Posted on 11/24/2008 11:30:40 AM PST by nickcarraway
Wow these people are from my town. I hope it’s not catching.
How sad that someone doesn’t even know they aren’t talking to their own grandchild. I mean that literally. Someone is so elderly that they don’t pick up on the not knowing the name or voice of the person.
I’ve gotten a scam phone call recently.
The caller had noted that my daughter had ordered a set of CDs to play on our computer to help her with her SAT tests. They had the FedEx confirmation number ready, but needed a deposit.
Since I never give money away over the phone unless I initiated the call, all sorts of red flags went up. I kept the guy talking on the wireless phone while I walked around the house looking for my daughter...she denied ordering anything and the guy hung up immediately.
Honestly, its not that easy to spot them, they are quite slick. My advice: Never give money to anyone unless you initiate the phone cell.
It sounds like a sales call. I receive recorded messages like that everyday. It seems more and more telemarketing companies (and debt collectors) are using machines, instead of people, to call people now. It's really annoying. I hang up as soon as I hear the recording. It's bad enough I have to talk to a machine and wait "on hold" whenever I call a business. But now the machines are calling me and putting me on hold?
Even worse, telemarketing/sales agents won't answer questions anymore these days. They'll just disconnect the call. The most annoying incident happened a couple of months ago: A machine called me, and the recording asked me to "press 1" to speak to an operator about "a very important matter." ;-) I did, waited on hold, and then a sales agent came on and said our vehicle's warranty was due to expire and needed to be renewed. When I asked, "Which vehicle?" he hung up on me.
Ironically, I worked in telemarketing years ago. Of course, back then, we were taught to be polite and professional. Now, machines are calling you, putting you on hold, then connecting you to a sales agent who hangs up on you. It's a wonder any of these companies do any business at all.
Hey guys, as I’m reading about this elderly scam, my daughter brings in my mail.
My father gets his AARP mail here and I handle his finances. I see an envelope for him and inside is a check for over $4800.00 and a letter saying he had won $180,000 sweepstakes and that if he deposited the check (which if I wasn’t so world wise and recognized one error on the check someone else might not have, it looks thoroughly real) and sent back the $2,800 fee then they would forward the rest of his “prize money”.
It says it’s a check drawn on JP Morgan Chase, but underneath it says “Dearborm. MI”, which anyone in the financial industry (or in Michigan) knows that is not the name of the city.
I just reported it to the US Postal Service as mail fraud.
Everyone, maybe you should warn your parents and grandparents about this. Seriously, this check looks totally legit and it is a real swift part about the $2,800 fee and I can imagine that this check might be deposited, but not honored. And they have your checking info even if it is honored initially.
Weird this happens right as I was reading this thread.
See my recent post that freakishly showed up while reading this thread. They are very slick and I had to read it myself a few times to figure out who in the world was sending my dad such an odd amount of $4,825.25. And the check LOOKS REAL.
Does it ask to send the fee to a post office box?
Yes, they are slick.
There’s also this guy, he said he was from the US Treasury. He said that he needed $700 billion right now, or the whole economy would collapse. He said he was going to help out some banks that had made high risk loans after being pressured by the government. He said he needed the money immediately and we could not review his decisions.
Well it turns out that he gave the money to those banks and they simply deposited the money. And the economy collapsed anyway.
Same con. Different scale.
Which goes to show that you are much smarter than most of Congress.
ME LIKEE NEW LOGO!!!1!
What it tells you too do is push 1 to talk to a person or call that number. So, last week I pushed the button and got a recording that sounds like the phone company saying I have to dial a 1 before I can get this number???? We have had a bunch of calls on our voice mail that gives us that same beep and then must dial 1 thing, so I think that is what happens when we are not here and the phone picks it up. They are wanting me to call that number. But we are on the no call list, so if I call them back, it is ME doing the calling and they can say they have not violated the no call rule. A back door type of thing I guess to get me on the line.
Stolen from a MC club. :)
‘Faith in the inherent good of people’ goes well with utopian thinking, but it does not jibe with the concept of Original Sin.
I think you’re on to something there. We’re on the no call list, too.
No, it says the $2,800 will be deducted from my checking account, assumption is the same one the check is deposited into. So he would get the difference between check amount of $4285.25 and $2,800.00 Sometimes funds can be transferred on the appearance of everything being on the up and up. But 5-6 weeks down the road, my dad’s bank would be knocking on his door because the check was fraudulent or not honored after an audit showed it was a faked check.
If there’s a ping list, please add me.
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