality in this area, we will be installing whole-house water treatment systems." You're supposed to fill out the back of the notice and leave it out for further contact. Remember, don't let anyone remodel your home on behalf of the city. It probably goes without saying, but still. More »
—>A reader just ran into a gift card scam while trying to unload an Apple gift card via CraigsList. If you're directed to a website that asks you to put in your gift card information in order to show the balance as "proof" that you're legit, you're being conned. More »
—>We guess if you're gonna create a failure pile, make it a big one. This email that pretends to be from FBI director Robert S. Mueller has the typical scammy touches: strange grammatical issues, unexpected shifts between formal and casual voices, a complete lack of understanding of how US government offices actually work, and an "official" gmail address. We were ready to send our information to them until we got to the end, where the letter threatens you with arrest if you don't play along. Now they're just getting silly. More »
—>This $100 flat-screen TV this random dude is selling out of his car in a Walmart parking lot is a steal! Specifically, he is stealing your money by substituting a sticker-covered oven door for a TV. More »
—>Are you looking for a job? Do you need positive references, but don't have anyone left from your old employer who would say nice things about you after the incident with the office bagel tray, shaving cream, and a box of gerbils? Don't worry. You can take care of that with a few hundred dollars. More »
—>Sheryl Weinstein, Bernie Madoff's mistress, is making the rounds with her steamy, tell-all account of Bernie Madoff the love machine called "Madoff's Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me" (the title beat out "Bernie Madoff Robbed and Sexed Me and All I Got was This Stupid Book Contract"). More »
—>Allerca's elusive hypoallergenic kittens remain elusive. A few months ago, we posted about Allerca and their amazing genetically engineered allergy-safe felines. "Lifestyle Pets" charged thousands of dollars for the kittens, but failed to actually deliver any. We featured one scammed reader's story, and now another kittenless customer is suing the company. More »
—>Reader Kellie reports being the victim of an ATM skimming scam in the Chicago area. Mostly, she was amazed that the thefts weren't reported in the local media, and she asked bank employees why. Here's what they told her. More »
—>Next time you find yourself struggling to explain how phishing works to the less than techno-savvy people in your life, perhaps just fire up this charming little video that explains it in plain English and engaging pieces of cut-out paper. More »
—>Bank of America has cut off Shannon's debit card and says she has to get a new one. This would otherwise be a minor inconvenience except for the fact that Shannon is in Irkutsk, Russia on a 2-week Trans-Siberian trek. More »
—>As convenient as it is to crucify Bernie Madoff and even his wife for the investment fraud that screwed billions out of investors, it's foolish to believe he acted anywhere close to alone. That's why prosecutors are giddy that former finance chief Frank DiPascali is pleading guilty and believed to be cooperating with investigators to build cases against the other culprits. More »
—>Scammers on Craigslist are ordering tough-to-identify pay-per-call phone numbers, then list them on ads, baiting people to call and pay exorbitant fees. Common area codes for pay lines are 976, 940, 915, 556, 554, and 550. More »
—>The Better Business Bureau has released a warning to be aware of scammers calling to threaten people with arrest "within the hour" for defaulting on payday loans. What makes them stand out from normal debt collecting scammers is these callers have huge amounts of personal info on their victims, including Social Security and drivers license numbers; old bank account numbers; names of employers, relatives, and friends; and home addresses. More »
—>Apple has shaken the App Store tree until several hundred questionable, over-priced apps that drew customer complaints have fallen off the branches. More »
—>This coupon here, the one promising a free cheeseburger and drink? It's fake. It didn't come from Wendy's, and it certainly isn't a special offer for Allstate customers. If you try to redeem it, you will either leave hungry or short a few dollars. More »
—>Bernie Madoff has given his first prison interview...to attorneys representing his victims. Highlights: He's quite candid now (what has he got to lose?), he can't believe that he got away with running an epic Ponzi scheme for as long as he did, and apparently he's been working out. More »
—>Here's one more reason to avoid mystery shopping scams: you could be the one who ends up in jail. A woman in Minnesota answered a "mystery shopper" email (that she found in her spam folder, sigh) and signed up. It turned out to be the old check fraud scam—they sent her a $2700 check and told her to deposit it and keep $300 a payment, then use the rest to make mystery shopper purchases. She took the check to her bank, and her bank called the police. More »
—>No, Amazon is not contacting its members and performing regular fraud checks. Jason received this e-mail, which is associated with a rather convincing Amazon phishing site. More »
—>"Let me put it this way. It's like food stamps," said the mortgage modification telemarketer trying to talk consumer advocate and Red Tape Chronicles blogger Bob Sullivan into a new loan. Following the trail of who this guy works for lead Sullivan to discover a new kind of mortgage modification scammer. More »
—>Patten seriously wants the purported "Online Yellow Pages" to stop calling his office. They call once per day, looking for information on the company, but Patten is suspicious. Rightly so, as it turns out—this is a scam, and companies who respond receive a hefty invoice for "advertising" that they never authorized. More »
—>CNET has a great article today about sneak attack merchants Webloyalty/Webvertrue/Reservation Rewards. It focuses on the relationship between Buy.com and the company that is suspect enough that the federal government is now interested. More »
Russian or Armenian Mob Used "Model Employee" Con at PCH Arco [LA WEEKLY] (Thanks to Angela!)
PREVIOUSLY: Credit Card Skimmers Attack Arco Gas Stations In California
More »
—>Yesterday, as part of "Operation Loan Lies," the FTC and 19 states filed 189 lawsuits, cease-and-desist orders, and other legal actions to shut down loan modification consultants who prey on desperate homeowners. The scammers offer to help solve foreclosure problems for a hefty fee; instead, they fail to modify the loan at all while collecting payments for their services, sometimes even encouraging homeowners to stop communicating with their lenders completely or to send payments to the consultants instead of the bank. More »
—>Relying on a get-rich-quick foreign currency investment pitch anointed with a Christian spin, Georgian E.A. Gresham hit up 75 marks for $15 million. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission took the mini Madoff to federal court in a civil suit filed last week. More »
—>Minnesota has filed a lawsuit against the National Arbitration Forum, alleging fraud, false advertising, and deceptive trade practices. More »
—>Some guy in London fell for an online iPhone scam in January, so he paid $150 to emailfinder.com to track down the identity behind the Hotmail account of the person who scammed him. Now he's suing Kim, who is completely unrelated to this story (or was, at least), for $4,368 to cover the $1200 he lost on the iPhone scam plus travel expenses for him to show up in small claims court here in the U.S. More »
—>A manager at Chemical Bank in Midland, Michigan, grew suspicious when he saw Marion Case, an 80-year-old customer, withdraw $25k from her account last December. Case told him she was going to mail it to someone who would then pass it along to her son. The manager, Carl Ahearn, "remained suspicious. He followed her as she walked to the nearby post office, where Case bought an Express Mail envelope addressed to a man in New Jersey. Ahearn shared his concerns with postal officials, who opened an investigation and arrested a man Monday for fraud." More »
—>Beware! Affiliate spammers have infiltrated innocent online groups, looking to take advantage of the people who haven't yet heard that "free" trials of magic diet foods are a scam. More »
—>Lu tried to buy "Dead Space" yesterday at a local Game Crazy because it was on sale. The cashier, however, added two fees for $1 and $2 for "Gameguard" insurance without Lu's permission—then tried to explain it away by saying the price was higher than marked and he'd actually had to give discounts to bring it down to the sale price. More »
—>As Hal from Malcolm in the Middle used to say, "just because someone's smarter than you, that doesn't make them a genius." Thus, I can't tell you whether car shop owners are geniuses, but I do know they have managed to pad their profits by blinding car-ignorant saps like me with science that's way over our heads, getting us to spring for unnecessary repairs. More »
At first, it looks like a rebate check, but read the fine print. It says if you endorse and cash the check, you are signing up for a marketing service called "Great Fun." Then, your credit card will be charged $149.99. That subscription will renew annually unless you cancel it with Great Fun. More »
—>The Better Business Bureau warns job-hunters and other money-seekers that no, you can't earn massive amounts of money through secretive Twitter tricks. More »
—>Arthur, a member of the NRA, received a promotional DVD out of the blue about six months ago. As we've discussed before and as Arthur points out, if you're sent something that you never ordered, you don't have to pay for it, return it, or acknowledge it. The NRA said as much in their letter to Arthur. More »
—>Dogs, sheesh, who'd have 'em. They hump your leg, their poop stinks, and — worst of all, they pee all over your carpet. Well, meet the Potty Patch! It's an indoor restroom for doggies. Basically a patch of faux sod over a plastic tray that catches the pee. Now you don't need to get off the couch to walk the dog, you can just let her take a quick, stinky whiz right next to your kegerator. Whew! More »
—>Until recently, Scientology ads had a built-in safety valve to protect sane but impressionable people. They had the overabundance of numinous sky and sunset shots, fake gold lettering with clumsily Photoshopped twinkly glints, and too much of everything, slathered on with fists of ham. The ads gave that subtle sense of unease that comes from being part of a well-funded cult. More »
—>We know how it is. As soon as a big star dies, you feel the immediate urge to buy his old stage-used sweat rag on Craigslist. More »
—>Andre Callegari of Chicago unloaded some TVs on Craigslist, but got a wad of counterfeit cash in return. Then he set up another sale with the buyer in a sting operation, and the seller actually came back, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The cops caught the bad guy, who paid Callegari some of what he owed him, but that's probably all the victim thinks he'll recover. More »
—>If you live near Burke, Virginia, you might want to pay close attention when the contractor hired by Comcast comes to install your service. Rick runs a computer repair company and has twice run into the same problem with Comcast customers, where they can no longer access the Internet after an upgrade and are offered an off-the-books repair service. More »
—>A reader received a weird message from a fellow Match.com member last night—it was a fairly transparent attempt by someone to establish contact with her via a false identity. More »
—>One of the acai berry's most miraculous powers is its ability to filch hundreds of dollars from consumers who are seeking new ways to lose weight and live forever. Now one company known for marketing an acai elixir has settled a lawsuit from the Arizona Attorney General over charges of deceptive practices. More »
—>"Free" is always an enticing proposition, but free trials that seem too good to be true often are. Conmen use such offers to lure in greedy customers hoping to get something for nothing. More »
—>Cash4Gold has an important message that they want us in the media to bring to the public. As the most respected name in direct-to-consumer gold ripoffs, Cash4Gold is "greatly concerned" that other entities are fraudulently using their good name for in-person gold-buying events. More »
It turns out X-ray glasses don't work, at least not the ones this guy in Korea was selling. [Korea Times] (Thanks to Andrew!) More »
—>Are you a student looking for a summer or long-term tutoring gig? Be sure to stay away from the foreign tutoring scam, especially if you're looking for work on Craigslist. More »
—>The Wall Street Journal ran an article yesterday about how to identify and protect loved ones from con artists. One of the problems with being an easy mark—say, because of reduced mental capacity or increasing isolation—is that you get put on a list and passed around to other scammers, says Karen Blumenthal, the author of the piece and a relative of one of these perpetually easy marks. More »
—>Tim thought he was entering an innocent giveaway at his local Subway in Warrenton, Virginia earlier this month. Nope. It was just timeshare bait. We wish the Subway would have known better than to allow the dropbox in their store to begin with, but after reading Tim's story you'll know what to watch out for should you run into a similar contest. More »
—>Becca Beushausen, a 26-year-old woman who went by "April's Mom" online, scammed gullible readers out of money to help pay for a fake pregnancy. Then she accidentally screwed up her scam by posting a photo of the supposed baby last week. "'It wasn't a photo of a baby at all,' said Elizabeth Russell, a mother and maker of lifelike Reborn Dolls, 'It was a doll. I have that same doll.'" More »
—>Back in March we posted a warning about thieves masquerading as Steam in order to get into customers' accounts and download games to resell. One reader, Richard, just received this special "alert" on his Steam IM pane this evening. More »
—>Since posting an article about Craiglist apartment listing scams a month ago, we've heard from lots of people who fell for the scam. If you're one of them, here's what you need to know. More »
—>If you're managing cellphones for a family or your parents, or let's say hypothetically you have a boyfriend who says he reads Consumerist but really he doesn't or else he would have known better, you'll probably run into stupid subscription and content fees from time to time. You know how people are when it comes to fake "free" offers. More »
—>It's not just monolithic corporations, financial institutions, state governments and the like that are benefiting from bailout funds. Scam artists stand to make a killing also, the FBI says: More »
—>The Census is starting up again, and the Better Business Bureau wants to remind people to use reason and caution when answering the door. You're required by law to answer Census questions, but scammers may pose as legit Census workers and take advantage of the situation. "Law enforcement in several states have issued warnings that scammers are already posing as Census Bureau employees and knocking on doors asking for donations and Social Security numbers." Here's how to identify a real U.S. Census worker. More »
—>Data is fun. Check out this map with data about the locations of Bernie Madoff's victims, color-coded according to the proximity of victims to each other, and in 3-D. Coooool. (Unless you're one of the victims represented by those shiny, colorful dots, that is.) More »
—>For those readers who are job-hunting for the first time, or for the first time in a long time, let this serve as a reminder: you do not need to pay a private company to get a job with the post office. No study guides. No sample exams. As T.J. learned, these companies will be happy to sell you all kinds of unnecessary exam-taking supplies...whether there are any postal jobs available or exams planned near where you live, or not. Multiple companies are masquerading as hiring for the post office. More »
—>Good news, everyone! The advance fee fraud scammers of Nigeria have decided to stop fussing with old-fashioned checks and wire transfers, and have switched to an advanced new technology. They're called "ATM cards." Shiny! More »
—>Apartment scams are the new hotness. Can't do housing scams anymore because no one can afford a house, so it's on to rentals. Insert "Merce," a guy is ripping off renters saying he's got the "homeboy hookup" and can get them into a rental cheap and with free gas an electricity, but he doesn't actually own the properties. Fox NY investigates in this video. More »
—>The Illinois attorney general's office has filed suit against a Chicago-based rental property listing service for allegedly "charging consumers a membership fee for access to a property database populated largely with fraudulent or outdated rental listings." More »
—>Update: Lloyd, a Sprint "Customer Experience" Manager, wrote in to let us know that the bill below is indeed legitimate:
More »
—>When some lowlife tried to scam Andy the other day through his friend's hijacked Gmail account, Andy tried to get him to use PayPal, and he came up with a great reason why. "It's the fastest way to send money," Andy told the scammer. "Once I deposit the funds, you can print it out of any color printer and it's real money!" Another reader was so amused by it that she decided to use it on her own Facebook scammer earlier today. More »
—>Andy logged in to Gmail on Sunday, and his friend Jeff started to chat with him. Things seemed a bit off, but Andy really became suspicious when Jeff asked him to wire $500 to an injured friend in Nigeria. The real Jeff, of course, was off playing XBOX and has no friends in Nigeria. Like the scammers hitting up people's friends for money via Facebook, thieves can log in to your e-mail and chat accounts, pretending to be you. More »
I woke up this morning to an email stating I had made two $50 gift card purchases [on iTunes Music Store]. I contacted my bank and apple, then did a google search and found that many others had the same thing happen to them. More »
—>Tony bought a Tempur-Pedic mattress from healthyback.com last December, and they sent him two pillows as a "free gift." Tony didn't want the pillows, but HealthyBack refused to take them back, and assured him they were part of a promotion. More »
—>Freddie writes that his friend was tricked by a phishing email. All the warning signs were there to tip off his friend—an email saying he needed to click a link, a suspicious url, a page asking for his login info—but he clicked and entered the info anyway. Please do not be like Freddie's friend, who is now probably on the phone with the real Wells Fargo trying to get his account number changed. More »
—>You knew it was imminent: after the "your car warranty is about to expire" robocallers pissed off the internet and the government within a matter of days, it was just a question of who would take them down first. Surprisingly, it looks like it's going to be the government. More »
—>Four Romanian nationals in Florida have been charged in a series of ATM skimmer frauds that targeted banks in New York City, Cicero (near Syracuse), NY, and Rochester, NY. They are charged with, among other things, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit credit card fraud. According to the Syracuse office of the Secret Service, they stole $1.8 million overall. More »
—>Our favorite congressman, Mike Doyle (D-PA), is also fed up with the robocalls telling him his car warranty is about to expire. For those keeping track, that's two elected officials that these robocalllers have illegally called recently. If the internet doesn't take them out first, hopefully our public servants will. Thanks, Kenneth! More »
—>Is there anything scammers won't try in their attempts to disguise advance fee fraud? Nope. Chelsea and her husband just found out that OMG THEY JUST WON 350K!!!1! from the Gaming Association of America. They'll be receiving their check shortly, but in the meantime the GAA has sent them a much smaller check for about $5,000 to cover any fees associated with the prize. All they need to do is contact the "non-government service tax agent (GST)" to take care of cashing and handing over that $5k, and they'll be swimming with hookers in champagne-filled pools. More »
—>A couple of years ago, the New York Times did a piece on the poor treatment of teens hired to travel the country and sell magazine subscriptions door-to-door, but they're not the only ones getting the raw end of the deal. More »
—>Oh look, another Mini-Madoff! Meet Alan Fishman, 49, a livery cab driver from Brooklyn, NY who convinced people he was a hedge fund mastermind. More »
—>An innocent-looking IQ test on Facebook is really a test of your privacy savvy. And ability to read tiny, tiny print. More »
—>Seriously, Jiffy Lube? You haven't received enough bad coverage about ripping off your customers? Fine, here's another one: Daniel says they tried to add about $170 in extra "needed" repairs and replacements recently when his girlfriend dropped off her car to get the oil changed. Even after she turned them down, they still slapped an extra $6 "Peak Global Life Time 100%" charge on the bill. We don't know what that means, but those are all good words, and anything that's 100 percent has got to be quality. Apparently Jiffy Lube doesn't know what it means either. More »
—>It's every Freecycle moderator's nightmare. A family in the Dallas/Fort Worth suburb of Mansfield woke up to discover men with a truck packing up their portable basketball hoop...which they weren't giving away. It had been listed on the "free" section of Craigslist by their neighbor...a police officer in a nearby town. More »
—>The FDA wants you to know that herbal supplements have not been approved to fight swine flu, or really anything. Still, some internet pharmacies want you to believe that a pill of twigs is the answer to all your unlikely health ills. And like all good scams, some of their products are dangerous... More »
—>The Today show recently aired a terrifically entertaining expos of US Fidelis, one of the biggest companies behind the auto warranty racket that you've probably encountered via junk mail, telemarketing, or even on TV. They start by looking at an individual who spent $3,180 on one of their auto warranties only to be left stranded when her car overheated and they refused to pay. More »
—>Here's another "I bought a box of rocks!" story, only this time there's proof that the victim wasn't pulling a dirty trick on Walmart. Instead, it was someone before her who bought and then returned a Nintendo DS, only they swapped out the unit with rocks before making the return. More »
—>How can you tell you've made it on the Internet? How about if you're turned into spambait? MSN Money reports that scammers are taking advantage of the sudden interest in swine flu by using it in subject lines to get people to open messages and download attachments. Don't do it! Tell your friends and relatives not to do it, either! More »
—>Lock your doors, Queens residents! IDT zombies are on the prowl in your borough, and if they catch you they'll try to eat your ConEd account and replace it with their more expensive offer. Jeff says there's one outside his building right now, trying to buzz its way in. More »
—>Lillian bought what she thought was a new phone from an eBay seller with a lot of great feedback. The longer she has it, though, the more evidence she finds that it's probably not new. Sometimes buying electronics off of eBay is like slowly peeling an onion. More »
—>Travel guru Christopher Elliott has 5 tips for avoiding what he calls the "newest hotel scam." It's called "walking," and it's the hotel version of being bumped to another flight due to overbooking. What's the scam? Well, travelers used to be offered a "comparable" hotel if theirs was overbooked — but lately, hotels have been trying to save a few bucks by booking guests in inferior hotels — and keeping the difference. More »
—>Here's a 24-page PDF of a powerpoint on ATM skimmers that's making the rounds in Australia. If you've been reading every ATM skimming post, most of this is review, but it contains several more examples of what skimmers can look like and what to watch out for. Though it's from an Australian bank, most of the information is general enough to apply to any ATM. A handy document to pass around to friends and family to warn them about ATM skimming dangers. More »
—>How do ATM skimmers work? This clip from UK show "The Real Hustle" shows you, from start to finish, how scammers steal your card info and take out money themselves. (Thanks to bonanzaone!) More »
—>A lot of you have been asking to see what a skimmer looks like before it's yanked off an ATM. Are they easy to spot or virtually unnoticeable? Our reader Timeus works for a bank and deals with this sort of thing every day, and he sent in the following photos. Enjoy. More »
—>They say the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. Only one of these can be cheated, and that's the one they'll dress you up in horizontal stripes for. Some scammers promote schemes that they say you can use to get out of that one, but they're just as legit as the Floridian Fountain of Youth. So, don't be a Ponce (de Lion), and watch out for what the IRS calls the "Dirty Dozen" tax scams: More »
It turns out that weird evening bank verification call from AmEx was legit. Brandon wrote back, "After reading all the comments on Consumerist, it stoked my fear of fraud even more, so I called Amex security. They verified the call was legitimate and was from American Express. It was just poor customer service after all." More »
—>DoomNasty tells us he's been hit three times in the past week with phishing attempts. The first two were text messages from Alarion Bank, asking him to call 1-877-240-6149 "to find out why my debit/atm card was blocked. I do not have an account, and Privacy Assist shows no account was created behind my back." The third was from 201-968-0007, but no message was left. He traced the number to Liquidity Solutions, Inc., who told him that "one of their numbers got hijacked and the hijacker is phishing for banking info." More »
—>Since you guys liked yesterday's post where a reader found an ATM skimming device so much, Network World has got a bit of "Rogue's Gallery" of the credit card-number stealing machines so you'll better know what to look for out in the wild. For instance, this photo shows how thieves will mount a camera on the ATM so they can record you typing in your PIN. It's placed over the statement dispenser using plastic that matches perfectly with the "host" ATM. Sneaky. More »
—>Call your grandma: the BBB reports a big mailing of Publisher's Clearing house scam letters went out on March 6th and March 20th, promising people big bucks in exchange for a hefty up-front fee. The fraudulent letters use the name Publisher's Clearing House and Reader's Digest but are sent by flim-flammers, not these organizations.The prize never materializes and the scammers dematerialize after you stop forking over bogus processing fees. One grandma, thinking she won $1 million, got taken for over $4,000. The fraudsters sent her a "downpayment" check of $6,000 and told to deposit it and send $3,700 of it elsewhere to claim her million-dollar-prize. Inside, what the scam letter and check look like so you know what to call your grandma and tell her to watch out for. More »
—>Dan says over the weekend he discovered a card skimmer attached to the ATM at his local WaMu branch. He pulled it off and took photos of it. More »
—>Here's seven different sneaky ways companies snag your cash, a little series CBC is calling "The Seven Sins Of The Marketplace." There's the sin of Addition, Omission, Creation, Salvation, Assurance, Persuasion, and Deception. What do those mean? Well, for instance, the Sin Of Creation is when a company invents a need you never knew you had, and then sells you a product to fulfill it. For the rest of 'em, check out CBC's cool video. More »
—>Sorry deal hunters, the liquidation sales starting today at over 300 Ritz Camera locations will be managed by the same cabal of corporate scavengers that oversaw Circuit City's abysmal liquidation sales. More »
—>Are you a fast worker? Can you cash checks drawn on your name? File monthly reports on your preformed tasks? How would like a job in the exciting and burgeoning field of being an advance-fee fraud victim? Positions are available, and filling fast. Here's the hot job offer reader Joel got emailed: More »
—>Would you pay $4,000 for a hypoallergenic cat? One reader did and he's still waiting for his cat, or a refund, from the Allerca corporation. Allerca founder Simon Brodie garnered lots of press a few years ago after he claimed to be able to sell genetically engineered cats that wouldn't trigger any allergies, a designer pussy called "Ashera." Our reader isn't alone, you can find a slew of complaints online from people who say they've that they've forked over thousands of dollars to Allerca, and never gotten a hypoallergenic cat, or a refund. More »
—>In this iteration of the locksmith ripoff, the shyster told the customer that he has to use a $400 "air jet" device to unlock her car, jacking up the cost to $176. The "special" balloon instrument is actually only $25 and is no rarity, most locksmiths have them. These guys take out big ads in the Yellow Pages and then prey on people's urgency and ignorance when they show up. KCTV5 reports, "Industry experts recommend that consumers make contact with an actual local locksmith before you need one. Then, you'll know who to call in an emergency." More »
—>Allison filled out one of those "win a free cruise" forms at a local cask ale festival and almost got dunked in a barrel o' scam fun for her troubles. Here's her story: More »
—>An EZ Lube store in California overcharged Timothy for a new cabin filter when he went to get his oil changed. The mechanic managed to do this by quizzing Timothy on his knowledge of air filters, then using that info to make vague assurances that sounded good but didn't convey the actual, final price. Timothy admits that he let his guard down, but when he was hit with the final bill, he regained his consumerist footing and began to take steps to remedy the situation—and he succeeded. More »
—>Update: It turns out the call was legit. More »
—>Want to see what a secret shopper scam actually looks like? Tracey sent us scans of the one that arrived in her mailbox today. It included a letter printed on cut-and-paste letterhead, a form, and a check for $4,200. The idea behind this sort of scam—also called an advance fee fraud or wire transfer scam—is to get the victim to deposit the check, wait for it to clear, then wire back the bulk of the money. Weeks or months later, the check will turn out to be fake, and by law the victim owes the bank for the full amount of the check. More »
—>Reader Niklas says IDT Energy stole his dog from his house. Niklas says that an IDT Energy rep knocked on his door around 1pm on Friday, March 6, and when he opened it, his 5-year old Yorkshire terrier Milo ran out into the hall. Niklas sent the IDT Energy person on their way, but couldn't find his dog. Other neighbors later reported... More »
—>An iPod repair shop, that we ripping Apple off for 9,000+ iPod shuffles. The feds charged Nicholas Woodman with jacking iPod shuffles from Apple by guessing shuffle serial numbers from a shuffle replacement site without actually ever buying the original shuffles himself. More »
—>In its recent annual report to the Mortgage Banker's Association, the Mortgage Asset Research Institute described three emerging mortgage fraud schemes that are either new or increasing in popularity. More »
—>The world of late night TV (and now prime time too) has never had a shortage of stupid exercise machines guaranteed to make you look like a dehydrated, sauced-up infomercial model. ObsessionFitness has put together a quick list of 8 of the worst offenders, including our favorite, the hula-inducing Hawaii Chair. More »
—>Christina decided to give the famed acai berry a try. What the heck, she must have thought, it won't cost me that much ($10) and the site's refund policy clearly indicates when I can return the product, cancel the "subscription," and move on. She knew the cancel-by date and was prepared to follow the rules. AcaiBerryUltimate.com had other plans, which are best summed up by this email they sent to her: "You can get your refund in hell. haahah." More »
—>Not to be outdone by all the negative publicity Office Depot is getting over their "not in stock" lies, Best Buy stores in the New York area have been uncovered refusing to price match TV prices in accordance with their official policy. When pressed, the sales associates said that the TVs weren't covered due to imaginary exclusions that aren't included in the official policy language. An employee at one of the stores gave in, but then made up a new imaginary policy that said free delivery would cost $100. More »
—>The man who invented the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has fallen prey to online fraud. It's always a sad day when you're betrayed by your own creation. Why, just the other day my best LEGO warrior ran away to join a DUPLOS commune. They live in a big circle, take what they need, and contribute their fair share of time in the community internet cafe running advance-fee fraud scams. Duplicity, built brick by interlocking brick. More »
—>The Ponz is everywhere! Seriously, was anyone doing any real investing over the past several years? John M. Donnelly of Charlottesville, Virginia, was arrested earlier this week and "indicted for fraudulently taking at least $11 million from as many as 31 investors in an alleged Ponzi scheme," says their local paper the Hook. He was promising investors returns of up to 22% annually, but naturally had failed to make any investments with his clients' money since 2002. One anonymous person—who may or may not have been a client, we don't know—told the paper, "I visited his office once. He had a bunch of computers. It seemed like a very sophisticated operation." More »
—>The SEC has busted another Ponzi scheme and ordered its operators to "disgorge their ill-gotten gains." In this one, Anthony Vassallo of "Equity Investment Management and Trading" recruited investors through his church by saying he had a computer program that would guarantee a 3.5% return on stocks. Eventually he stopped trading and paid off investors using other investor's money, while shoveling the rest of the funds into other schemes and scams. Vassallo was eventually busted when his investors ganged up on him and said his reports were phony-baloney. More »
—>Ryan's wife is currently traveling alone with their 3-month-old son on the way to an unexpected funeral near Salt Lake, Utah. Despite the fact that she paid for the rental up front as part of an Orbitz package, the local Hertz jerks are refusing to give her the car unless she goes to an ATM and brings back $200 cash, which they say they will mail back in check form a few weeks after she returns the car. Even Hertz says this isn't their policy, but they can't seem to stay on the phone long enough to help Ryan and his wife. More »
—>PC World notes that phishers are now targeting Steam account holders. Games are an easy target because you can make quick money off of them and the security isn't as high as with, say, credit cards. The site that first reported this, SpywareGuide, demonstrates two examples—steamgift.com and steamverification.com—that will attempt to trick you into giving them access to your digital library of games. More »
—>Here we go again, scammers are using the recent headlines about the stimulus package to take advantage of people looking for a handout. Emails promising to help you qualify for a chunk of the new spending program in exchange for a small fee or some personal information are popping up in inboxes, according to the FTC. More »
—>The Chicago Tribune says that Russell Cole calls his $2.75 million Deerfield, IL home "the house that Best Buy built," but now investigators are claiming that the Best Buy money was obtained through fraud. More »
—>The AP is reporting that 10 people have been indicted in a conspiracy to sell 5,600 fraudulently obtained Southwest Airlines tickets. The tickets were supposed to be for passengers who helped flight crews with seriously injured or ill passengers. More »
—>We're having a hard time figuring out how Vonage can justify pulling their "Visual Voicemail" scam on customers without even offering the option of a refund, but that's exactly what they're doing to Daniel. They quietly turned on the feature over a year ago. You'd think in a year of logging onto the website, an observant customer would catch that sort of thing—only Vonage makes it actually look like it's not enabled on your control panel, all the better to sneak it past you. Here's how they pulled it off with Daniel's account. More »
—>By exploiting loopholes in their policies, scammers are using eBay, Paypal and UPS to rip unsuspecting sellers off, like reader Chad. The buyer reported the item as "destroyed" and demanded and got a refund from Paypal. When the buyer shipped it back to Chad and he opened it, he found there was nothing wrong with it - except that the scammer had removed the memory, processor and hard drive. Now Chad is out $500 and left with a shell of a computer, and since the item was "received" Paypal won't do anything. His sad tale, inside... More »
—>37-year-old Nigerian scammer Paul Gabriel Amos convinced Citibank officials to wire him $27 million belonging to Ethiopia. Rather than go with the usual Nigerian nom de plumes like prince or will executor, Famous Amos pretended to be an official with the National Bank of Ethiopia. Amos forged "official-looking" documents that confirmed his status with the central bank and instructed Citibank to await faxes telling them where to send the country's cash. More »
—>You may have seen the commercial where Montel Williams hawks some goofy collectible coins with President Obama's face IN FULL COLOR OMG. If you were planning on ordering some, though, watch this video from KATU 2 TV in Portland, Oregon first.* A father and daughter bought the coins and discovered that they're just regular money with color stickers applied. One of the news anchors even comments that she could see the face on the coin through the sticker when she looked at it from the side. More »
—>Josh has been paying $30 extra to change out the air filter each time he brings his car to Jiffy Lube for an oil change. This time, to save money, he decided to do it himself—and that's when he discovered that Jiffy Lube lied to him about the filter. More »
—>Nate has stumbled across yet another scammy online camera retailer, US1Photo, also known as US1Camera. Longtime Consumerist readers and photography enthusiasts who visit camera forums are familiar with the routine: offer a great deal on a camera, contact the customer later and try to hard-sell expensive accessories, and if the customer refuses simply cancel the order and blame it on inventory issues. Nate is actually thinking about placing the order a second time. Nate, do not order from US1Photo.com. Their bargain-basement prices lure you in, but companies like this are only out to cheat you. More »
—>Christine is looking for a new job, and she found this neat little credit report scam. The scam is pretty transparent in this case, but we thought we'd put it out there as a reminder anyway. Remember, if you want a truly free credit report, only use annualcreditreport.com. Everything else comes with a hidden cost or enrollment in a billed membership—and if a potential employer inists on a specific "free" service that isn't free when you read the fine print, you can be pretty sure it's a scam. More »
—>Mandatory binding arbitration agreements are bad for consumers for so many reasons that, unless you're the victim of one, it's hard to keep track of the various ways you can be screwed. So we've come up with this helpful illustration: a choose-your-own-adventure-styled trip through the arbitration process. More »
—>ArsTechnica reports that a judge has ordered Neovi, the company behind Qchex, to immediately stop offering their service, which allowed people to create and send checks drawn on any bank so long as they provided the account info. As you can imagine, this led to abuse by scammers who would use Qchex to create fraudulent checks. More »
—>Cash4Gold has decided to counter a mounting stream of criticism - a Yahoo! tech article, a Red Tapes Chronicle MSNBC article, posts at Cockeyed and an insider confession at Complaintsboard - by putting up a series of debunking posts on their blog. I don't know about you but the more four-syllable words a questionable company uses and the more their pronouncements sound like an Intro to Rhetoric term paper, the more I trust them. [cash4gold.blogspot.com] (Thanks to Merck23!) More »
—>We've seen some misleading advertising before, but this one is a doozy. A company called "Property Tax Reassessment" is sending homeowners in California a fake tax document that looks official, and that attempts to con recipients into paying $179 before February 26th so that the company can file some paperwork on their behalf. There's even a late fee threat for missing the deadline! It's some of the most convincing looking junk mail we've ever seen, and it's a total scam. More »
Some brilliant jerk found an entirely new way to spread malware: he distributed fake parking tickets that prompted victims to visit a malicious website. [ZDNet] More »
—>Another reader has contacted us to say that Moreno and Woods, the fake collection agency that likes to threaten and intimidate people into paying huge bills for collections they don't owe, "called my house last night and left a threatening message on my phone for my son." Luckily for Linda, she's got a recording of their threat now. More »
—>The Florida Attorney General's office is looking into nearly 60 complaints they've received about Cash4Gold.com. A number of them complain about sending in valuable jewelry and getting pennies back, and then the company not sending their stuff back as promised. More »
—>The website Scam Victims United warned its readers about last week's arrested ponzi schemer, Nick Cosmo, nearly four months ago, based on a visit one of its forum members made to Cosmo's office. Reuters points out that this site and others like it—Fraud Aid and Scam Warners, for example—are enjoying healthy traffic spikes right now, which is great news in the fight against fraud. More »
—>Are you sitting down? Of course you are, that's why you were interested in a lose-weight-quick scheme to begin with. Well, bad news. Exercise physiologists took at look at several six-week weight loss programs and determined that no, those products don't work, and that if you want to stop looking like a "dumpling," it's going to take at least six months of actual effort. More »
—>Note: this post is about restaurant.com, not restaurants.com. The two websites are not related. Tracey emailed us today to let us know that she just found a mysterious $14.95 fee on her credit card. It turns out a company called Shopping Essentials is now billing her as a monthly subscriber, and all because she bought some gift certificates via restaurant.com in December. To make matters even more shady, Shopping Essentials never contacted Tracey to let her know she signed up for anything, or to send her information about their services, or to call attention in any way to the fact that she now pays them a monthly fee. More »
—>Somebody thinks we sell mannequins... More »
—>No, we didn't accidentally republish yesterday's post. This is another story of a "new" iPhone with someone else's email address, and this time there appears to be no simple explanation for it—the address on the phone belonged to a man who lived on the other side of the country and used a Blackberry. More »
—>It's bad enough that Victor and his friends were scammed by this AT&T store in Brooklyn, but AT&T has basically told him that they can't help fix the problem, even though he's now in another town. Update: Eugene Pikulin says this could have happened innocently when the phone was activated in-store. More »
—>Kevin's been invited to his friend's house to hear about a great new business opportunity! He writes, "I did a quick Google search and... while the company appears to be legit, it seems that their way of marketing their products [is] almost pyramid scheme in nature." The problem for Kevin, and anyone else researching this sort of thing, is it can be hard to tell how much you should trust any specific page of reviews or feedback. Here's a clear 5-step evaluation to determine whether or not the next big thing is really a multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme. More »
—>Banks usually avoid having to deal with the consequences of advance fee fraud, since they make the depositor responsible for coming up with the missing money when a check turns out to be fake. But a lawyer who just got scammed is taking Citibank to court, because he says their "unconditional" guarantee that the check was legit led directly to his loss of $182,500. More »
—>Idolina was targeted this morning by a U.S. National Bank scammer. As he was prattling on with his heavily-accented seesaw of threats and incentives, she Googled the bank. (And no, we're not anti-anyone, but there's something funny about a supposed U.S. National Bank and/or government representative who sounds like he's currently calling you from a foreign country.) The third search result was our interview last October with Laurie Lucas, who faced a similar scam. Idolina writes, "I was reading it while I was on the phone with him." More »
Please do not eat the lobster, then glue the shell back together and return it for a refund. [Times Union Albany] [Thanks to Laurie & Brian!] More »
—>Joe's tribute band was booked by a man named Rodrigues Collin for a gig in San Francisco, but it turned out to be an advance fee fraud. Joe says he discovered that Collin made contact with dozens of tribute bands at the same time, so he's contacting them himself to warn them. Here's how it happened to him. More »
—>These two guys somehow managed to make off with an $8,000 purchase at Hattiesburg Cycles in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, by telling the cashier that they were expecting their (fake) credit card to be denied, and to call a phone number to validate it. The catch: they gave the cashier the phone number to call. More »
—>The Federal Trade Commission has charged Wintergreen Systems, an Indiana-based electronics reseller owned by John Levy, with failing to honor mail-in-rebate offers for thousands of customers. The FTC's conditions for settling the lawsuit require Levy and his company to "be barred from any involvement in the development, marketing, fulfillment, or funding of any rebate program." There's also a $330,000 judgment, which the company will not have to pay (more on that below). Both Wintergreen Systems and its parent company, Market Development Specialists (MDS), resold electronics through companies like Office Depot, PC Connection, Buy.com, PCMall, and Woot.com. More »
—>According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel two scammers convinced an elderly man that they'd found a bag of money in a Home Depot parking lot — and that they'd split it with him if he gave them a "good faith cash payment." More »
—>This story from Jessica is a good reminder that scammers don't care about the technology, they care about about fooling you. That means they'll use whatever method is available—in this case, SMS. More »
—>Matt at SteadFastFinances tipped me off to a possible loan-modification scam running ads on network TV. More »
—>The Boston Globe says that credit card users are noticing a mysterious charge for about 25 cents from Adele Services in Melville, NY. The trouble is, "There is no business by that name listed in Melville, or registered to any business anywhere in New York, for that matter." No one knows yet whether these small charges are tests for larger unauthorized debits, or if this is the entire scam. Either way, check your statement and be sure to file a dispute—and request a new card—if you come across it. More »
—>On Monday, Meg alerted you to a BBB warning about Acai sellers doing scammy things to consumers. Now Donna has tipped us off to a slew of identical websites that have sprouted up online, featuring Everyday Women Like You And Me with names like Jenny, Sarah, Nancy, and Amy, and who all look like the same blonde model. They've all lost pounds, too! How? With "My 2 Step Formula," that's how! More »
—>Reader Brandon heard the "Events and Adventures" club for singles ad on the radio and decided to check 'em out. What did he find? They wouldn't tell him their fee upfront and online, he found stories that might hint at why, tales of exorbitant upfront fees, worthless service, and instead of letting you cancel, they send you to collections... More »
—>The BBB is warning consumers about scams attached to the popular, yummy acai berry. Online ads claiming endorsements by Oprah and Rachel Ray are pitching acai-berry-themed weight loss products — and are generating thousands of complaints from angry consumers who say they've been scammed. More »
—>Just a quick heads up to everyone that IDT has nothing of value to offer you, so if someone claiming to be from IDT (or any other energy company that's not the one you already buy energy from) comes to your door and asks to see your bill, give them a good how do you do and send them on their way. I've had IDT scammers hit my building twice in the past two weeks, and just now returned from throwing them out of the building a few minutes ago. More »
—>Phishing attacks are pretty cleverly designed, because they skip most virus checkpoints altogether and go for the true weak spot in human-computer interaction, the human. Lorrie Faith Cranor, a computer security researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, has been studying phishing attacks to identify new ways to fight them. More »
—>Read the dirty details of the 26 page complaint against the Fry's VP caught embezzling $65 million here. Post your favorite tidbits in the comments. More »
—>A Fry's VP was arrested last Friday for embezzling $65 million from the electronics retailer to fuel a gargantuan gambling lifestyle and feed his appetite for excess. More »
—>Our weekly roundup of the best personal finance news. Inside: Good charity-dar, scam detection, snow-removal tactics, rebuild your 401k, and warnings about store credit-cards. More »
—>SEC's chief announced they had repeatedly received since 1999"credible and specific allegations" about Madoffs $50 billion pyramid scheme... More »
—>After ice storms slammed Boston and left thousands without power, one opportunist saw a chance to make a buck in the dark. More »
—>Emily bought a very "high quality" pirated copy of Windows from an Amazon seller and didn't realize that anything was amiss for an entire year. More »
—>The FTC says that a court has halted a massive "scareware" scheme that falsely claims that your computer is infected with viruses, spyware and illegal pornography. More »
—>Kiplinger's has an article that lists a few "financial meltdown" themed scams that are out there taking advantage of people lately. More »
—>The BBB has given us a heads up about a new scam that targets holiday shoppers — pop-up internet electronics stores that only accept payments via wire transfer. More »
—>I've got a new article in Reader's Digest about 9 scams that exploit national trends and how to avoid them. Flimflammers use the same basic scams over and over again, they just use the strips newspaper headlines to layer on like papermache on their chickenwire schemes. My article points out nine recent iterations and how to avoid them. Thanks to all the readers who sent in their stories to help out with the article. Loyal blog readers will enjoy that we splashed longstanding Consumerist nemesis IDT Energy's skanky sales practices in national print. Gotcha, suckers. More »
—>Everyone's looking to pick up some extra cash these days but be wary of online job postings as many are outright scams. Here's 8 warning signs to look out for: More »
The "Mystery Shopping" check scam we wrote about a bunch of times about is still fooling people. Here's something to memorize: No matter what, if someone asks you to deposit a check and send them a smaller amount of money — you are about to get screwed. [Local 6] (Thanks, Patrick!) More »
—>A Time Out New York reporter paid nearly double MSRP for a new G1 phone she bought off Times Square from Cellular Stop. After she realized she'd been had (internet access and texting were sold to her as "add-ons"), she went back to the store asking for an explanation. Instead, she says, six clerks began circling her and her friends, screaming and cursing and threatening to "break" their "fucking faces." Her friend was tossed against a wall and another clerk tried to smash her camera. More »
—>The Daily News has stolen the Empire State Building, and it only took 90 minutes. They made up some fake paperwork and successfully got the deed to the 102-story landmark transferred to a fake company called "Nelots Properties LLC." Get it? Nelots? Stolen? The information provided to the city register was laughably fake — King Kong star Fay Wray was listed as a witness. More »
—>With so many people facing foreclosure these days, it's a good idea to educate yourself about the types of scams that take advantage of folks who are having trouble paying their bills. Even if you are doing ok, perhaps you can help someone else by recognizing a scam. More »
—>This is the time of year when scammers try to weasel nice people out of their cash by pretending to represent a charity. Don't fall for it! When considering giving to a charity, take some time to do a little research. Here are few websites that will help you find a legit charity that will use your money for good — rather than evil. Or iPods. More »
—>Mea culpa. It sounded like a good idea, but the "people-powered" comparison shopping site we wrote about, beatmyprice.com, got one of our readers scammed when she used it in a non-savvy fashion. Rebecca ordered a PS3 from the sketchy-as-hell looking "omexelectronics.biz" for $260. After she ordered it with her Discover Card, she got an email telling her to complete the transaction via Western Union instead. She did so. Big mistake. More »
ASAP Van Lines, a moving company we've covered in the past for alleged abuses against customers, has changed its name to Chicago Moving Systems. You have been warned. [MovingScam.com] (Thanks to Christopher!) More »
—>Why did this woman, a reverend and a nurse, give over $400,000 to Nigerian email scammers? It started with just $100. The emails told her a long-lost relative with the same last name had $20.5 million caught up in the banks of Nigeria. Janella Spears just had to help with a few processing fees... More »
—>"US National Bank" is still at it, calling up people and threatening them with jail time unless they pay up for debts they never took out and USNB doesn't own. Here's K's story of how "Harry Wilson" called him up screaming and yelling. But after speaking to a consumer lawyer, K learned what he needed to say to get the extortionist to stop phone-harassing him. You'll learn too after you read the story inside... More »
—>Aaron went shopping on AutoTrader and saw a BMW he liked sold by International Motor Productions. The lady over the phone, Brigette Brown, told him everything about the car was perfect. He put down a $500 deposit and flew down from Chicago to check it out with his friend Nathan. There he discovered the body panels didn't line up and the tires were mismatched and worn. When he took it for a test drive, it pulled under acceleration and made horrible noises. He took it to a reputable dealer who inspected the car and assessed it had been in an accident and had frame damage. When he took it back to International Motor Productions and asked for his deposit back... More »
Upon logging into his Gold Membership profile in order to view the classmate contacts Plaintiff discovered that in fact, no former classmate of his had tried to contact him or view his profile," the complaint reads. "Of those www.classmates.com users who were characterized ... as members who viewed Plaintiff's profile, none were former classmates of Plaintiff or persons familiar with or known to Plaintiff for that matter. More »
—>Here's a crafty scam. Scammers, posing as a legitimate Mystery Shopping company, send out checks asking the "shopper" to wire back a portion of the money in order to test the wire service. Of course, it turns out that the checks are fake — but it's too late for the hapless victim. He's already wired the money! It's an old scam, with a new twist. More »
—>"When is the best time to get out there and make a lot of money? NOW!" says the real-estate investment speaker in a dim ballroom in a hotel just off a New Jersey highway. Body odor musky baby powder and farts mingle and hang in the air. I'm in a dim ballroom that's been converted into a nexus of financial success. A tall man in his 40's or beyond, with square shoulder, combed thinning blond hair, lords over the group of about 35 on a Tuesday afternoon. In a condescending tone a practiced manner of over-enunciating every syllable, he's here to disseminate the secrets of real-estate pros. Working undercover for CNBC's On The Money, I'm eager to learn... More »
—>Reader Alexis wants to know if it's standard practice to pay for your own "background check" in order to be hired for a job. She received an email after responding to a legit-sounding seasonal employment ad on craigslist. In the email, the "Head of Recruitment," asks for money in order to perform a background check and to "demonstrate that you are serious about this position and that what you have submitted so far is correct." More »
—>Herman's tale of eBay/Paypal buyer fraud is unusual because he not only met the scammer in person, he placed his item right in the guy's hands. Here's what happened: More »
—>I've read some bad Best Buy stories in my time here at The Consumerist, but this one really takes the asshole cake. To sell its special HDTV calibration service, this Best Buy in NC set up two identical model HDTVs, both showing ESPN. As seen in the picture tipster Robert took, the "calibrated" one is noticeably better. That's because it's showing ESPN HD and the one on the left is showing just regular ESPN. You can also see how a set of box have been placed in front of the non-calibrated tv on the left so you can't see that's it not ESPN HD. That, my friends, is quintessential deceptive marketing. Robert's story of what he saw, and the rivers of bullshit and non-answer that came out of the Best Buy employees' mouths when he confronted them about it, inside... More »
—>There are lots of honest locksmiths out there — but there are dishonest ones too — and they're notorious for bullying helpless consumers out of a lot of money. Here's the scenario: You're locked out of your car, so you call a locksmith. You're quoted a price that seems reasonable, but when the "locksmith" shows up, he bullies you into paying more money — a lot more. More »
—>Molly's laptop was stolen, and the thief didn't even break into her house, or snag it from her at a coffeeshop, or hold a knife to her neck in a darkened alley. No, her laptop was stolen via email. In fact, she mailed it to thief, in Africa. OMG, you're probably saying to yourself right now with your hands up by your face, how could this be? Discover the horrifying true story, inside... More »
—>Remember the Monavie Acai juice Multi-Level-Marketing scam Chris Walters told you about a few weeks ago? There's a whole community blog set up where people can post their Monavie stories as moderator-approved comments at purplehorror.com. Here's one from a frustrated salesperson: "Our upline said that we werent pitching it the right way. Their idea of the right way was to lie. They didnt think of it as lying, but it was... They would ask people if they had any medical conditions and whatever they said, the answer was always Monavie can definitely help you with that." Note the word "upline." That's a common word multi-level-marketing schemes use to refer to the person directly above you in their modified pyramid scheme. More »
—>Apparently, some group of geniuses has been calling people and pretending that they are from the FTC. They start out with some nonsense like "Hi, Im calling from the Federal Trade Commission to tell you that you have won $250,000" More »
—>MSNBC says that a recent study by the FTC showed that on average, prepaid long distance phone cards only delivered about half of the minutes advertised. More »
—>I wanted to find out what Robert Allen's "get-rich-quick in real estate with no money down" promise was all about, so when I saw a full page ad in the Daily Post advertising one of his free seminars recently, I went and checked it out. I'll give you a full run-down later, but here's the quick and dirty, and what I can tell about how the darn thing seems to function. More »
—>Robo-scammers are ringing up consumers and pretending to the Better Business Bureau, saying, "We're from BBB Because of bailout, we can offer you a low-rate credit card." In this iteration, we see several three common scam characteristics combined: *Unexpected communication * Automated communication * Mention of topical event * Use of recognizable institution's name * Money-saving opportunity. Investigators were unable to tell the exact nature of the scam. It could be been to steal your account numbers, or it might have just been a marketing affiliate's sleazy way of generating leads for a credit card company trying to get people to transfer their balances. Complaints have been received about the scam at a BBBs serving Washington, West Oregon and Northern Idaho, as well as Midland,Texas. More »
—>Robert Allen promises to make you millions teaching you how to buy real estate with no money down. Unsurprisingly, Ripoffreport is littered with complaints about his company and those that use his name. Here's the story they tell: More »
—>Here's an odd story from the Bay Area. A man who says his house was "sold without his knowledge" to a bank after he signed a "deal" to prevent foreclosure has trashed the property — spray painting a message to the new owner. More »
—>Almost immediately after Laurie Lucas picked up the phone, the many from "Legal Affidavit Office" began reading off a litany of charges he said "US National Bank" had filed against her. Theft of property. Fraud. Money laundering. "Eric Matthews" said that he, "felt sorry for the tragedy that was getting ready to befall" her for her failure to pay back a $5,000 payday loan. They would be coming to arrest her tomorrow morning at 11am, he said in an identifiably Indian accent. When Laurie protested that she had never taken out such a loan, or even a payday loan in her life, and had never heard of US National Bank, Eric said she should have kept better records... More »
—>Here's a reminder that one must remain ever vigilant against shady direct mail offers that masquerade as bills that you are expecting. More »
—>Congratulations! Your dog is rich! Oh wait, no. It's a scam. Meet Bruce Gadansky of the Louisville BBB. He got an email from some internet scammers and decided to reply — as his dog. The email was from a "company" looking for help cashing a check. More »
—>Looking for sources for an article I'm working on for a major national magazine.
- Have you gotten a phish email recently trying to exploit the financial crisis?
- Has a fake debt collector called you and threatened with jail time for a debt you don't owe?
- Have you been the victim of a credit repair or hidden bankruptcy scam?
—>Nick has written in to warn us about a fake IRS scam that lately has been targeting nonresident aliens (e.g. teachers and researchers) working in the U.S., as well as American citizens working abroad. In the scam, which has been going on since at least 2002 (pdf), the target receives a faxed request from the IRS to provide his name, SSN, and pretty much every other bit of data you'd need to take over a person's financial identity. More »
—>The various takeovers and mergers in the financial fallout give phishers a new opportunity to try to scam you into giving over your bank account warns the FTC. As most of you know, any unexpected email message that looks like it came from a financial institution, asking you to update, validate, or confirm your account information is invariably a scam. Unwitting victims are redirected to a login site that looks like it's for their bank, but is really just a way to steal your account logins and/or personal information for use in further identity theft. Here's the FTC's tips for getting "hooked" by the "phishers" (gotta love it when the Feds pun)... More »
"People think when they come to court that they are going to get instant relief," said Judge Rebecca Dallet of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court. "We can give what the law allows, but we have no way of getting the money for them. I don't think people realize that." More »
—>Just saw a (horribly produced) ad last night for freetriplescore.com, the latest in a long string piece of crap "free" credit score sites. As Chris Walters noted when he wrote about it, for the most part it's a ripoff. But maybe there's a way to pull a fast one of you own and get a free credit score... More »
—>Contractor scams are some of the most heartbreaking because of the potential for the scammer to obtain large amounts of money from the victim. About two weeks ago, the NY Attorney General's office announced the arrest of a Western New York home improvement contractor for "repeatedly pressuring an 88-year-old widow into paying more than $80,000 for home improvements that were never done", or were so poorly done as to be worthless. More »
—>Watch out, grannie, there's a new scam out there and they've got your number. Like we told you last week, conmen are calling up elderly folk and using social engineering to pose as their grandchildren, and they need money money fast. Usually they say they were traveling in Canada and just got in a car accident and need thousands of dollars for repairs or bail. How do the scammers fool the grandparents? More »
—>The LA Times says that recessions are boom times for scammers looking to take advantage of desperate people. They've listed 5 common scams that do well in a poor economy. They include bankrupcy scams, foreclosure scams, and fake home-based businesses. More »
—>If you or your teen racked up surprise monthly fees from Mobile Messenger after texting a random code to a strange number because the tv told you to, then you may be eligible for a refund, if not triple damages. More »
—>There's a happy ending to our story, "Always Look A Gift Check In The Mouth" about the guy who opened up a new bank account just to deposit a check he thought might be fraudulent and indeed, turned out to be. Fred writes: More »
—>The BBB has issued a warning about a distressing telephone scam that's increasing in popularity. The target? Grandparents. Scammers based in Canada are thought to be randomly dialing US phone numbers until they reach someone who sounds like a senior citizen. They then pose as a grandchild who has been in a car accident and needs emergency money. More »
—>Earlier this week we posted about Cory, a man who had a bad experience with the moving company he hired to schlep his belongings from New York to North Carolina. Now Quality Van Lines has responded with their side of the story. More »
—>Cory and his girlfriend moved from New York to North Carolina this summer. They hired Quality Van Lines out of Clifton, NJ to handle the move, but soon regretted the choice: they overcharged him, failed to deliver on promises, and damaged not only his belongings but his car. Cory wants to know what his options are now—and we want readers to know how to avoid hiring companies like Quality Van Lines in the future. More »
My brother who is a junior at college sent out a bunch of applications for college grants and other sources of funding to pay for his education. Late this summer he received a check in the mail sent to him from one of the organizations that he sent an application to. The check wasn't huge, but the $3500 would come in handy, and certainly would have been a huge help in paying for his books, and housing. When the check actually came in the mail it was just a check, nothing else, no letter of congratulations, explanation or anything else telling him why he had received the money... More »
—>Fastspells.com is a ridiculous website loaded with sexy young lady "Wiccans" who, for anywhere from $40 to $265, will "find you love, give you an abortion, cure your cancer, grant you immortality, and change your sex organs." Terrific, because I need some new sex organs! These are all worn out. Anyway, Trae at TRHOnline.com was annoyed by their expensive and unrealistic promises, and the more he looked into the domain registrations, the more suspicious he became. More »
—>Chanda signed up for a month-to-month membership at a Bally Total Fitness in Montclair, California, but when things went wrong—as they frequently do with this company—Chanda found himself signed up for a 3-year agreement. Their proof? An unsigned contract that doesn't look like the one he was given. More »
—>Last week, "This American Life" featured a 30-minute piece on people who scam the scammers—in this case, three guys who prey upon small-time Nigerian con men and try to trick them into placing themselves in mortal danger. "This American Life" tells how they almost got a guy to enter a Western Union office in Chad carrying an anti-Muslim/pro-Bush note that announces his intention to rob the place. Whether you think these stunts are funny probably depends on your level of empathy even for criminals, and whether you think the avengers ever fully succeed. But c'mon, getting someone in another country to hold up a sign that's offensive in your language is pretty much always funny. More »
—>Earlier this summer, we wrote about how Paul was being gouged by Advantage Rent-A-Car on repairs that had to be made after his rental was damaged in a hit and run. Paul was willing to pay the repairs on the vehicle, but Advantage wanted almost double the amount. After we posted his story, Paul was able to get in touch with a higher-up at Advantage who passed him along directly to the Chairman. Here's what happened. More »
[Parent company] Event Tickets LLC has an unsatisfactory rating from BBB due to its performance, which includes nearly 100 instances of non-delivery of tickets, nearly another 100 complaints involving refunds and exchanges, and on about 200 occasions, the company has failed to even respond to BBB or consumers to resolve issues. More »
—>The rip-off site "freecreditreport.com" has a new competitor, and it's running fear-mongering spots on the "we'll air any commercial" cable nets (by which we mean G4). Freetriplescore.com warns you that your credit score can keep you from getting a job! But they'll give you you "free" scores from the big three credit reporting agencies if you sign up for their $30 per month membership plan. Remember, the only "free" credit report website you should ever use is AnnualCreditReport.com. For free credit scores, on the other hand, check out Ben's post. More »
—>Ah, New Zealand, the land of kiwis and hobbits. Daniel and his girlfriend went there to set up a studio and get paid to do recording sessions. They're musicians. They hired Morton Van Lines to ship their equipment from LA to NZ, but after over seven months of struggle, they got it, or their money back.Turns out the equipment was shipped to the wrong country and then returned to the USA. Maybe if Morton Van Lines ever returned a phone call or an email it could have been straightened out. But nay. Here's Daniel's story... More »
—>Steve Warshak, founder of the company responsible for "Enzyte," has been sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $93,000, says the AP. U.S. District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel also ordered the company, along with other defendants, to forfeit more than $500 million that it bilked from consumers. More »
—>Don't blog about how a shady production company tried to rip you off for $25,000 or they'll sue you for $20 million. Vision Media Television is one of several different alleged ripoff artists who frequently target non-profit and socially-aware groups, promising a big TV special aired on PBS and/or other major networks showcasing the group. The show is supposedly anchored by ex-20/20 anchor Hugh Downs and will reach millions upon millions of people. The catch? The organization has to pay for the production costs up-front, which run into the tens of thousands of dollars...and the show never goes on TV. More »
—>Last week we reported that some types of unwanted robocall telemarketing will soon be banned. If you're on the receiving end of Leverage Connections' prerecorded harassmentthey frequently operate under the generic names "Consumer Services" or "Credit Card Services"you'll finally have a way to formally complain to the FTC about them. Why would you want to complain? Because they're the scammiest, most obnoxious robocall telemarketing company we've seen so fareven though what they do is apparently legal. More »
—>ABCNews says that the West Virginia Attorney General is warning people about fake debt collectors who will call you repeatedly at home and at work, threatening you with arrest for not paying a debt... that doesn't even exist. More »
—>If you're from Chicago and have ever parked an automobile, this has probably already happened to you 6 times and you'll be wondering why this story is even newsworthy. Feel free to go get a sandwich. For the rest of the country... The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that hundreds of people who drove to the 79th annual Bud Billiken Parade got a nasty surprise when they found that a towing company had posted a notice after the parade started and towed all of their cars. More »
—>Back in June we mentioned how TicketsMyWay has a reputation for not actually providing tickets"MyWay" apparently refers to the company and not the customer, and it translates into "no tickets or refunds for you." A customer who learned the hard way about TicketsMyWay sent us an alert that the company is operating under a new banner, OnTheGoTickets.com. More »
Hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties submitted phony Medicare and Medi-Cal bills for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of homeless patientsincluding drug addicts and the mentally illrecruited from downtown's Skid Row, state and federal authorities allege. More »
—>The world's greatest bank thief is in custody. For ripping off over 45.7 million consumer's credit cards from TJ Maxx, and other retailers, authorities pressed charges on Miami mastermind Albert Gonzalez and 11 others. The stolen numbers were sold to other scammers who manufactured fake debit cards and drained their victims' accounts. The breach stemmed mainly from TJ Maxx stores using an unsecured wireless router. More »
—>We've told you plenty about door-to-door salesmen who trick consumers into switching energy service companies. Now, in direct response to the deceptive marketing tactics of these ESCOS, New York Assemblyman Micahel Gianaris wants to pass an Energy Consumer Bill of Rights. More »
—>Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you responded to one of those Nigerian scam emails, offering fabulous riches for just a small amount of work? Here's the story from an unsuspecting college student who totally fell for one. An impecunious immigrant to this country from rural China, he made the perfect target for "Dr. Mike Johnson." The good doctor was looking to hire some employees. The job? Cashing Traveler's Cheques and forwarding the money on to Nigeria... In other words, the job was to be a victim of check fraud. Here's the story... More »
—>Scammers love to tap into national trends to put a new face on an old scam, and the "Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Equity Prize Draw" scam spotted by the Louisville, KY BBB is no exception. More »
—>There's 4 main ways a gas pump can screw you over: More »
—>Reader Brian says that he's getting weird scammy calls about "lowering his interest rates" and would like to know what he should do about it. More »
—>How do you define a scam? Does your definition include anything where you have to put down money upfront in order to get discounts later? Maybe it should. Meet Stephen and Jean Liang of Kansas City, Missouri. They went to a presentation for a travel club, and ended up joining for $7,500— with the condition that they could cancel after 3 days. Before they left, they were offered a discount for Red Lobster. They thought it was a bonus for joining the club. It wasn't. More »
—>Pat won an auction for an RV on eBay last week. He bid a little over $15,000 for a vehicle that was listed for sale by the RV company for $29,999 on other sites. Pat was worried that Nelson's RV might try to find a loophole to cancel the auction since he'd scored such a great deal, so he immediately sent his required $250 deposit to them and asked for someone at Nelson's RV to contact him. Eventually, after some run around, he got the following emailwith one of the ballsiest excuses we've ever seen. More »
—>Identity theft reports to the Federal Trade Commission show that Verizon was the most frequently named company, averaging over 900 events per month in 2007. According to an updated study by Chris Hoofnagle, senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, the number of complaints involving Verizon nearly tripled from 2006. Rounding out the top five are AFNI (a collection agency), JP Morgan Chase, AT&T, and Capital One. More »
—>Reader Patrick wrote to us about a scam involving the "Awesome Auger." After finishing his transaction on their website, Patrick thought that his total price came to $28.98, but he soon came to realization that the only thing awesome about the "Awesome Auger" was the amount that they charge for "shipping and processing" on the auger's "free" items. All said and done, Patrick was billed $56.80 on his credit card. Patrick's letter inside... More »
—>Have you been the victim of a scam? Or had someone try to scam you? I'm working on a Reader's Digest article scams and am looking for some anecdotes about specific "ripped from the headline" type scams. The scams and national trends I'm looking at are posted inside. If your story fits the trend but not necessarily the exact scam, I want to hear from you too. If you have a good story and are willing to have your picture published, please send a note with your contact info to ben@consumerist.com, subject: Scam Tales. More »
—>According to legends we've heard, it's possible to find a job by searching online. Flimflammers are also looking for you, looking to defraud job seekers. The BBB has 7 red flags to should watch out for that could indicate that job opportunity is just a scam. More »
—>If a store sells you something, and then fails to deliver the product, you should be entitled to a full refund, right? Not so at Furniture Bargains of Calumet City, IL. There, even when they don't give you the furniture you ordered at all, they'll take 20% off your refund, at "the manager's discretion." Which I guess is just a fancy way of saying, "we feel like robbing you today and the manager said it's ok." AJ's story, inside... More »
—>Reader Andy decided to check his bag curb-side at JFK, that wretched hive of scum and villainy, and the curb-side check-in attendant scammed him out of $15 by promising to sneak his "overweight" bag onto the flight for a "big tip." Naturally, after the deal was done, Andy realized that his bag probably wasn't overweight and he'd just been scammed. Now he's writing in to tell his story so that other consumers can avoid a similar fate. More »
—>It seems that there is nothing a consumer can do to completely prevent a merchant from putting an unauthorized charge through on their account. Even if that account is closed or you're using a "single-use" or "virtual" credit card, fraud-prevention cards with disposable credit card numbers that change after you use them once, you're not 100% secure. How come? Well, we'll tell ya. More »
—>Watch out for fraudulent charges from Bestsmartstore.com on your credit card statements. Consumers are complaining about unauthorized charges for $4.95 or $4.99 for "e books" they never ordered or received. E-books are a favorite tool of online scammers as, if they ever got caught, they could just point to a few PDFs on their computer and say that's the inventory of their legitimate business. If you get one of these charges, do a chargeback on the card and cancel the card immediately. More »
—>If your email account is with Google or Yahoo, your days of seeing phishing emails from fake eBay or PayPal addresses should be over. Google announced last week that it's now using DomainKeys to verify messages really do come from paypal.com or ebay.comif they don't, they never even make it to your In Box. This is possible because eBay and PayPal are now making sure "that all their email is signed with DomainKeys and DKIM." Since Yahoo! also uses DomainKeys and DKIM (they developed it, in fact), phishing attacks for Yahoo! Mail accounts should also disappear. More »
—>Office Depot didn't want to accept Chaz's OfficeMax coupon for $20 off his $259 printer, so they told him that competitor's coupons didn't apply to technology purchases, which is an utter lie. Office Depot's policy is to accept competitor's coupons, subject only to the terms and conditions of the coupon, a simple concept Office Depot apparently can't understand. More »
—>We know you're too smart to fall for this ridiculously fraudulent digital TV converter offer, but maybe you know someone who's not wise to the facts of the upcoming switch to digital TVspecifically that converter boxes cost less than $100, and that you can get a government coupon to offset $40 of that cost. Universal TechTronicsthe same scam outfit behind those "Amish" Heat Surge miracle fireplacesis now conning the less knowledegable with their "free" converter box offer: pay nothing but a warranty and shipping, bringing the total cost to anywhere between $68 and $97. The Los Angeles Times says this is "the first large-scale [converter box] scam the Better Business Bureau has seen." More »
—>Why not try a SmartServe Chicken, brought to you by Sysco: More »
—>Reader Victor wrote to alert us to NCIC payphones which are charging outrageous rates and fees in various airports across the country. At first, Victor used some spare change in an NCIC payphone and received a reasonable long distance rate of about $1 for 4 minutes. But Victor ran out of change and used his credit card to make 3 more quick calls. When Victor received his bill he discovered that he'd been charged $11 per call. He directed us over to ripoffreports.com and as far as we can tell, he got off easy. We read numerous reports of customers being charged exorbitant rates for local and long distance calls. The amounts that their customers are being charged vary so wildly that we're not even sure what NCIC's rates are supposed to be. Victor's letter, inside... More »
—>Who would have ever thought that a low-budget infomercial touting an egg-shaped device home pedicure device with "100 precision microfiles" might be deceptive in some way? Not, apparently, its actors, two of whom are suing the makers of "PedEgg." The thespians say they PedEgg told them the commercial would be internets-only. Instead, it's on the national airways. We don't care about that part. Rather, we chuckle over the suit's revelation that PedEgg hired a horror-makeup guy to apply "artificial bumps and discoloration" to their feet to increase the contrast between the "before" and "after" shots. Quelle horreru! Besides their dishonest advertising tactics, someone should also sue PedEgg for the gross-out shot when they dump all the foot shavings in the trash. See the full commercial inside. More »
There is a company by the name of Ticketsmyway.com (Event Tickets LLC) that has the scam of the century running. Their operations run like this. More »
—>Got a Chase credit card? Check your bill to see if the due date shrunk. For the past ten months, the due date on reader NDphoxylady's four Chase credit card due date was the fifteenth. Then, without warning or notice, it became the tenth. NDphoxylady only noticed when she was charged a $39 late fee and a $20 finance charge. When she complained to Chase, they told her that simply changing the due date on the bill was adequate notice. Nu-uh More »
—>Sorry travelers, as expected, United Airlines will require minimum stays on all flights starting in October. Gone are the halcyon days of jetting away for a business meeting after breakfast with time to spare before returning for dinner. Most United fares will now require a three-night or weekend stay, but it "will depend on the destinations involved, the price of the ticket and the length of the flight." And, yes, you will still be charged $15 to check your first bag. More »
—>Travel superhero Christopher Elliott is wondering if there's some systematic shadiness afoot in the land of the hotel minibar. He's been hearing reports of items not consumed showing up on hotel bills, and when the error is brought to the attention of the front desk, refunds are instantly credited with no argument. Hmmm. More »
—>JK Harris & Company is a tax-relief company in South Carolina that promises to help people settle IRS debts for "pennies on the dollar" by helping them file an Offer in Compromise (OIC) on their behalf. What they didn't tell consumers is that "the IRS accepts only a small number of these kinds of cases," writes digtriad. What they also didn't mention is that they'll accept your money even if they know you won't qualify for an OIC, and they won't give refunds. "In many cases, JK Harris did not even apply to the IRS to help consumers as promised. But the company still refused to give those consumers their money back." Now JK Harris has made an agreement with attorneys general in 18 states to change its advertising and pay $1.5 million in restitution. More »
—>The company Think All Publishing has reached a settlement with the FTC in which the "free-software" scamming company will pay $2.2 million for consumer reimbursement, according to NetworkWorld. The scammers offered free software CDs and then billed unsuspecting customers for a continuity program which was unwittingly ordered by checking a "terms of use" box. Details, inside... More »
—>Update: The owner of Feazel Roofing has responded and apologized for the misleading nature of the junk mail.
Blogger HolyJuan was annoyed with a piece of junk mail he received from Feazel Roofing, because it was written in such a way that it could (intentionally) mislead homeowners into thinking the roof inspection being offered was somehow official, required, or necessary. In fact, it was simply an attempt to drum up new business for the companybut when you lead off with "DEFECTIVE ROOF NOTICE" and then mention class action lawsuits in the first paragraph, it's hard to claim marketing innocence. HolyJuan complained about the letter on his blog, and a few weeks later an anonymous "customer" posted a rebuttal full of praise for Feazel Roofingfrom the IP address of the company, naturally. More »
I was ripped off to the tune of $5620. They refused for 3 years to refund my money. Then they told me I have I have no recourse. It was electronic funds transfer for personal training that I never authorized. The people who did it were fired shortly after. It had happened to several other members, and most of the cases were settled. Except mine. More »
—>Paul is being cheated by Advantage Rent-A-Car in one of the most transparent, odious scams we've seen a rental car company try to pull. After a thief damaged his rental on a recent trip, Advantage says because the car was in the shop for 49 hours, he owes them 22 days worth of rent. "I asked how they got that number and they said they use a 4 hour work day, which is laughable! Even with that it would only be 12 days. Even if you are generous and give them 2 weekends it only gets to 16!" More »
—>Susan in Wisconsin was charged an extra $10.30 last October, even though she'd already paid the next six months of her premium in full a month before. "I thought maybe I had misread my initial bill and paid the amount said to be due," she writes. But then it happened again last month, so she began to investigate. More »
—>Reader Sean got a package with a (presumably fake) check for $4,500. Someone from Craigslist wants him to cash the check and for his trouble, he gets to keep 10%! More »
—>AT&T Mobility has agreed to offer refunds to customers who were charged for third-party services like ringtones, although if you were frequently a victim of this you'll quickly exhaust your refund quota: "Customers will able to claim refunds for spurious charges that appeared on up to three of their monthly bills between Jan. 1, 2004, and May 30, 2008." AT&T should be sending out a notification to its customers "soon," but you can already download a refund request. More »
Thanks to airlines bringing back a much-maligned ticket tariff, the minimum stay, business travelers can find that if you return on a Saturday, your ticket could be as much as three times as much as if you returned on Sunday. For instance, "A woman has a morning meeting in Norfolk, Va., on Thursday. On Continental, the round-trip fare from Newark is about $875. But if she stays through Saturday night, the fare is about $250," NYT reports. Their excuse? Soaring oil prices. Luckily, there is a way around it: buy two back-to-back roundtrip tickets, one going to your destination on your preferred departure date, one coming back on your preferred return date. Toss two legs of the trip and it can end up being cheaper than the one original ticket. More »
—>Here's another report of IDT Energy using the old "We need to make sure you got a discount on your last energy bill, just sign here" tactic to trick people into switching to IDT Energy. In this post written by Amanda, a blogger in the Adirondacks, she describes how a guy with a badge and clipboard showed up at her door, saying he was checking to make sure she got a discount off her last bill. He had her go get her latest bill, then, More »
1. Watch your bills for suspicious charges.
2. If you see a fee for a service you never ordered, contact the "service" provider and request a refund.
3. Ask your phone company about how to remove erroneous charges.
4. File an FTC complaint.
5. After you get your money back, ask your phone company to put a block against third-party charges on your account.
Cram this: a firsthand account of my recent cramming [Ars Technica] (Thanks to John!)
(Photo: Getty)
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Erin was the recipient of a recent scam attempt from Moreno and Woods, a debt collection agency thataccording to her account and others found onlineuses abusive tactics and fraudulent claims to try to con people into paying off debts they never owed to avoid things like wage garnishments and lawsuits. Erin fought back, and shared her story with us to warn others. More »
—>Reader Jared reports that another online business that has hooked up with the bogus Reservation Rewards membership club is eCost.com. Watch out for a popup at checkout that asks you if you want to save $10 off your next purchase. If you select it, the small print signs you up for Reservation Rewards crappy deal club and starts deducting $12 from your card every month. The good news is that if you call up, they will remove the charges very quickly, because they know it's shady and what they don't want you doing is actually complaining to your credit card company, bank, or someone else that might get them in trouble. More »
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"The Camera Professionals" are not actually that professional, nor do they have cameras to sell you. That's what ZDNet reporter Josh Taylor discovered when he decided to take their Google AdWord bait and buy a camcorder they were offering for nearly $300 less than other stores. He didn't expect much success, and he was richly rewarded: More »
—>Some scammer out there has a sense of humor (and a shrink wrap machine), because when Greg opened his apparently "new" copy of Grand Theft Auto IV, he found a used copy of "Boys N Da Hood." More »
Consumers report receiving automated message calls from a service calling itself "The Jobline" where you're told they have jobs for you if you call back, but it turns out it's just a scam. If you call the number back, you will get charged $9 per minute, according to messages left in online forums where people share information on telemarketing numbers. They seem to be using the number 976-4477 in different area codes. A scam targeting people already hard up for work and money, that's pretty high on the Richter scale of sleaziness. More »
—>A commenter to our Worst Company in America nominations picked Best Buy, his employer of six years, to win it all. His reasons, including the credit card fraud, phony bundling scams, and other schemes they made him do to keep his job he heard rumors about happening at other Best Buys, inside. UPDATE: The original commenter has contacted us to say that these things did not actually happen to him and he was not trained to do them by Best Buy. Rather, he heard about them happening at other Best Buys or read about them in other Consumerist articles, and, in a pique of anger, wrote a long comment that remixed all this information together and framed it as if it happened to him. Consumerist regrets the error, and the commenter has been banned. More »
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Timothy, our hapless eBay seller who kept having problems listing his laptop on the auction site, was contacted by a Real Live Human from eBay the day after we posted his story. "Garrison" apologized for the frustration, and said he'd be making a note on Timothy's account to keep it from getting shut down by other agents. He also suggested several listing options that were pretty well-covered by our commenters in the original thread. More »
You know when you buy tickets at Movietickets.com or Fandango and at that end that annoying popup window makes a noise and asks you if you want to save $10 on your next purchase? Yeah, don't enter your email address. In the fine print it tells you that doing so... More »
—>After reader Vikram ordered flowers online from 1800flowers.com, he realized he was receiving a monthly charge from an obscure company called "LiveWell" for $11.99 per month. He did some quick research and found out that many others were being duped into this program. Yet nobody, not even 1800flowers seemed to know what it actually is. What should he do? His letter and our advice, inside... More »
—>Have you purchased a computer from Best Buy, only to find that it had no internal parts? No hard drive. No video card. No motherboard? If so, you (allegedly) have Joseph Denice of Silver Spring, MD to thank for your gutted PC. His hobby is buying computers from Best Buy, removing the parts, and then returning the empty shell. Best Buy's employees would then put the computer husks back on store shelves where they would be repurchased by unwitting consumers such as... you. More »
—>MGD at dslreports read our post last night about Prophotosland.com and its fraudulent charge to reader Megan's credit card. He's been following the scammers—"an organized crime syndicate operated from Eastern Europe"—for nearly three years now, and has a ton of highly valuable information on them, including their recent targeting of military personnel stationed overseas. Bottom line: cancel your credit card, Megan, because they've got access to it now—and report the charge as fraudulent rather than dispute it. More »
—>Wachovia will pay $144 million for helping telemarketers prey upon the elderly. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency spanked the morally bankrupt institution with one of the largest fines ever levied—but before seeing a penny of settlement money, seniors will need to fill out detailed claim forms and navigate a complex bureaucracy. More »
—>Matt just got his first taste of Ebay, and it wasn't good—as soon as he mailed off the Best Buy gift card to the buyer, the buyer reversed payment on Matt's PayPal account and stopped communicating with him. We're pretty sure he's screwed on this one, but does anyone have any good advice for what he can do next? More »
—>A Minneapolis area crime duo have been arrested for luring people on Craigslist to sexual encounters, then stealing their wallets. Amy Ruth Bergquist and Eric Thorsen are accused of then using the wallets' contents to steal the person's identity to forge checks and pay for their Adderal and Dexedrine addictions. Didn't momma ever tell you not to talk to strangers online and then try to have sex with them? More »
(Photo: powerbooktrance)
Marketplace Money reminds you to watch out for "rescue scams" and "phantom counseling" when you're at risk of foreclosure. [Marketplace] More »
—>A Californian named Andrew Michael (not pictured at left) was sentenced to four years in federal prison last week for scamming Citibank and credit card companies by fraudulently applying for an $8.5 million commercial line of credit—some $2 million of which he spent on personal goods for himself, including "170 troy ounces of silver, 479 tubes of gold flakes, [and] a Rolex watch." More »
—>Reunion.com dupes new members into signing up by sending them an email that pretends to be from an acquaintance who's been looking for them (on Reunion.com, naturally). After signing up, the site sucks in your contacts and immediately begins spamming them to join by sending out a similar email. If one of those people then signs up at Reunion.com, their contact list is scooped up and the cycle starts all over again, like a social engineering version of a virus or parasitic infestation. Maybe this is why Reunion.com can claim to register about 1 million new members every month. More »
—>This should have been one of the first things your parents told you about avoiding scams, but in case they were busy watching TV or something — here you go: More »
—>Dateline did a hidden camera investigation into the world of shady annuity salesmen targeting seniors and playing on their emotions to lock their life savings away in funds they may never live to receive the benefit from, or pay stiff penalties, not disclosed in the sales pitch, for early withdrawal. In this clip, Dateline producers attended "Annuity University," a two-day session run by Tyrone Clark to teach them how to sell to elders. He settled with the state of Massachusetts after he published a sales pamphlet that told salespeople to treat seniors "like they were selling to a twelve year old" and to hit their "fear, anger, and greed buttons" to make the sale. He also sells questionable self-promotional tools and services. In one of them, a fake radio guy will call up the salesperson and interview them like they're a financial expert on the radio. The session is recorded and the salesman gets CDs to pass out, so they can pass themselves off as legitimate financial advisers. Video, inside... More »
—>Phoung Cat Le from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that a colleague of hers is the victim of income tax ID theft. A scammer filed her income taxes before she did, hoping to get a hold of her refund and stimulus check. More »
—>If you buy airline tickets on Craigslist, you could find yourself paying for the tickets twice, thanks to this latest scam. Elliot blogs the story of a William Marleua, who who bought Southwest airline tickets from someone on Craigslist. Four months after taking the flight, a Southwest collections specialist called him and told him to pay up. Turns out the original tickets were bought using a stolen credit card, and then the real owner of the credit card disputed the charge. Here's what Southwest said about the situation, "Southwest has never been paid for the flight Mr. Marleau took. It is our business policy to collect payment from the person who flew....It's a difficult situation, but we cannot protect a customer who chooses to make a questionable purchase on Craigslist for a Southwest Airlines flight." More »
—>Ashoka just found out that Bally never canceled his membership, even though they cashed his $50 cancellation check a mere 5 days after he mailed it to them last year. They've said there was no date on the paperwork, but Ashoka has a printout that proves otherwise. And they said they tried to contact him last year about the "problem," but not by phone—even though they called him promptly this month when he changed his credit card info and the automatic billing didn't go through. Bally, just admit it: nobody gets out, ever. More »
—>Veteran Ebay buyer/seller Monty has just come off a triple play of misrepresented auctions, each from a different seller, and has had zero luck getting things straightened out with any of them. More »
From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
Advance Auto said a computer hacker may have gotten financial information of up to 56,000 customers at 14 stores in Virginia and seven other states. The Roanoke company said the customers shopped at the 14 stores from December 2001 to December 2004.Why would a company have customer info on file for so long? I found one credit card processor's FAQ which said that the max for chargebacks is 180 days, which is only in the case of when a merchant has violated merchant rules (otherwise it's 120). So Advance Auto was about 2375 days overdue for a records wipe. It's time to start tightening up the lax security standards on the retail level that have created a playground of plunder for identity thieves.
(Thanks to Volksaddict!) More »
United Home Warranty, which has disconnected its phones, taken down its Web site and left no forwarding address, has vanished, leaving an unknown number of policyholders holding worthless home warranties, authorities said. More »
—> A volunteer in Chicago claims that her client, a 65-year-old woman with dementia, was given a GMAC auto loan for a new 2007 Pontiac, even though she only makes $900 a month and has no driver's license. Now the car has been repossessed and the car lot is saying she owes them nearly $8,000. More »
—> Pssst, wanna make an easy $20? Just give all your bank account and personal data over to ConsumerSay, a consumer opinion and behavior tracking firm owned by Lightspeed Research. Jen, who sometimes fills out surveys for freebies and cash, got an email from them offering her $20 for only 5 to 10 minutes of her time. Oh, and all of her financial transaction data. More »
—>H&R Block is an extremely generous company! They've sent you a $5,666.10 refund check and you didn't even file your taxes with them! Isn't that nice? More »
—>Someone hacked this couple's Sprint account, and bought four new phones on it, leaving these 12-year customers to pay over $2,500. Every time they called Sprint, the fraud department said not to worry and that the charges would be off the bill next month, but the disconnect notices kept arriving until Sprint shut off their phone. Only after a local consumer reporter got involved was the problem solved. When asked why it took so long, Sprint said, "it takes a while to complete a thorough investigation." If you're a legacy Nextel customer now with Sprint, you may want to ask about getting a PIN set up on your account. The account seemed to have been targeted (the fraud department said probably by someone inside Sprint) because it was an old Nextel account that didn't have a PIN. More »
—>Have you heard of "credit card shaving?" In this version of credit card fraud, thieves try out 16-digit number sequences until hitting one that works. Then they take gift cards from stores and shave off the digits and glue them onto a credit card. They scratch the magnetic strip so the clerk has to enter the credit card number by hand. It's apparently all the rage in Portland There's no defense against it except to monitor your statement for suspicious charges. More »
—> Jesus from South Texas signed up for credit monitoring at the notoriously scammy FreeCreditReport.com. He never received the confirmation email and wasn't able to access his account, so he never used it, but forgot to call to cancel it. After three months he realized he was being charged $15 a month as per their terms of service, so he went to their site to retrieve his login credentials and was told the account didn't exist. After that, it took him 4 calls to get the account canceled, and they would only refund him for one month of service. One of their CSRs tried to scare Jesus into keeping the account open because there had been some "suspicious activity" in his credit history that he'd be wise to monitor. Then they told him there is no phone number or email for their "customer satisfaction department"—it can only be reached through snail mail. More »
—>UPDATE: Facing Online Onslaught, Dealership Honors eBay Sale More »
—>The FTC slammed nuisance advertiser ValueClick with a record-breaking $2.9 million fine for littering the internet with deceptive ads for free iPods, PS3s, and plasma TVs. Instead of providing freebies, ValueClick tricked people into signing up for useless services and then failed to safeguard their personal information. More »
—>Cash-strapped colleges are partnering with banks to transform student IDs into debit cards. The deals are a windfall for the institutions, but force students to open accounts laden with hefty penalty fees and surcharges. More »
—> Josh discovered a mysterious $13 fee on his parents' phone bill, and as he tracked down the source of the bogus charge, he learned a lot about cramming. The FCC describes it as "the practice of placing unauthorized, misleading, or deceptive charges on your telephone bill" by third party companies, who bank on you being too confused/distracted/annoyed by your hard-to-read bill to notice. More »
—>Phishers have a new target: your Google Calendar. Nigerian-419-type scammers are spamming sending their messages as meeting invites on people's Google's Calendars. This happened to me a few days ago. One way to combat it is to change the "Automatically Add Invites To My Calendar" setting from Yes to No. More »
—> Two fortune-tellers in Chicago are in being held in jail in lieu of $750,000 bail each for defrauding customers by convincing them they were cursed, then selling them expensive curse-removal/protection services. Remember, folks, fortune tellers cannot curse you, see your future, turn you into a werewolf, or make you lose horrific amounts of weight. They can, however, take your money. More »
—>The popular conception of phishers is of shadowy electronic masterminds, using a mix of technical prowess, deception and anonymity to trick consumers into handing over the bank account details. Actually, most of them are too stupid to design their own websites. That's what two security researchers found when they delved deep into the online phishing community. More »
—>Are you trapped in a payday loan death cycle, or have a friend or family member who is? See, the problem with a payday loan is that some people aren't able to pay the first one off (if you don't have money in the first place, you're not going to be any better off two weeks later!), and then have to take out more and more loans to cover each loan they couldn't pay off. Not only is there high interest, there's fees. A former PayDay loan lender on personalbudgettraining.com shares his advice for breaking out of the debt trap.
If you can't get out of this right now, start by advancing $50 less per pay period. Take the difference of what you were paying us in fees and start paying it into an emergency fund. Grab a job delivering pizzas, babysitting, whatever, and pay it into an emergency fund. Borrow less and less from us. Use the EF for actual emergencies. Once you are out of this, don't get back into it.Earn more, borrow less, and pay off more. More »
—>The commercial says you can win a free Craftmatic bed, but all you're likely to win is a salesman worming his way into your home. An Inside Edition investigation revealed some shady high-pressure tactics by Craftmatic bed salesmen targeting the elderly. Typical sales tactics involve starting with a high price, $5,000 and then using a series of phony price drops to get the person to buy today. The salespeople say the bed is so great that it will solve acid reflux and heart disease! And at a seminar where you learn to be a better Craftmatic bed salesperson, a hidden camera showed instructor Carolyn Nilson talking about the lengths she would go to to close a deal, saying "I've done it all. Dug checks out of the garbage that they didn't shred...reactivated credit cards, gone to the bank." Most contests are just "lead-generation" opportunities for the businesses. Warn elderly friends and family about the sleazy tactics of the Crapmatic sales force. More »
—>Tricia asks:
Tmobile is not budging regarding $1500 dollars worth of charges on a SIM card that was stolen from my lost phone and put into another device. Its so obvious the phone was stolen, my bill is typically $40 a month, the person took someone out of my "Fave 5" and put in someone named Mostofo. I called Mostofo who said he wants to help "find the criminal" but Tmobile says they don't really care about the fact that it was stolen, that I owe the total amount regardless. Super annoying! Anything I can do? I get that Tmobile says, until I officially report it stolen I'm responsible for the charges, I just think that's ridiculous when its SO obvious the charges aren't mine.More »
The net result here is if your CEO with a large balance uses an index fund with no kickbacks for his 401k, and other participants use expensive funds, they are in essence making a contribution to their CEO's 401k because his higher account balance gets the brunt of the revenue share "kickback."Wisebread asks, "If your boss is getting a kickback from those fees, do you think he will work diligently to help you find a 401(k) with reasonable fees?"For more about the dirty secrets in 401ks, check out our post, "How Your 401(k) Is Ripping You Off."(Photo: Getty)
—> Here's a perfect example of what a ripoff rent-to-own or "lease-purchase" (to use the Kelly's phrase) arrangements are to the consumer. This $250 Wii console can be yours for only $79 a month, and after 12 months, it's yours to keep. By that time, you will have paid $948 for it. By comparison, if you charged it to a credit card with 18% interest, you could pay $23 a month and have it paid off after 12 months. Kelly's offer will cost you $673 more than paying with the credit card. More »
—> We don't mean to influence the "Worst Company In America" voting, but check this out: if you call Comcast and ask them to stop sending you anything other than your bill, they'll agree but quietly slap you with a $1.99 "change of service" fee. Like most made-up, totally indefensible fees from cable and cell phone companies, Ian found that a chat with a customer service agent can get the fee removed. Update: Comcast has responded to this and apologized for the fee. More »
—> Earlier this year we noted that Network Solutions is "front running" domain names—that is, automatically purchasing domain names that customers search for and holding them for four days before releasing them again. During that period, the only way customers can buy the domain names is through Network Solutions for 3 to 5 times more than what you can pay elsewhere. Now "search engine expert" Chris McElroy has filed suit against them, named ICANN as a defendant, and is seeking class action status. More »
—>When you get a new or replacement credit card in the mail, you have to call the number on the back to activate it, or else you can't use it, right? Wrong. Despite the sticker on the back that says, "For security purposes, this card is not active," credit card companies are mailing out cards that can be used without phone activation. This is a problem if the letter containing your credit card is intercepted by an identity thief, like what happened to reader PC Guy. The kicker? He didn't even request the card, it was a forcible reissue when his store-branded card switched from Visa to Mastercard. His story, inside. More »
—> Tiny Details is a work-at-home company that pays hobbyists to make little dollhousey things. You buy the materials from Tiny Details for $55, make the assigned object(s), and Tiny Details buys them back. Unfortunately, many customers have complained about problems getting payments or refunds from the company over the years—here's their less-than-stellar BBB entry. Yesterday Kristopher Buchan, the owner of Tiny Details, emailed one former customer/client to tell him his complaints amounted to libel. Buchan demanded the customer remove them from teh interweb, and threatened him repeatedly with a lawsuit. And now we're posting about it on The Consumerist! See how that works, Tiny Details? More »
—> Universal Gas & Electric, a Canadian company, sends out door-to-door salesmen who lie to homeowners about the imaginary "savings" they'll enjoy if they switch gas suppliers, when in reality Universal is currently about 50% higher than the default supplier. One former Universal employee says, "I'd have people ask, 'What am I paying now?' and they'd look at the bill and it's right there in front of them and they don't know where to look and I would avoid telling them that." More »
—>Chris went ahead and added some animal pictures to make a video of that phone call between a scammer and a Southern gentleman. A weasel plays the Indian phisher, a houndog plays the gentleman, and a goose plays his wife. Go back to the post and watch it, it's even funnier than the original. More »
—>KNBC went undercover and found a bunch of vets are more sales people than pet doctors, using fear to sell more treatment than is necessary. They took pets with minor ailments, checked out by a vet, to several different vets. Instead of getting the minor fixes they should have been recommended, these vets advised expensive extra tests, procedures, and medicines geared more towards lining their pockets than healing the pets. One dog had an upset stomach but was recommended a $300 "eyelid scraping," despite his eyes being perfect. When confronted, the vet said she had done nothing wrong, and "eyelid scraping is not done in the states, but she used to do it in Austria." She also admitted there was nothing the matter with the dog's eyes. The report says that if you get recommended an expensive procedure, get a second opinion. More »
newVideoPlayer("con_thephisherking.flv", 463, 387,"");—> 
—> A man in Virginia who apparently likes to record suspicious phone calls captured a very funny 10-minute talk with the world's clumsiest phisher who called his house trying to get his bank account number. His local news station reports, "Howard says he recorded it because he wanted to help people by putting it on the news." More »
—>The March issue of Kiplinger's features an article that will help you spot a medicare health scam before you (or your family) get taken for a ride. Watch out for sneaky insurance agents who ask for personal information or say they are from medicare and can reduce your premium: More »
—> Hooray! Steve Warshak, the snake oil salesman responsible for Enzyte (and consequently for those awful "Smiling Bob" ads) was found guilty today of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering. So was his mom. More »
—> If you're an HSBC customer, check your account, as there may be a wave of fraudulent activity hitting your bank. Two days ago we wrote about the guy in the U.S. who discovered his account had been drained by someone in Bulgaria. Later that day we received an email from Emily in NYC who was having similar problems, only her fraud-buddy was in California and Canada making withdrawals on her account.
Emily's fianc wrote back to us today with an update, and according to Emily, the HBSC Fraud Investigator who spoke to her "said that their fraud department was so overwhelmed, it was 'still in the developing stage of how we're going to handle' it. I asked if she knew how many customers were affected and she stated 'We don't even know.'" More »
—> Georgia state inspectors closed two large Cisco gas stations just across the state line from Florida last week in what the Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture described as "one of the worst cases of shorting gas customers he's seen since he took office back in 1969." (Why Ag? Why not?) An inspector found that a five gallon test pump turned up over a quart short at the Cisco Travel Plaza off Interstate 95's Exit 6, and a similar test revealed a suspiciously similar shortage at another Cisco Travel Plaza off Exit 1. More »
—>Check your statements. Fraudulent charges of $429 for "ID Safe" are showing up on some people's credit card bills. Which is odd, because usually these places use tiny charges so they're more likely to go unnoticed. If you see a suspicious charge on your credit card, call your card company immediately to check it out and get it reversed if need be. On the credit card statement, the phone number listed for ID safe is 888-261-6045. After the jump, what happened to one consumer when he called the number and got through to the mastermind, who sounded like she was banging pots around in her kitchen... More »
—>Is Countrywide telling you your Loan-to-Value (LTV) ratio needs to have reached 75%, not 80%, in order to get the private mortgage insurance (PMI) removed? Throw the book at them: tell them they're in violation of the Homeowners Protection Act of 1998. The law clearly states that PMI is to be removed after 80%:
Cancellation date.—The term ``cancellation date'' means...the date on which the principal balance of the mortgage...is first scheduled to reach 80 percent of the original value of the property securing the loan.One reader (different from the guy we posted about before) says he was having trouble getting Countrywide to remove the PMI. They twice told him in writing that he needed a LTV of 75%. Then on the phone with them he mentioned the Homeowner's Protection Act and then all of a sudden they were magically able to remove the PMI. More »
—>You're probably being ripped off at this very moment and you don't even know it. Do you have frequent flyer miles? Have you checked lately to see what they're worth? Probably a lot less than when you signed up. Everywhere we turn, companies are pulling back from the value they offered when you signed the contract and handed over your payment, and leaving fees and restrictions in their wake. Gift cards whose value dwindles over time. Credit card payment due dates getting shorter and shorter. Credit card interest rates shooting up for no reason. Impossible to fulfill warranty repairs. Overdraft fees completely disproportionate to their cost. Health insurance coverage denied for the flimsiest of reasons. The list goes on. More »
—>The FTC today released its top consumer fraud complaints of 2007. Based on complaints filed by consumers, identity theft is the number one complaint by a very wide margin, taking 32% of all complaints. The next closest complaint category was Shop-at-Home/Catalog Sales, which only took 8% of the complaints. Here's how the bastards break down: More »
—>A scammy website, "IWantToVote.com," has been charging residents of New Jersey $9.99 to fill out their voter registration forms, says that New Jersey Public Advocate: More »
Read the tragic tale of this screwed eBay seller over on Metafilter. He did everything Paypal told him to do to avoid being scammed when he sold a cellphone, including, when the buyer returned the item, opening it in front of a police officer. Problem was, the buyer/scammer sent back a smashed gold cellphone instead of nice $500+ cellphone that was sold. Seller protection policy should apply, right? Nope, it doesn't cover "items not as described." Failure. More »
—>Sprint got hit with a class-action lawsuit for illegally extending customer's contracts. Like most cellphone providers, up until recently they would put you in a new two-year contract if you added minutes, got a new phone, got refunds, or wore a blue shirt on Tuesday. More »
—> A woman sued Wachovia last year because it allowed a telemarketing scam company to process stolen payments through its banks, despite complaints from customers and warnings from other banks and federal authorities. Wachovia said it had no idea what was going on, but now documents have been revealed that prove people high up in the company not only knew, but that "the bank, in fact, solicited business from companies it knew had been accused of telemarketing crimes." Why? How about millions of dollars of extra revenue from steep fees whenever a fraud-related chargeback went through? The lawyers for the woman are now seeking class-action status for the lawsuit. More »
—> When Capital One "closes" your credit card account, they'll continue to allow automatic withdrawals even though the account is closed. But they won't send you a statement—you know, because it's closed!—so that you'll end up with late fees. Quenten experienced this first hand when he closed his account recently, and now Capital One has sent his account to collections over a $38.00 late fee for two 38-cent charges that he never knew about. More »
—>A Centura bank manager was arresetd on suspicion of defrauding an 86-year old man out of $82,000 from his bank account. Milton Hagelberger helped the old man set up his checkbook, then set up a second account under the old man's name and made himself an ATM card. The manager had the account statements mailed to an empty lot across the street from the bank so the man wouldn't see the missing money. The victim only found out about the fraud after he tried to cash a check and found he had insufficient funds. We're often worried about outside identity thieves stealing our moneys over the internet, but sometimes identity theft happens in the flesh, right in front of our face. More »
Cablevision is charging customers $40 to keep their old phone number when they switch over. When questioned, they lie and say they're simply trying to recoup the number port fee charged by the previous provider. [Consumer Reports via Broadband Reports] More »
—>The IRS would like you to know that its not planning on emailing you about your tax rebate. "The IRS does not send unsolicited e-mail about tax account matters to individual, business, tax-exempt or other taxpayers," the agency warned yesterday. More »
—>Colby writes:
I moved this past month to a new apartment in the same building — when I was setting up the account transfer, the representative uncovered that I had been misbilled for nearly 2 years for service on a 3rd, non-existent, television. It wasn't clear due to the billing information, and I was instantly promised a credit for $170.20 that was calculated by the rep and his supervisor. As a loyal consumerist reader, I got all their extensions and representantive ID's — just in case. After the move, I received a bill and there was no credit. I called, and was informed my credit was denied due to a 'disclaimer' that would allow them to only go back for 3 months with a credit. They didn't care what I had been promised, nor did they care what another rep and their supervisor had noted on my account.More »
—>Ben writes:
A friend of mine bought a 2005 Toyota 4 Runner for about $25000. When he went to the dealer, he told them that safety was a big concern as he has small children, and he wanted to get as many safety features as he could on the vehicle he was going to buy. The saleswoman showed him the 4 Runner he ended up buying and pointed out that it had side and curtain airbags, which were listed on the sticker. He bought it, and a week later he took it to get inspected. It turns out that it does not have the side and curtain airbags that are listed on the sticker. He went back to the dealership and spoke to the manager who offered him a few free oil changes, and tried to tell him that that year didn't even come with those airbags so what was he complaining about. What should he do? They already got rid of the truck he traded in, and is thinking that the dealer owes him some cash back on the deal.Classic bait and switch. If your friend wants to take the guy to the mat, he could try to ask for a rebate for what he feels the cash value of those safety features are. I recommend the tactics described in the post, "How To Kick A Scammy Car Dealer In The Nuts." More »
—> Last week, Pennsylvania's Attorney General filed a consumer protection lawsuit against the PA-based company Pure Weight Loss and its owner, Vahan Karian. Pure Weight Loss, which has about 400 stores nationwide, announced last December that it was going out of business, and yet continued to accept pre-payment from unaware customers up to four days after posting the announcement on its website. Since closing, it has failed to reimburse customers fees for unfulfilled contracts or deliver the supplies they've already bought. More »
—>A Californian real-estate appraiser is suing Washington Mutual, saying she was blackballed after refusing to to give artificially inflated property value estimates.
...last May, according to the suit, a WaMu manager upbraided her for describing local property values as "declining" in an appraisal. The manager insisted that Wertz "change her report to indicate 'stable' conditions so that the loan could be approved." More »
—>A federal court handed down indictments against 14 moving company employees for extorting money from customers. Allegedly, they would sucker people in with low estimates, then ask for much more money on delivery, and not release the goods until the price was paid. Of all the moving company complaints we receive at The Consumerist, this one is the most common. It's always important to check out a moving company's rep beforehand; ask friends for recommendations, look up their BBB report, and see if they're talked about on sites like MovingScam.com and MovingSham.com. Don't just go for whoever is cheapest, a low-price could end up costing you a lot. More »
—> Amazon reviews, especially the effusive ones, have always been suspect—you never know when a five-star review came from an employee, publicist, or marketing type. Slate describes the dishonest world of Amazon's "Top 10 Reviewers," where a small group of writers churn out purple-prosed blurbs and jacket-ready compliments at an astounding rate, sometimes for a fee. In turn, these reviewers are inundated with a sort of fame as well as free merchandise—mostly books in the past, but now electronics and other goods. Because good reviews sell more books, Amazon has no incentive to weed out the reviewers who have turned the system into a cottage industry. We suggest you disregard any review with a "Top 10 Reviewer" label on it. More »
—>"Competing by cheating has become a way of life for ... many of these corporations, many of the most reputable of them. Because it's done by AT&T, MCI, or Sprint, people are reluctant to use that word, but when all is said and done ... these are scams." More »
Here's another fraudulent charge to watch out: charges in the amount of $9.45 or $9.40 from your checking account from an "advertising company" called HBS. A reader says it happened to him, and when he searched online, he found others, a good number of whom had ordered credit reports from Equifax... [800notes] More »
—>Phishers are now turning to text messages to get people to fork over their personal banking information. Con artists targeting southwest Missouri sent text messages to hundreds of cellphone users, telling them that their bank account expired and directing them to a fake website with a URL containing the bank's name. There the website captured the login and password of anyone who logged in. Phishers will use any medium they can. If you receive a message purporting to be from your bank and you're not sure if it's legit, call your bank directly to verify its authenticity More »
Remember that Wachovia Hands $100,000 To Fake Armored Car Driver story from Friday? This video shows how easy it is to pull off. Check ID, ask questions, don't blindly accept the word of someone in an authority costume. [The Real Hustle] More »
—>CBC Marketplace did an undercover investigation into buying a condo, and found that it's rife with risk for the buyer, while the sellers completely protect themselves. You get lured in by the model condo they set up, all spacious and with stunning views and stainless steel appliances and breakfast bar and all that jazz, but contractually, there's no guarantee that you will get that space. The contract pretty much says everything is subject to change, the floorplan included doesn't have any measurements or square footage, and there's clauses that say that any sales material or verbal promises made don't count at all. One contract lawyer says that any relationship between what you're told you're buying and what you end up with will be a "coincidence." Watch the video to learn more about protecting yourself from the condo bait-and-switch squeezeplay. More »
—> Common sense will go a long way in protecting you from scammers masquerading as mystery shopping companies, but here's a list of warning signs just in case you're feeling especially gullible the next time you come across a mystery shopper ad and think, as you stare across the cubicles at all the assface jerks you work with, "This might be my ticket out of here." More »
—> A reader from Vermont writes in to let us know that he accidentally discovered Comcast has been charging him a $3/month modem rental fee for a modem he owned, because Comcast claimed that due to poor record keeping, it had no way of distinguishing between Adelphia's modem renters and owners. This fee went on for months undetected because Comcast doesn't itemize such fees on their online statements, only on their printed bills. (Well yeah, because including such details online would waste ink...wait, what?) When our reader called Comcast to have the fees refunded, he was told he'd have to provide proof of purchase for his modem. More »
—>One lady reports that she started to get inexplicable credit card charges from Creditreport.com. After speaking to 12 different reps, she reached a supervisor who threatened to sue her because she had signed a contract. When she asked for the contract to be mailed to her, the supervisor said, they "couldn't" print it out, they could only email it. To which the lady responded, "So how exactly is this going to hold up in court? What are you going to do, Email the judge?" Oh snap. Eventually, after a little more hassle, they canceled her account. Someone should have told her that the only place to go to for a free, no strings, no monthly fee access to your credit report is annualcreditreport.com. More »
There's a new internet domain name scam going around and its perpetrators tried to target our sister site Jezebel. Basically how it works is that a website operator will get a very official looking email saying they're an internet registration company and that someone applied to use your domain name except with a different suffix, instead of .com, .cn, in this instance. Then, says, Kevin Tjaden, Client Services Manager at MarkMonitor, If you respond to the e-mail they will register the domain and offer to "recover" it for you for a large fee. It has been a pretty successful so you will see more of them in the future. It is best to treat them like spam and do not reply." More »
—>Reader Stephen writes in to let us know that he somehow got signed up for a scammy "Joke of the Day" service that charged $9.99 to his Sprint account. More »
—>One of the nation's biggest mortgage lenders, Countrywide, admitted to a Pennsylvania judge that it had fabricated some of the evidence supplied in a homeowner's bankruptcy case. The evidence in questions were a series of letters the lender said it sent to the homeowner notifying her that she owed $4,700 because of problems with escrow deductions. The homeowner had filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy and the mortgage debt was discharged after she met the terms of her 60-month bankruptcy plan. But then later Countrywide told her they were foreclosing on her house because she still owed them money. They said they had sent her three letters notifying her of the debt. The homeowner, her lawyer, and the Chapter 13 trustees say they never got them. When Countrywide produced the letters it supposedly sent, the homeowner's lawyer noticed that the ones addressed to him didn't have the address of his office at the time; they had the address of the office he had moved to AFTER the dates on which the letters were said to have been sent. What a bunch of crooks. More »
—>This ad for Amish "HOME SURGE" fireplaces that appeared in USA Today, designed to look like a typical USA Today article, begs the question: are the Amish allowed to use Photoshop? More »
—>For those of you who were wondering why you recently bought an empty box from Best Buy, look no further for your answer. Three Best Buy employees from a Bridgewater, NJ store were busted for removing items from their boxes and placing them inside the boxes of less expensive items, which they would then buy. More »
EZ Lube of California has to install cameras in all its 75 locations and is forbidden from doing anything more than lube and oil and filter changes. It's part of a $5 million settlement brought by the DA's office after numerous consumers alleged that repairs and services were billed but never completed and following up on an undercover investigation by KNBC's Joel Grover. The cameras are there so that customers will have a video record in case of future disputes. The chain also agreed to stop selling unnecessary services, as well as eliminate a policy requiring workers to sell certain amount of "services." Most importantly, EZ Lube established a restitution fund requiring it to investigate every complaint and pay back anyone who was ripped off. Customers who think they're owed a refund can call the Orange County district attorney's hotline at 714-648-3637. More »
Smart Money has some new scams to watch out for, in particular, con artists trying to take advantage of people in foreclosure. [Smart Money] More »
—> On December 12th, the U.S. District Court of New Jersey sentenced Elizabeth Lerner, a.k.a. Elizabeth Cooperman, to 33 months in prison for "falsely claiming that she could cure amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly called 'Lou Gehrig's Disease.'" Her crime partner, former osteopath Charlene C. DeMarco, was sentenced to 57 months back in September. More »
—> SmartMoney has come up with five new spins on classic scams to watch out for in 2008: "The financial woes and natural disasters of 2007 have armed scammers with plenty of new tricks—or resourceful spins on old ones—aimed at separating you from your cash." More »
—>For giggles, I stopped into our local CompUSA (Mount Laurel, NJ) to see what amazing deals could be had. More »
—>Best Buy still uses a secret internal website to deceive customers, according to the L.A. Times. The website appearing on in-store kiosks resembles Best Buy's official site in every way, except for the prices. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal was surprised to hear that his investigation failed to end Best Buy's bait-and-switch, telling the L.A. Times: "We thought Best Buy had addressed this. That's what they said to us. Apparently that's not the case." A tipster in Virginia also reports the continued existence of the secret website. More »
—>People who are about to retire often find themselves faced with a million different brokers who have a million different great ideas about what they should do with their savings. It can be overwhelming, but Kiplinger has a great article about shady investment scams and how to avoid them. More »
—>Mike had his phone stolen and $239 in fraudulent calls made to Africa on November 4th, and even though he reported the charges on November 5th, Tmobile says he still has to pay up. Their inviolable policy is that you're responsible for the charges up until you report the phone as stolen. Mike recorded his failed attempts to get Tmobile to credit his account. More »
—> A reader writes in that he noticed an unusual charge for $8.95 on his bank card recently. He looked up the number connected to the charge—866-305-8808—at the website 800notes.com and found that it belongs to some company called Eureka or EurekaInfo.net, and that there are others who have discovered the same unauthorized charge in recent days. More »
Al Schweitzer, a former pretexter, described before Congress the underlying principle of how, for fun and profit, he was able to trick various agencies and institutions into giving up other people's confidential and personal information.
Identify the piece of information you are after; identify who or what institution is the custodian of the information sought; based on real world situations or actual operational procedures of the target institution, figure out under what circumstances and to whom the desired information would be released; be that person under those circumstances.Emphasis added. Using this method Al was able to get people's phone records, bank statements, and tax returns for his clients, who were often insurance companies, lawyers, and law enforcement. He successfully pretexted the IRS and the Social Security Administration. Simply put, if someone with money wants it, your personal information is not secure. More »
—>Here's a fun scam: buying art at auction on cruise ships. In one case, a woman paid $20,000 for what she thought were high-value Salvadore Dali, but when they got shipped to her, an independent appraiser told her they were worth maybe $700 each. The business is conducted on international waters, so there's no consumer protection laws to throw you a lifesaver. Consumerama says they're not even run under real auction rules, but are instead, "coordinated inebriated sales hysteria." More »
—> Freddie Mac produced this video to educate borrowers who face foreclosure about a fraud scheme where "a con artist will seek out a public notice of foreclosure and approach the potential victim with documents and the promise of sorting out the debt," thereby tricking the homeowner into signing over the deed to the house. More »
—>The WSJ Health Blog alerts us to the existence of predatory sales scams involving private fee for service (PFFS) Medicare plans. More »
—>Andriy writes:
It seems as I'm falling a victim to a Yo-Yo Car Financing | Spot Delivery Scam from a car dealer... More »
GfK Mystery Shopping has issued a warning to be on the lookout for a mystery shopper scam making the rounds. Here are 12 warning signs to look out for. [Earthtimes.org] More »
—>There's hope for humanity yet: the 78-year old pensioner who saved 10 years for a cruise, only to have Princess Cruises screw her out of her money after missed connections resulted in a missed embarkation? She will get to take that cruise. After her story hit the papers and the blogosphere, strangers stepped forward to fund her cruise ship dreams. This time, Almentia McKan will arrive a day in advance, fly non-stop, and purchase travel insurance. She probably won't be sailing Princess Cruises either. More »
—>Budget Rent-A-Car settled with the FTC over its illegal charge of fuel fees even for customers who returned the car with a full tank of gas. Budget claimed in its advertising and in-store signage that customers would not be charge for fuel if the car came back with its tank full. In reality, Budget would charge customers a $5, $6, or $9.50 fuel fee if they drove fewer than 75 miles and returned with the tank full. The only way to get the fee reversed was to present a gas receipt, a procedure Budget didn't disclose in advance. Under the terms of the settlement, Budget will have to stop doing this crap. More »
—>The Red Tape Chronicles details a credit card scam where an ebook company fraudulently charges consumers for ebooks they never ordered. Oddly, when you find the company's hidden "customer service" number, they're very quick to issue refunds. Using eBooks is clever, too. That way, if they're raided, the only inventory they will have to show are a few digital files It's almost like they know how to just skirt on the edge of the law... hmm...chin scratch.... More »
—>Ars Technica reports that "42 percent of adults in the UK feel that their trust in a brand would be greatly reduced by receiving a phishing e-mail claiming to be from that brand, according to an online survey conducted by research firm YouGov." More »
One of Best Buy's Black Friday deals was a $229 laptop. Each store was supposed to have 15. A complaint letter posted over at Notebooks.com alleges that a New Orleans Best Buy hoarded the most laptops for the employees and passed out only a few vouchers. At one point, an employee's girlfriend in line threw a hissy-fit because she didn't get a voucher and her boyfriend snuck over and palmed her a voucher, skipping over the other customers in line. Shame shame shame, Best Buy. Yet another reason we hate Black Friday, the stores can't even abide by the rules of the in-store promotions that are designed to lure more people inside than will ever get the deal and then offload otherwise unsellable crap. More »
—>A 78-year old pensioner saved for a cruise for 10 years, but after she missed an airplane connection, she missed the cruise ship and Princess Cruises gets to keep her $2500 paid for the cruise. They're also keeping the $559.80 the airlines refunded because she didn't take the flight. (See how that works? You don't get charged unless you actually use their service...) You gotta read the Washington Post column for the full run-down of all the different things that went wrong on this lil old lady's trip. More »
—>Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna is reminding consumers to read the fine print on rebate offers before giddily pouncing on a seemingly hot deal. We are rebate skeptics; they are nice when they work, but should never be a deciding factor when weighing a purchase. The Attorney General has a few tips to help improve your chances of successfully redeeming a rebate: More »
—>Blaming insurance companies, Fox Collision of Arkansas closed all of a sudden, leaving customer's cars stranded in the middle of repairs, and employees with bounced checks. KTUL tracked the owner, Tod Foxx, down in Colorado, driving a Cadillac Escalade that Hertz has been looking for for 2 weeks. He has a new venture in wealthy ski resort town Aspen, selling leather wraps and blankets. In a letter, Fox asked employees to be patient as he tried to raise money to take care of the final week's payroll. Former employees have opted instead to file a class action lawsuit. More »
—>The *72 phone scam is growing in popularity, according to the Houston Chronicle, and Comcast is warning consumers about it. More »
—>If you've ever been curious about becoming a "mystery shopper," a person paid by a company to check in on a store's performance, you should know there's lot of fraudulent mystery shopping companies out there. Bargaineering has 12 warning signs to look out for if you think one of these jobs is a good way to pick up extra cash, like: More »
—>Should you ever venture into a live auction, you know, gavel, real chairs that you sit in, etc, Consumerama has some tips on auctioneer scams to watch out for. Let's say the price drops to $300, and three hands shoot up. By law, he's supposed to just accept one bid at $300 and move on, but: More »
—>Reader Zak writes to tell us that his copy of Call of Duty 4 was blank. Thankfully, he opened it while he was still inside the Best Buy, so exchanging it wasn't a problem. (Though some random Geek Squad guy did accuse him of being a scammer.)
I generally read a few of the network sites, Giz, LH and of course for a chuckle I also read Consumerist. Now I lack photo proof of this as I immediately did an illegal u-turn and took my product back to the store, but I'll let you know anyways. More »
—>Most of those "fill out these forms and get a free laptop" sites are scams. For one thing, there's never any "free." Assuming you wade through all the pages of buttons and entry fields, you'll invariably find that you have to sign up for some credit cards and charge a certain balance and have the card active for a few months before you get your free stuff. They may also make you sign up other people do the same thing. This guy got a new MacBook pro and it cost him $400. Josh Clark routinely sets up "conga lines" of people working together to get their swag. More »
—> The Chinese government has discovered a fake diabetes medicine on a fake research institute website, which then links to a fake version of the official government health and drug watchdog agency's site. If you're paying attention to urls, it's hard to not notice that something's wrong—but we're sure there's more than enough people who don't notice that little detail. More »
—>We didn't know about this (possibly because we have enough interesting email to read without bothering with spam), but apparently the new cool thing is to send MP3 spam. More »
—>An estimated 30.2 million Americans were victims of fraud last year, which is about 13.5% of the adult population, according to the just released results of the 2005 FTC Consumer Fraud Survey. (Yes, it takes them two years to get the results out the door). More »
PREVIOUSLY: Sting Op Of 10 Different Computer Repair Companies Finds 70% Don't Know What They're Doing More »
—> Last Thursday, a Texan filed a class-action suit against Systemax Inc. in federal court, alleging the company and its subsidiaries TigerDirect and OnRebate conspire to delay or reject rebates in order to sweeten profits. Systemax says no way, we pay our rebates on time; according to its chief financial officer, "All consumers who properly complete the rebate application and submit the required paperwork have their rebates paid, period." But that's not what the Texan says happened to him. More »
—>The latest iteration of the so-called 419 advance fee scam features adorable puppies to win the hearts and bank accounts of Craigs List and Puppyfind.com readers.
[Michelle Waltenburg of Tacoma] was on the Craigslist web site looking at the classified ads for pets when she came across an ad for a "lovely English bulldog puppy needing a loving and caring home." More »
—> Planning on doing some buying or selling online? Wired offers some tips on how to spot scammers when you're on eBay or Craigslist. More »
—>The company behind "Possible Credit Card Scam Alert: We'll Lower Your Rates, Purrs Robot Message..." is called VersaDebt, according to one reader who was able to string them along long enough to find out. More »
—>UPDATE: "VersaDebt" Company Behind Rate Lowering Robot Calls? More »
—> Stopbadware.org has just released its "Trends in Badware 2007" report, a free overview of all the ways you and your computer can be slipped digital roofies while you're online looking at LOLpornography and doing your banking through Twitter. It's written in a deliberately non-technical style, so if you're put-off or intimidated by the Slashdot crowd, this is a great way to educate yourself or a naive loved one about the dangers of drive-by downloads, website hacking, and so on. More »
—>The modern pyramid scheme has undergone slight tweaks in order to stay just with the bounds of the law, and still keep the fun scam times going. When you strip away all the pretty foil and chocolate, though, a naked Ponzi sits in the center, laughing his ass off. More »
—>Remember that Seattle used car dealership that broke into a mentally disabled customer's house and stole $70,000, and turned out to have a history of on the job drug-use, shady tactics, and abusing mentally handicapped customers? Seems the new owners were never able to overcome those little besmirches on its good name and the dealerships are closing. Huling Bros, consider this your auto de fe. More »
—> Fraudulent check scams (which we wrote about yesterday) have taken a new, exciting twist: integrated into so-called "mystery shopper" scams. The classified ads you see for secret or mystery shoppers used to be small time cons, designed to bilk you out of $100 or so to provide information that's readily available for free. But add a little check fraud and you could be taken for thousands of dollars. More »
—> It almost goes without saying that you should never trust Gamestop, but you'd at least expect them to honor ads that they've approved and printed. Gamestop pre-sold a Consumerist reader the new Medal of Honor game for Xbox 360 back in August. Part of the deal—according to their ad—was a card good for 400 free Marketplace Points for use on Xbox Live. But instead, they cancelled the card from his order, then gave him an incorrect reason for the cancellation, then admitted fault and promised to make everything right. As of today—almost a full month since the game was released—he still hasn't received the points. More »
—>Some scams are clever and some are not. This is one of the not-so-clever ones. Jean-Luc Mbilli and Constant Yao were arrested in Fort Lauderdale, FL after trying to convince Samith Ghazawi, an convenience store employee, that they could use a special potion to multiply money. More »
—>Before leaded toymakers, these homegrown shortchangers profiled in a 1938 issue of Mechanics and Handicraft conned "Mr. and Mrs. Buying Public" with lead-weighted ducks, berry boxes designed to look like they held more than they really did, and various deliberately faulty scales. More »
—> Let's say you bought a diet book that was advertised to provide an easy-to-follow diet that you can do at home and that allows you to eat whatever you want—and then, once you buy the book, you find out that it "describes a complex, grueling plan that requires severe dieting, daily injections of a prescription drug that consumers cannot easily get, and lifelong dietary restrictions." The FTC apparently thinks that's misleading, and they're going after Kevin Trudeau (yet again) for it. More »
—>A reader whose wife received a debt-collection notice from AFNI regarding a seven-year old Verizon account was actually just one of over a million consumers getting a similar letter, WSYR reports. More »
After an 18-month-long investigation, German police have arrested 10 Russians, Ukrainians, and Germans who they think were involved in phishing scams that bilked users out of "hundreds of thousands of euros." The suspects targeted customers of eBay and Deutsche Telekom, among other companies, and lived "luxurious lifestyles involving expensive jewelry, cars and travel." [Reuters] More »
—> When you consider the risk and high cost of identity theft, it pays to be skeptical whenever someone calls you and claims to be from your credit card company. How can you verify that they're legit? Reader Cathy points us to bloggingawaydebt.com, which offers five simple things to do if you want to make sure you're not being scammed. More »
—>In a damning 18-page report, Bloomberg exposes how the insurance industry's systematic use of sleazy scare tactics cheat vulnerable policyholders. More »
—>Besides being annoying and disruptive, some telemarketers are outright crooks, trying to swindle the unaware out of their hard-earned money. Via Fraud.org, here are six tell-tale conversation flags that indicate you're dealing with a telephonic scam artist: More »
—>Missouri florists have bankrupted a New Jersey telemarketer accused in a class action suit of tampering with phone book listings to siphon callers away from local businesses. The telemarketer, TTP, purchased phone book listings under the same names as local florists, but did not provide an address; the listings appeared side-by-side, but when local callers dialed the number without an address, they were directed to an out-of-state call center that tacked on a handling fee and submitted the order to a different area florist.
"The primary objective of both lawsuits is to get TTP out of Missouri," said Gregory Leyh of Gladstone, the attorney for both class-action lawsuits. "TTP cheats by pretending to be a local florist so it can fool consumers and steal the legitimate business of Missouri florists. At least for now, TTP is no longer in the floral business in Missouri." More »
—>Cook County prison inmates posing as Sheriffs are scamming St. Louis households with calls that start with a request to aid someone who has just been in an accident by calling a number that starts with *72. The prefix activates call forwarding, allowing all incoming calls to ring at an alternate number; the calls are then billed to the victim. More »
—>This is a picture of the 1,300 unopened rebate forms a Mercury News reporter found in a dumpster near Vastech, a rebate processor for Fry's Electronics. More »
—>Bankrate has an extensive round up of the most common internet pet scams, including the infamous "Nigerian Puppy Scam." (Yes, apparently this exists.) More »
—>Best Buy employee Olivia Bailey, 18, was accused last week of stealing $13,000 from a Best Buy store in Lawrence, NY by using fraudulently obtained credit card numbers to purchase gift cards. More »
—>Blue Hippo, the notoriously scammy computer layaway service, has annoyed Florida's attorney general. More »
—>With high-quality printers are widely available at the consumer level, check counterfeiting is on the rise, usually in conjunction with "advance fee scams," where someone is tricked into cashing an overpayment of some sort and then sending the remainder to another address, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Then by some machination or another, the overpayment turns out to be fraudulent and the scammer vanishes. The image above shows various security features to look for when evaluating a check's verisimilitude. More »
Check your credit card and debit card statement for unauthorized charges from STC SAWA RECHARGE RIYADH SA. The Saudi Arabian phone card company is fraudulently passing charges to consumer's cards, usually for sums of $80. If you find one of these unwanted charges, contact your card company to dispute the charges. This may not be enough, as consumers report being the charges hitting their cards multiple times, even after reporting them. In these cases, it may be better to cancel the account. More »
—>The new IRS email phishing scam involves a fake customer satisfaction survey that asks for sensitive personal information such as your SSN, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and even the security code from the back of the card. More »
—> Some scammers have weaseled their way into Monster.com and are using email addresses gleaned from the site to run a phishing scam. More »
Consumers promote boycott of Conoco and BP stations along I-80 that post low prices on their signs but then charge 25-50 cents higher on most of the actual pumps. Under state law, the practice is legal. [Lincoln Journal Star] More »
—>While we spend a lot of time on this site talking about the importance of writing a good complaint letter, of finding the executive contact info, and cc'ing letters to appropriate regulatory bodies, sometimes the best way to win is to stop playing Mr. Nice Guy and start playing hardball. Demonstrate, in no uncertain terms, just how much more costly it would be for the business to ignore your complaint than to resolve it. That's the lesson learned from, Unscrewed: The Consumer's Guide To Getting What You Paid For. More »
—>Ars Technica quotes a recent study by Microsoft that found that 58% of American consumers didn't even know "online threats" existed. The study also found that of the ones that did know about said threats, 17% of them had fallen for some sort of Internet scam—and 81% of those people said it was their fault for opening suspicious emails or sending information to strange companies because they had a nice logo. More »
—>Greedy national locksmith companies masquerade as local businesses to prey on consumers who think they are in no position to haggle. Dependable Locksmith, Basad Inc, and Liberty Locksmith are just a few of the national chains that rip-off distressed consumers, charging up to $500 for simple jobs. From the LA Times: More »
—>Check your credit card statement. Is there a $29.99 charge for VIP TUNES or VIP Tune Limassol CYP that you can't remember what it's for? It could be a fraudulent charge. Some of our readers and people online noticed the bogus charge this month from the company located in Limassol, Cypress. If you notice the charge, dispute it immediately with your credit card company. More »
Most so-called "free credit report" sites are total fucking scams. [The Red Tape Chronicles] More »
Takeaway: AAA membership has perks. Or, consider taking a few to find a locksmith with a good local word of mouth and putting their number on your cellphone. The fire department can unlock cars, but only if it's on fire or there's a baby trapped inside. And of course, try not to lock your keys in your car. More »
Gotta say, we agree with the ol' chap. More »
—>Sprint announced Monday it was canceling the accounts of around 1,000 people who called customer service too much. At first blush, it might sound like a pretty jerk thing to do, have bad service and then punish people who complain, but we spoke with one of our most reliable Sprint insiders, who had a different side to the story: the terminated customers were scamming Sprint, calling in again and again, just to get free service credits. More »
—>Georgia is suing the super duper shady Bill Heard dealership, whom we wrote about twice in July 2006. This time, the dealership stands to get slapped on the hand for sending out advertising that fraudulently appeared to be recall notices for GM cars, but were actually printed by the state's biggest car seller in an attempt to scare people into buying new cars. The result of the lawsuit could be a fine of a $5,000 per mailing, up to $50,000,000, reports AJC.com, and a promise to stop deceptive trade practices. It would mark the 16th such promise Bill Heard has made in its 16 years of business. More »
Gallant got recommendations from friends, and made the company agree on a "not to exceed" price for the move. More »
—>The New York Times has an article about a growing problem, a scam called "equity stripping." Here's how it works: You answer an advertisement targeting people who are facing foreclosure, but want to stay in their homes. You think you're refinancing your loan at a lower rate, but in reality you're transferring the deed to someone else. That person then takes out as much as they can against the value of your home. From the NYT:
Jessica Attie, co-director of the foreclosure prevention project at South Brooklyn Legal Services and the lawyer for the Johnsons, said her office was overwhelmed with homeowners who had handed over their deeds to people pretending to help "save" their homes.We know times are tough and a lot of homeowners are facing difficult financial decisions, but make sure you know what you're signing. If someone offers to "temporarily" buy your home, warning bells should go off. More »
—>The dumb scams people try to pull never cease to amaze us. Take Chandon L. Simms, 23, of Monroe, LA. He walked into his local Walmart, grabbed a 42" Sanyo Plasma TV, removed its price tag and affixed one that would scan for only $4.88. More »
—>Employee theft is a serious problem for retailers. It makes prices go up and return policies more strict. So when we hear about an employee getting busted for such a spectacularly stupid, yet probably effective and routinely performed scam we are glad. More »
—>The rebate has mated with the gift card to produce a super-strain of super-sucky rebates. By adopting the gift card's"dormancy fee," your rebate's value now shrinks over time. In many cases it's only a few months before it starts to lose value, reports The Red Tape Chronicles. Some cards will even ding you for an activation fee, or charge you for checking your balance. More »
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I haven't sold very many things on Ebay. I run a DJ company and had a brand new Pioneer DJ CD player that sells for over $1000 that I wanted to sell on Ebay. I went through the process of selling it and the winning bidder (who had very low feedback) payed me very quickly via paypal. The address the person gave me was for her son in Nigeria. Yes, I know Nigeria I should have known, but I was naive and trusted this person. Plus, I had seen on the Paypal website that they have up to $1000 - $2000 of seller protection. So I figured if it was a scam, then I was covered. More »
—>Using the names of companies accused of being DS-Max (now known as Innovage) subsidiaries/affiliates on Ripoffreport and a list on DS-Max The Aftermath, I did a search of Monster, Hot Jobs, and other job sites to pick out real ads that are out there and should be avoided. More »
—>Like a sequel to a horror movie, the Amway brand name is bursting out of a shallow grave, reports ABCmoney:
The move also was widely viewed as a way of helping the company shed some of the negative connotations the Amway name had acquired. The Quixtar name, however, never resonated with the public. More »
DS-MAX
J.U.I.C.E.An odd coincidence, considering the perverse series of emails Richard Shapero (pictured, left), Director of Nu-Life, sent in an attempt to squash our reporting and assert such distance between the present DS-MAX and Innovage/Old DS-MAX.Nu-Life's ownership of J.U.I.C.E. is inconclusive, but readers may recall how in Brian's experience and research, Aftermax companies used "Juice," meaning, "Join Us In Creating Excitement," as a term of congratulations. — BEN POPKEN(Photo: Profiles Of Success In Business [PDF])PREVIOUSLY: DS-MAX Tries To Shut Down Our IDT-Energy InvestigationUPDATE: Gaby sends a final email to Richard...
—>A reader who used to work for Quantum Marketing, one of the "Aftermax" companies, (the term for companies that old DS-MAX (now known as Innovage) spawned), wrote several posts describing how his company scammed people who thought they were donating money to D.A.R.E. More »
—>I had worked at Circuit City for quite some time, until recently when I could no longer stand the shady operations of its business. While working at Circuit City I worked in the Media and Technology department. I believe there are a few things that people should know about Circuit City... More »
I work from home and was in the middle of a busy period when a young man came to my door saying that he worked for ConEd or that he was doing some work for ConEd — he definitely identified himself with ConEd. Anyways, he told me he that he was doing work in the building and that he needed to see my bill to check if I had a message on it indicating that I was one of the ones in the building who would be getting a discount next month. Well, chock it up to me being distracted or just plain gullible, but I never even thought for a second that it was a scam. He seemed like he was merely performing a check, not anything more. He then proceed to tell me that I was, in fact, one of the lucky ones, and that I'd be seeing a 7% discount starting next month (all the while making notations on my bill, supposedly indicating where the savings would come from). More »
"Time shares" are vacation homes that you buy the right to live in for a certain period every year. Theoretically, you and the other "owners" get to "own" a resort retreat for a fraction of the cost of outright ownership. More »
—>The results of a reweigh yesterday showed that ASAP Van Lines mistakenly overcharged Candace for her shipment. More »
—>This is almost everything you need know about DS-MAX (now known as Innovage), the super-shady multi-level-marketing group whose business practices seems to have inspired the Midtown Promotions office we're looking into. It's culled from an excellent post over at DS-MAX: The Aftermath: More »
"Several companies are engaging in these very aggressive tactics against consumers and small businesses, many of the people and the businesses are getting ripped off," said City Councilman John Liu. "There needs to be stronger regulation." — BEN POPKEN More »
—>Ever wonder how credit repair services work? According to the FTC, they take your money, often illegally, and then perform services that are available to any and all consumers. The shops start by charging an initial registration fee from $20 to $100. This is against federal law, which prohibits payment until the repair has been performed. The shops then charge a fee to obtain your credit report, even though you can access one free copy of your report each year at AnnualCreditReport.com. More »
One scam some moving companies use, reader Mark tells us, is to weigh with empty tanks, pick up the load, and add say 200 gallons of fuel. Then they use the heavier weight at the scale and charge you for the total. More »
—>Before you shop at Ritz Camera, you'll want to read inside about what a disgruntled ex employee terms: More »
—>IAmFacingForeclosure.com got foreclosed. More »
—>You too can work for an energy supplier and seize a piece of this exciting money-making opportunity! At least, that's what the Craigslist ad told us.
You may know well the great promise of Network Marketing.We love the part where they say the amount of money you can make from this depends on,
The timing of entry of the networker into the company growth curve.aka, it's better to be at the top of the Ponzi scheme. For the uninitiated, network marketing is just another name for multi-level-marketing (MLM), structurally similar to a pyramid scheme, except usually there's an actual product being sold. Employees get money for selling products, and for signing up new recruits. A cut of your commission flows up to the guy who signed you up, and you get a cut of your recruits' commissions, and so on up the pyramid. The FTC ruled that MLM isn't illegal per se. Often they're set up so the people on the very bottom don't make much, or even end up losing, money. Amway is a famous example. More »
—>The reweigh for the reader in a dispute with ASAP Van Lines over her moving bill has been moved forward to sometime after June 3rd . More »
—>Be wary of people calling your cellphone claiming to be from your service provider and offering to upgrade your phone packages. They may actually be independent dealers trying to make a quick buck. More »
—>Tiffany from ASAP Van Lines reached out to us regarding a complaint we posted. Our reader felt she had been unfairly hoodwinked into paying $400 more and was subject to abusive telephone calls. Tiffany offers a different version of the events. More »
—>UPDATE: ASAP Van Lines Responds To Complaint Alleging $400 Bilking More »
—>Casey-Serin is 24, but he's already $170,000 in debt, thanks to a bevy of hare-brained schemes that helped him buy 8 homes in 8 months in 4 states with no money down, looking to do the ol' "fix n' flip." None of them sold, and now he's strapped to the nines. More »
—>Seller "awesome_electronics" (feedback zero) is selling "pictures" of items. Get it. It's just a picture.. Ha, ha, ha. From ebay:
You are Bidding on a picture of a Apple iPod Video Black 30 gb that is BRAND New In BOX. As you can see in the picture it has never been opened. I Only Ship to the continental United States. I do not ship to PO Boxs. This is an as is sale There will be no returns. Payment is due within 3 days of sale ending. Thank you for looking at my sale and Happy Bidding!We guess this is what happens when 12 year olds think of scams to pull on the internet. Sadly, according to BoingBoing at least one person fell for it before their post drove the bidding up over $100,000 (for a picture of a HAM radio.) Hardy har har. —MEGHANN MARCO More »
—>IDT Energy, which specializes in going door to door and lying to customers in order to get sales, has expanded its reach past NYC and is now conning the good citizens in Albany, NY, according to this reader Peter's letter: More »
—>Is the product in the informercial a scam? Probably, but you can check Infomercialscams.com to be sure. There users post reviews about infomercial companies. It's not just trashing, readers can also post a "defend" if they feel the company is wrongly accused. A ticker by each company keeps track of the number of complaints lodged. More »
—>Moving sucks, even if you're trading up. The un/packing, the organization of all your crap, the sound of packing tape being unrolled... I hate it all. I dread it like I dread root canal. At least the dentist gives you Novocaine. More »
The amount of money taken typically is fairly small and will not dent a bank's bottom line. Further, bank robbers are apprehended in almost 58 percent of cases, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics. Only murder has a higher rate of clearance by arrest.So what do banks worry about? Phishing scams. More »
—>Parago rejected Rob's $18 rebate request because of a missing UPC. Rob had purchased Smith Micro's Anonymizer Anonymous Surfing from Buy.com. He writes:
I sent everything in as requested, and when they posted my rebate, they claimed that I did not submit the UPC. Luckily, not only did I follow all the directions, but from an article I read on your site, I took photo pictures of my original submission.We love photos. Especially photos that catch corporations blatantly lying to their customers. More »
—>We recently posted about a couple who went into a Toyota dealership, got a little ticked off, and were refused a car. Not because she had poor credit or was acting a fool in the store, but because she and her husband were "in a bad mood." More »
—>The stock market hates Home Depot. The stock holders hate Home Depot. The Media hates Home Depot. Our readers hate Home Depot.Everyone hates Home Depot. More »
You can get yours from PayPal for $5 here. — BEN POPKEN More »
—>It's nice to save money at tax time, but watch out your preparer isn't leading you into a scam, like these on the IRS top twelve to watch out for this year: More »
What's interesting is that the "dead parrot" they use is actually a metal duck. Once a scammer, always. — BEN POPKEN More »
—>The office was decidedly busier on our callback. [Editor's note: this material was written prior to today.] One person was being interviewed while another waited next to us on the sofa. More at ease, we enjoyed our second look at the office. The waiting room walls were covered with pictures of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. "Bigger. Better." or something like that. The receptionist had a giant stack of papers on her desk and was busy on the phone as pop music blared in the background.... More »
—>Thanks for all of the excellent feedback to, "Consumerist's Job Interview With IDT Energy's Scammy Marketing Firm." Here are a few answers to your questions: More »
—>Massachusetts and Rhode Island are opening probes into T.J. Maxx after the retailer lost millions of consumer's credit cards in a recent breach. More »
—>115 West 30th Street is the unassuming address for an unmemorable building that serves as the headquarters of Midtown Promotions, a "marketing solutions" company that solves markets for IDT. We interviewed with them as part of Consumerist's continuing efforts to expose IDT's deceptive practices. More »
The power of submitting complaints to investigative reporters. Sometimes the journalist will gadfly the offender into making a complete ass of himself on international television. — BEN POPKEN More »
After seeing our post, "What ConEd Thinks Of IDT Energy Slamming Its Customers," spokesman Alfonso Quiroz called back to say "your statement is incorrect." More »
—>Unwitting consumers are falling for a new twist on the old "advance fee scam." In this variation, a consumer receives what looks like a legitimate check in the mail, either as "foreign lottery proceeds," "prize money," or even payment for goods via classifieds (which includes Craigslist and eBay). More »
ConEd spokesman Alfonso Quiroz let us know that they, "always encourage customers to shop around." He pointed to poweryourway.com as a great place to find alternate energy service companies or ESCOs. More »
Pete got switched over to IDT Energy by a scammy door-to-door salesman, thanks to his sleepy and ignorant roommate, and now he wants help. More »
According to the NY Attorney General's office, they've never heard any complaints about IDT Energy. Bryan writes: More »
Door to door marketers working for IDT Energy are still preying upon New Yorkers, pretending to work for ConEd in an effort to get residents to switch over electrical service to the energy reseller. More »
First Adam Plimer opens the door really quickly, hitting 75-year-old investigative reporter Peter Silverman in the head. Plimer screams, "Oh, I'm sorry, did I hit you?" Silverman puts his dukes up. Plimer dares Silverman to hit him in the face and shouts, "Go on, get the fuck out of here, I'm sick of you." Seeing Plimer's violence, Silverman tries to keep him in the store. Plimer breaks out and throws snowballs at the camera crew and a TCC inspector, yelling, "Get the fuck out of here." The cops arrive. Plimer opens the door to shout the same obscenities at them. Then a sort of Canadian SWAT team arrives in riot gear. Eventually, they arrest Plimer. More »
—>After finding her resume on Monster, TruePersonalTrainer offered Linda what sounded like a great deal. If she created a yoga instruction video, True Personal Trainer said, they would sell it on their site and she could make up to $5,000 per week, depending on how many people downloaded it. More »
—>Part 3 of Dave Thomas' story of working as a cybercriminal for the FBI story is up on Wired, The Boards Come Crashing Down. More »
The BBB is GM's bitch, at least that's what we gather from a post by David Berlind, Executive Editor at ZDNet. More »
—>Parts 2 and 3 of the Dave Thomas Cybercrook story are up on Wired. The excellent report by Kim Zeter, two years in the making, offers a fascinating insight into the world of identity thieves, credit card scammers, phishers and all sorts of electronic fraud. Follow along as Dave transitions from petty thief, to cyber-crime master under the name ""El Mariachi" and with a James Cagney online avatar, to informant on the noose for the feds. More »
—>Broadway Photo is a New York area camera cabal infamous for ripping customers off. First they lure in people with camera kits below market value. Then they try to upsell customers on all sorts of accessories and try to make them believe their gear won't work without it. People have experienced unauthorized charges and report being verbally abused when they try to dispute the charges. More »
—>A stranger called Beth. He knew where she lived in Manhattan, in the upper West side. He knew Beth had a fireplace in her bedroom. Beth's apartment was not for rent, but the caller saw an ad on Craigslist saying it was. Beth did not place this ad. More »
If you were scammed by IDT Energy into switching over your contract, live in Brooklyn or the Bronx, and are willing to appear on-camera, email news12bx@news12.com with your contact info and story. More »
—>Thomas got scammed. More »
They then hooked up with infomercial producers, actors and a licensed dermatologist to create an authentic looking infomercial. More »
—>Two men, seen here, were apprehended after being caught by beach police while throwing merchandise over Walmart's fence. On Dec 27, a Walmart employee flagged down the Virginia Beach Police and informed them, "there was a customer in the store who was taking items outside to the Lawn and Garden section and throwing it over the fence." More »
—>Noka chocolate is sold for $2000 a pound, but it's actually crappy chocolate bought from another company and repackaged in a half-abandoned strip mall in Plano, Texas. More »
—>Yesterday, a salesman from IDTenergy knocked on our door. More »
—>Don MacAskill (pictured) is sitting in an unfinished $130,000 kitchen with two prematurely born babies. Home Depot said the kitchen would be done 9 months ago by Owens Corning HOMExperts . The home improvement store assured him that, "being a large corporation, they would have lots of control and organization around the project, and the contractors would be incentivized to finish the job quickly and thoroughly." More »
Reader Alex sends us a tip about the a scam that he learned about while working at Best Buy. Here's the scam: More »
Finally, a spaghetti western that doesn't end in a flurry of bullets. — BEN POPKEN More »
—>This paper outlines a system for protecting yourself from the threat of RFID bandits snagging the credit card information you broadcast. The "RFID Guardian" jams your RFID signals, then it clones their signals and rebroadcasts them only if and when you tell it. If the banks won't make the cards more secure, it's up to the user to protect himself. — BEN POPKEN More »
Thieves have been writing down the numbers of unused gift cards. Once the card has been activated, they take the numbers online and start shopping. More »
Irina writes: More »
—>We're not saying the rest of you are dumb, but when physicists from CalTech can't manage to make travel arrangements without getting stuck with hundreds of dollars in "change fees," there might be a problem with the website. And by problem we might mean "scam." And by scam, we might mean, "policies designed to increase fees by being deliberately confusing and overly restrictive." In this case, Sean, a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Physics at the California Institute of Technology, was trying to book a new ticket with money from a credit on a previously canceled ticket, which is much harder than identifying the unified field theory. More »
Two years ago, the AG sued franchiser Francare Inc. As a result of a settlement, the company agreed to stop deceptive trade practices. Apparently, the suit didn't make enough of an impression. Perhaps this next one will. More »
Bad consumer. Bad bad bad. — BEN POPKEN More »
Home Depot claims you won't have to deal with subcontractors, but they do use subcontractors. When something goes wrong, and consumers complain, Home Depot avoids or ignores their repeated phone calls and letters. More »
—>UPDATE: According to KTVI/Fox in St. Louis, "A Sony representative has confirmed to Fox 2, the company is processing the shipment of a replacement camera to the Rittenbergs. They just have to send in the box as they found it — sauce and all." (Thanks to Triteon!) More »
—>Reader Maxwell writes in after having been served with a collection notice from a magazine that he's never subscribed to. Did he piss off a 8th grader, or what? More »
Jack, a resident of the Williamsburg borough of Brooklyn, writes: More »
AOL apparently missed our post on how the Florida Attorney General is investigating FreeCreditReport.com. More »
—>Ramit has a neat post on how Network Marketing and Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) are nothing more than a pyramid scheme in a cheap suit. More »
—>Consumer Reports has an excellent article this morning warning against the fraud that is the extended warranty. From the article: More »
—>Hidden, fraudulent, charges on your phone bill could end up costing you big over time. Inside, we've got a guide to spotting and rectifying this fee-skimming. More »
A call with Washington Mutual confirms that besides vigilance, there's nothing you can do to stop hotels from stealing your credit card information. More »
—>10 owners, managers and employees of 7 Joliet area hotels were arrested last night for selling guest credit card numbers. A scam, authorities say, that could be going on across the nation. More »
—>We've all heard of iPod's vaunted "clean design," but this is ridiculous. More »
It's been too long since we reported on a severed human finger found in fast food. Such stories are just so exciting! Yes, invariably they are scams. But for a brief moment, your soul heaves in exhilaration, and you begin weaving wonderful fantasies about that poor, shriveling digit. Was it a back kitchen knife fight? Does the manager require Yakuza-like atonement from his wayward staff? More »
Jared points out his amusing list of the top 10 ways to tell if a weight loss program is a buncha snake oil. More »
Sometimes ID theft seems like the weather. Everyone talks about it, but what can you do about it? This online guide covers on the dangers, how thieves get your info, and how to protect yourself More »
—>Is the FTC just a bunch of secretaries with really big filing cabinets? More »
That's the gist a reasonable person would gather from the language surrounding U.S. Patent No. 7,120,591, granted yesterday to Parago, the company behind Circuit City rebates. More »
—>Ah, more oogie in the wake of the recessing housing froth. Meet Casey Serin, a 24-year-old with $2.5 million in debt. More »
—> Banks are sharing their member lists — and account information — with unscrupulous third party marketers like the Trilegiant corporation. More »
—>Every day, I receive emails informing me that I can make up to a $1,000 a day, working from home. I smirk knowingly and click Thunderbird's 'Spam' button. No duh, I can. I'm a professional blogger. We're millionaires, largely paid to sit in our kitchen table in our underpants all day, drinking beer and evacuating our flatulent thoughts upon the world at large. More »
After showing "WaMu Snookers With Scary Letter" to consumer expert Edgar Dworsky, he told us something potentially more frightening than just the letter being a well-disguised solicitation. More »
For a direct marketer, nothing is infra dig as long as it gets a sale. More »
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—>They really don't teach kids these days anything about finance. Actually, they never did, as our credit history attests. In this vein, Dustin sends us a frantic plea for help. More »
—>This month marks the one year anniversary of Congress granting consumers the right to one free credit report per year. You can get yours at AnnualCreditReport.com. Anyone else, including and especially FreeCreditReport, run by none other than credit reporting company Experian, asking for money, is a ripoff. More »
We talked about this back in May, but now there's an excellent YouTube compilation of all four of the NBC4 LA's hidden camera investigation into Jiffy Lube. More »
—>After we talked about a bogus gift card site and mistakenly implied that the fellas listed as authors in the source code were involved with defrauding consumers, one of the came forward to clear up the facts. More »
—>Anya responded to a telemarketer's call 2 years ago and bought some magazine subscriptions. She thought she was going to pay "somewhere between 14 and 44 dollars a month," and paid with her debit card. More »
—>Shopping at the Dollar Tree could end up costing you a lot. Hundreds of California patrons of the discount store report having money jacked from their debit accounts, reports KCRA. Most likely, this was through the use of cloned ATM cards. More »
—>Beyond merely laughing at duped 419 scammers, now you can help shut down their fake banks by stealing their bandwidth. More »
—>If you're sick of receiving investment opportunities from princesses and dying cancer patients, you may enjoy 419eater.com. More »
—>Savvy Ebay shoppers look at a seller's satisfaction rating, but it takes more than a glance. More »
—>As a person who conducts many thousands of dollars worth of transactions through PayPal every month, I've become rather adept at spotting a spoof. Not only is Thunderbird pretty excellent at picking up on scams, but a quick commonsense check when looking over an email from PayPal is all that it takes to thwart most spoofers. Does the 'Click Here to Resolve' actually link to PayPal? You can tell simply by hovering your mouse over the link and looking at the URL at the bottom. No? Ergo, not from PayPal. More »
—>A phish sent around this morning threatened to suspend our AOL account if we didn't update our records (our billing information is apparently out of order). As if. More »
—>The second of two blows dealt this week to the Miami telemarketers autodialing people's cellphones and trying to scam them. It seems the FCC is actually looking into the matter. All it took was a few months, Verizon to file an injunction, and a few gajillion consumer complaints, like those by reader Chris. More »
—>Back in April, we were obsessed by a Miami telemarketing company scamming people, in Spanish, on their cellphones, using a robotic autodialer. After pounding the e-pavement, our efforts to angle in on the bastiches fizzled, since we were neither a telephone company processing the calls, nor an aggrieved recipient, we couldn't do much about it, except advise people to report it to the police. Just last week we received a few complaints. More »
—>The LA Times, the Seven-up to our morning NYT Seagram's, details the rise of investment fraud against baby boomers. The phenom is slightly ironic because the age segment is supposed to boast a higher financial acumen than previous generations. Some of the pernicious tactics con men use to lure victims into their scams include: More »
—>Some would envy Eilidh, being showered with golden jewelry by a male admirer. More »
To many, Scientology is but a pathetic joke, a through-line on South Park or another delicious slander against TomKat. This video, however, showing seeing some real Scientologists in action, preventing XenuTV from filming their LA street fair and calling him a child molester, is sure to leave a sick feeling even among the jaded. More »
—>So, we put out the call for something as good as the AOL cancel call. Mark steps up with a link to his buddy Aaron's site who hosts a call between himself and a Boiler Room type crapola stock seller, Josh. More »
—>Well, at least it will now be illegal. Last week, the House passed H.R. 5126, The Truth in Caller I.D. Act, outlawing misrepresenting one's identity on caller ID, colloquially known as "caller ID spoofing." More »
Oh, this is just classic. Phishers are now trying to capitalize on the PIN block crisis. More »
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—>New developments in the ever-popular story of a guy who got revenge on an ebay seller who sold him a broken laptop by posting embarrassing photos found on the notebook once it arrived. More »
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—>Amir Massoud Tofangsazan has gotten more popular than he could have ever dreamed, or wanted. More »
—>Guess what? Remember how we wrote about how that online "SoHo store" which sold Mac products at crazy discounts? How we said they were probably a scam? Well, according to a complaint we just got, they are. Brian claims to have lost $6704 in dealing with them. We wonder what Brian was trying to buy. More »
—>"Hello. My name is Amir Massoud Tofangsazan and i live in Barnet. I'm 19 but pretend to be a lot older and like to pretend that I'm a big businessman when I'm not actually that clever." More »
—>NBC4 in LA put hidden cameras under their car hoods and took them to nine different Jiffy Lubes, They found six out of the nine didn't do any of the promised work yet charged for services in full. More »
—>This is never a good way to start a date: More »
—>The schlock thickens in the case of a pair of twisted sisters-in-crime who befriended homeless men, took out insurance policies on them naming themselves as beneficiaries, and then ran the men over with cars for the insurance money. More »
Reader Ben reports that 1) he received another strange Spanish phone spam scam call, this time from 401-200-9876 and 2) he still doesn't speak Spanish. More »
—>According to these reports summed up over at Valleywag, Myspace isn't a megatacular grassroots operation run out of a garage by "Tom" and his buddy Chris, but a multi-million operation created by the cons and insider traders of Intermix Media. Among their other business ventures were installing spyware on millions of computers. Chris and Tom were just the "cabin boys" or "poster boys," the Valleywag source alleges. More »
Last Friday, we wrote about the online "Soho Store" offering some obscene discounts on iPods (10 60gb video iPods for $2699!, an over $1000 discount off MSRP). We just thought it was too good a deal to be true. More »
—>Ten 60 gb iPods for $2699? Why that's over a grand in savings from the retail price. How do they do it? Well, we have no conclusive proof but we're pretty sure the "Soho Store" website is a total fraud. More »
—>Remember that strange Spanish phone spam scam that was going around? Two weeks after we first started reporting it, and hundreds of people complaining about it, it's still going on. And from the same number, 305-503-8068 . More »
—>How would you like pay $3000 for a tape dispenser? More »
—>Shades of Canada... More »
—>LIke a malignant pile of pustulent bacteria, scammers are constantly evolving. More »
—>Last week we reported on US Energy doing a little hit and run salesmanship of their natural gas delivery service. More »
—>Dan writes in a story of a lady pretending to be Capitol One and asking for his social security information. The callerID showed up as a number registered to Capitol One. More »
—>Your debit card could be stolen and used without the thieves even having to hack your PIN code. More »
—>Courtney tips that she's received a Spanish spam call, this time from 301-392-8219, based out of La Plata, Maryland and registered to Verizon. We've also received reports about 305-503-8068. If anyone gets calls from these numbers, report it to your cell phone company and even the police. The police have the ability to access the records to trace these calls back to their source. More »
—>We may have an answer to what the strange man was doing in Philip's wife's office trying to pressure her into signing up for natural gas. More »
—>Philip's story reminds us of We're reminded of The Spanish Prisoner where the the rube thinks he's signing an exclusive membership agreement. It turns out he's really putting his name to an extradition request to Venezuela which later gets used against him in a Machiavellian conman apparatchik. More »
—>"Help me, Obi-Wan Consumerist. You're my only hope." More »
—>More answers and more questions about our mysterious phone spammer. More »
—>Hundreds of people across America have received a strange message in Spanish on their cellphone from one number. We hunted down who the number belonged to, got a copy of the message uploaded and now have a translation. More »
—>For your listening pleasure, we have the message that an auto-dialer has been leaving on hundreds of people's cellphones the past month. All the calls came from 954-678-8026 More »
—>We have a name. George Martinez. Found by shelling out the twenty bux at Intellus.us. We are lazy P.I's. Unfortunately, no address... yet. We caution, however, the information may not be current and there are a ton of George Martinez's in Ft. Lauderdale, including the Office Director of the U.S. Commercial Service in Florida. More »
—>So this number is auto-dialing people across the nation and leaving marketing messages in Spanish and we've decided to try and track them down. More »
—>We've been having a devil of a time tracking down this phone-spammer. None of the reverse phone-lookup services gave us more information than that the number used to be with "Global Crossing Local" and is now with the MetroPCS cellphone company. The number is listed as being in Fort Lauderale, FL, sleazy marketing capital of the world. More »
—>We just received an email from Ben who says that he just received an unsolicited call from 954-678-8026 around 10:39 EST today. More »
—>The Consumerist wanted to open its doors as a P.I, get all private investigation styles, baby. More »
—>Clampants has been getting strange Spanish phonecalls on his cellphone. Once, when getting off a plane in Austin, he and his wife, neither of whom speak Spanish, had muffled Spanish voicemails from the same number. More »
—>The next time you get an email from your bank, eBay, or even God, trying to scam your account information, don't let your feelings get hurt, get PIRT: the Phishing Incident Reporting and Termination squad. More »
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—>You already knew all those WinAFreeIpod.coms were scams. Now the People's Champion, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, knows and he's suing one of the companies behind it, Gratis Internet. More »
—>Paypal has transformed your mobile phone into a magic money wand. More »
—>The mystery third party transaction software provider implicated in the ATM debit card scam scandal may have been named by VISA. More »
—>It's a lot easier than you might think for the Ruskies to start vacuuming funds from your account after they steal the account number and PIN codes from Office Max. More »
—>Rest a little easier, the "Russian Connection" ATM scammers have been captured. More »
—>"The banking industry is less than halfway through this latest scam, which will continue to affect large numbers of cardholders." More »
Would you like to see something scary? More »
—>Here's a good article on how about 30 people in College Station, TX got hit by thieves operating very similarly to the big ATM scandal we can't stop talking about. Similarities between these stories and others we've posted include: More »
—>More signs point to OfficeDepot/OfficeMax and Sam's Club/Wal-Mart as being the retailers suspected of letting thousands of customer's debit cards and PINs to be stolen (see ATM Fraud UPDATE: Wal-Mart, OfficeMax, Sam's Club, Office Depot Suspected). More »
—>A new article by ConsumerAffairs.com claims that the Citibank investigation into thousands of stolen debit cards and PINs centers on two 3rd party retailers. More »
Ok, so hackers snagged possibly up to six figures of people's debit card info from an unspecified retailer's security breach. But who? WHO is the retailer stupid enough to let this happen? More »
—>Here's what's up with the Citibank card scandal. There's an ATM crime wave. Not just Citibank customers but anyone could be at risk. More »
Diagnosis: chronic greed. The latest dupe in the Nigerian email scams may be a renowned psychiatrist from UC Irvine who frittered at least $1.3 million of his family's fortune in payments to internet con artists. More »
—>Solid article here on purchasing a notebook computer online. Much of the advice is common sense but are good reminders to review when salivating over the latest i-Thingy, like verifying the repair history, seeing if there are any dead pixels, and making sure the CD/DVD drive isn't filled with peanut butter. More »
—>Remember back before everyone had blogs and everyone had portal or news sites? Back then, even those with Cornelia de Lange Syndrome could use their tiny misshapen hands and three stumpy fingers to Control+V their way to Dot Com millions. Somewhere in the bowels of the Internet, a single person wrote content, and everyone else got rich cut and pasting him, largely through the hysterically over credulous advertising endorsement of companies no longer with us. Man, those were the days. More »
