Posted on 04/26/2009 8:30:33 AM PDT by george76
A distraught twentysomething woman called the Better Business Bureau in Louisville, Ky., one day last month. She'd wired $21,000 to a scam artist who had requested the money as "collateral" for a low-interest $100,000 college loan.
Crying hysterically, she told her story but then hung up before giving her name or before anyone could help her.
"The odds of her getting her money back are pretty much zero,"
Many young consumers have lost cash to scams... a quarter of people ages 18 to 34 admitted to losing money in a scam in the past six months. Other research suggests that more than 40% of recent fraud victims are in their 20s and 30s.
Overconfidence on the Web has a lot to do with it... tough times can make people less skeptical .
There's not usually much you can do after the fact:
Never, ever, wire money.
It doesn't matter if you've signed a lease, a contract or any other legitimate-looking form. Scam artists will gain your trust by producing official-looking documents, but when you're asked to wire money it's almost always a sure sign of a scam...
Don't give cash to get cash.
Don't give out personal information if you get a call or email from someone claiming to be from a bank or credit-card company.
"If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Better send her back to about the tird grade
Waht levle is taht?
It comes after secund grade
If you are so stupid you think you have to put up collateral to borrow money, you deserve to lose it.
Many were even defrauded into voting for Ø!
Talk about naive!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
How could someone this stupid need a college loan!!!
“significant money as a down payment to buy property and secure a mortgage.”
Totally different issue, you were buying something. Actually, you didn’t give the mortgage company the money. You gave it to the seller of the property and the mortgage company put up the difference. Then the mortgage company holds a lien on your house as collateral in case you default. There is no case in which you give someone money just to lend you money. How does giving someone money insure their loan? They are still risking the balance of the loan if there is no collateral to collect in case of default. School loans are based on the assumption that a college graduate is likely to be in a position in life to be able to pay off the loan and to feel an obligation, due to social status, to pay off the loan. Furthermore, they are often government backed, eliminating the risk to the lender.
“Many young consumers have lost cash to scams... a quarter of people ages 18 to 34 admitted to losing money in a scam in the past six months. Other research suggests that more than 40% of recent fraud victims are in their 20s and 30s.”
Recently, my Trophy Wife and I participated in a real world math and reality discussion with our grandkids (8 and 10 going on 30) during a dinner at their home.
Our Son, their Dad led the real world math discussion and our DIL, their Mother lead the reality discussions re no free lunches and if it sounds too good to be true, it is, discussions.
My wife and I were amazed at how both grandkids really got into the math and how to avoid scams.
We were asked to tell about people, we knew, who got scammed or flunked a serious life event due to poor math skills. Our DIL had several email copies of scams or where the email sender was trying to scam those who got the emails. Both kids read the emails and other copies and asked good questions.
Afterwards, our grand daughter told her grandmother, that now she has doubts about the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny. My wife used our standard answer to these serious questions, “You need to discuss that with your Mom and Dad in private without your younger brother!”
“You need to discuss that with your Mom and Dad in private without your younger brother!”
Excellent advice.
Or, less than a year at a second-tier grad school.
I suppose it depends on one's definition. I just did some poking around, and found several adequate state universities with graduate programs priced under $10,000 a year, for state-resident students.
My guess is she had no intention of stepping foot on campus. She was gonna disappear with the 100K and thought she had a bargain.
Was it Mark Twain who said “You can’t cheat an honest man?”
W.C. Fields
This explains why they supported Obama
No surprises here.
Basic economics and money-handling are not taught in high-school and college. Most upper-middle crusters seem determined to shield their offspring from having to learn the unglamorous details of managing their money, expecting them to “pick it up” somewhere along the road.
Thanks george76.
I knew a guy who fell for one of these. He delivered propane to my old employer. When last I heard from him, he was going to have the judge impeached because he wouldn’t hear the libel case against Western Union, who told this guy that the person claiming to be the daughter of the British Ambassador to Nigeria and in need of $1500 to fly to Florida and consummate her impending marriage to her internet lover (him) was in fact a con man and he was never going to get his fifteen hundred bucks back.
The propane company fired him after that. I think it was the last straw. He was an obnoxious kook. He gave us a few empty cylinders over the years, and each time, I showed it to him and asked him to adjust the delivery report. One time I saw the invoice and it didn’t reflect his mistake. So I asked him about it, and although he said he was going to fix it, he got nasty with me and said it was my fault that I didn’t inform the billing department (that he screwed up.)
No problem. I called them as soon as he left. I wonder if Western Union maced him after they told him he got ripped off. :)
These are called "live and learn" lessons, which SHE paid for.
;^)
I think that fits under the “can’t scam an honest man” rule.
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