a Scam i haven't seen before

[oakranger]

if i were that dumb, yes. that's why he hung up when i started questioning the name of the person recommending me.

 i had forgotten......i also told him through this relay service, that the towing company would have to call me at the shop. he wanted an email addy for them...........

Ok, i see now.  Huh, i wonder how many ppl fall for that?

[clerick]

Ok, i see now.  Huh, i wonder how many ppl fall for that?

Must be quite a few if it's worth their time and effort to do it as often as they do.

I worked at a small sporting goods store once and had a rash of these calls.  They would say that they wanted $5,000 in "sporting goods."  When I asked what kind they would just reply "sporting goods."  Told the boss it was too bad that it was a scam.  We could have off-loaded some of that really old crap we had taking up space.

[Rolex]

It's been around for decades. The card numbers are stolen/swiped numbers and have to be used quickly before the owner reports the card stolen or the issuing bank notices the fraudulent pattern.

Pizza delivery and restaurants get these scams all the time. For example, they get a huge order and are told to charge thousands extra and keep half of it for their trouble in fulfilling the order, and deposit a portion of the overage to an account. Any retail business with a merchant account gets hit with these kinds of scams.

Ironically, many of the cc numbers and names come from restaurants. The servers get paid by a runner every night for every name with cc number they turn over from their customers that evening.

Does the scam work? Of course. Just like anything else, it's a numbers game. The callers keep going until they find someone who does it and they find people every single day. A hit rate of 3% from a boiler room can bring in $10,000 per caller per day.

In many cases, the card owner never knows that it happened because the banks shut down the transactions that they know are fraudulent. The banks/cc processors know that it will only be tried on fresh cc numbers for a day or two and they know the patterns. It's a secret within the industry. The banks and cc companies don't talk about it because the volume of fraudulent cc transactions is staggering in total, but the losses are spread out among all the users and merchants in the fees they charge. Naive/greedy merchants get stuck with most of the ones that go through and most eat most of the losses because they're too embarrassed to talk about it after they figure it out.

[Greebo]

I got a call from an Indian call centre a month or two ago.  They said they were a company doing work for Microsoft ringing people who had a serious problem on their PC that they would fix for free. Realising this was a scam I called her a f***ing con artist and hung up. Reading up on this later, what they do is get the mark to download and install a software "fix" for the problem which is actually a trojan. I can imagine a lot of PC-phobic people falling for this.

[Beefcake]

Many people out there fall for this type of stuff. We had an employee at work respond to an email asking for the password to the email account by giving them all the info they requested. Fortunately another employee along with our webmaster noticed it very quickly and changed all the passwords before any harm could be done.

We hear about this stuff all the time in our area, sadly it's usually the very desperate or the elderly that fall for these tricks.

[CAP1]

It's been around for decades. The card numbers are stolen/swiped numbers and have to be used quickly before the owner reports the card stolen or the issuing bank notices the fraudulent pattern.

Pizza delivery and restaurants get these scams all the time. For example, they get a huge order and are told to charge thousands extra and keep half of it for their trouble in fulfilling the order, and deposit a portion of the overage to an account. Any retail business with a merchant account gets hit with these kinds of scams.

Ironically, many of the cc numbers and names come from restaurants. The servers get paid by a runner every night for every name with cc number they turn over from their customers that evening.

Does the scam work? Of course. Just like anything else, it's a numbers game. The callers keep going until they find someone who does it and they find people every single day. A hit rate of 3% from a boiler room can bring in $10,000 per caller per day.

In many cases, the card owner never knows that it happened because the banks shut down the transactions that they know are fraudulent. The banks/cc processors know that it will only be tried on fresh cc numbers for a day or two and they know the patterns. It's a secret within the industry. The banks and cc companies don't talk about it because the volume of fraudulent cc transactions is staggering in total, but the losses are spread out among all the users and merchants in the fees they charge. Naive/greedy merchants get stuck with most of the ones that go through and most eat most of the losses because they're too embarrassed to talk about it after they figure it out.

 ya know? that makes sense. perhaps the guy called my shop by mistake, seeing as i'm a repair shop, and not a retailer.......either that, or he was simply trying to see what would happen.

 i did have a guy call from texas a few years ago, saying his card was showing a transaction at this address, but that he'd never been to nj. i went through my records, and had no record of him, by name, or amount, or cc number. went out front, and had the gas guys do the same thing.........someone effed that guy big time.

[Shuffler]

OK, i am a bit slow here so bare with me.....why would you put 2k of your own money into his account?

You need to do some reading.

[Rob52240]

So, he gives you this fake number to have his vehical tow up there but not right to your place.  In return, you are stuck paying 2k for something that you fell for.

There is no vehicle, and no surgery.  It's a scam.

[dedalos]

so i get this phone call at the shop today. they say they're a relay center. i've dealt with this kind of call before....they relay calls for speech, or hearing impaired people. they let the people type, then read what was typed. so far, pretty normal.

 they tell me the guys name(first only, and i can't remember it), and that he was recommended to me by a customer. he wants the brakes fixed on his escalade if i do brake work, and can i handle this. still cool so far. i say that i can do brakes on anything. here's where it goes to poop.
 he says that he's just relocated to here, and is going in for surgery in 3 days. he wants to have the escalade towed to my shop from north carolina. suspicious. he now says that he'll give me a credit card number over the phone, and wants me to run it for $3k, $1k of which i will keep to pay for the tow(because the towing company doesn't take credit cards....bs), and deposit the balance in his account, so he has money for the surgery.
 since he's popped about a dozen red flags now, i ask who recommended him to me. he says "dave". ok....got a couple customers named dave. so i ask, dave who? silence. then the operator tells me that he disconnected.
 i told her, "you know that was a scam, right?" she goes "really?". i said yes, it was a modified version of one of those nigerian lottery scams, and that she may want to pass this on to the other operators in the company, and her supervisor.

 it's getting pretty effed up, when i think i'm getting a good job in, and then find out it's a scam....and a poor one at that. wish i had a way to track his bellybutton down.....i'd turn him in..............

Definitely not a scam.  $2,000 is more than enough for a surgery.  Ask Penguin 

Thats 3 for 3 CAP.  One of us has to take a break or the BBS will shut down 

[oakranger]

You need to do some reading.

There is no vehicle, and no surgery.  It's a scam.

Thanks, i got it. 

[CAP1]

There is no vehicle, and no surgery.  It's a scam.

 i still find it difficult to comprehend that there are people old enough to be in a position to run a company, that may be dumb enough to fall for somethign like this.....

[dedalos]

i still find it difficult to comprehend that there are people old enough to be in a position to run a company, that may be dumb enough to fall for somethign like this.....

What I am wondering is, what would happen if you charged the 3K and instead of depositing 2K in his account, draw everything from it.  Would anyone complain? 

[oakranger]

i still find it difficult to comprehend that there are people old enough to be in a position to run a company, that may be dumb enough to fall for somethign like this.....

There is that very small % of population that will fall for it.  

[CAP1]

What I am wondering is, what would happen if you charged the 3K and instead of depositing 2K in his account, draw everything from it.  Would anyone complain? 

 nah.......with merchant accounts like this, what happens, is i run the numbers, key in the amount, and then the money's supposed to be in my account within 48 hours. if i were to draw money out of my account, and the cc number happened to be stolen.....the person it was stolen from notices a $3k charge, calls the company, and questions it......then they kill that transaction. they will then(if it was deposited into my account) draw it out, with no warning. i would then be bouncing checks all over the place.

[CAP1]

There is that very small % of population that will fall for it.  

 but as someone up the page mentioned.....if those making the calls only manage a 3% success rate, that will still net them massive amounts of money.


 me personally.....i don't do anything with credit cards anymore. i don't have any. if i can't hand you cash, or a check, then i can't afford to buy whatever it is.