Have you ever fell for a scam?

Archeron

A couple years ago, standing at the Spanish Steps in Rome, a beautiful roman goddess of a woman approached me and started to tell me about the history of the steps, and how it was traditional to make a wish at this place.
I kind of knew something dodgy was happening, but my God, if you seen her...... Anyway, she began wrapping a piece of string around my finger while telling me the story, and at the end, told me to make a wish.

I cant really tell you what that wish was, but it did involve her.
it didnt come true, BUT, 2 rather large and scary looking dudes suddenly appeared beside her as she asked (told) me to give her 20 euro, the charge for the little stunt she had pulled. I protested, but my wishing to remain alive for the rest of my holiday resulted in my handing over 10 euro, (I said that was all I had)

I then stood there feeling all ashamed at my utter denseness. She knew I would stand there transfixed looking at her wonderful bronzed boobies while I got ripped off, Roman style.
I consider myself reasonably intelligent, and would not normally fall for this type of sh*t. I console myself by telling myself it happens to everyone at some stage. Question is, Does it?

Have you ever been ripped off in such a stupid way it made you want to cry?

xzanti

Well I didn't quite fall for it but I almost did till my friend intervened... In Turkey a few years ago on a girls holiday.. 1st night there and this cute little Turkish girl (about 5 years of age) hands me a dishevelled looking rose and when I leaned down to take it off her she went to kiss my cheek... Thinking this was a bit weird I leaned in so as not to be rude and my friend came over and told her to feck off.. I thought it was a bit cruel but she then told me she saw the little girl’s hand slipping towards my pocket... Our rep told us later on that it’s common practice there and there's usually a man or woman lurking nearby putting them up to it... Turkey is terrible for that sort of stuff...

smemon

ive never been scammed 100% record on internet purchases, all delivered....

any dodgy looking people or 'too good to be true' offers, i stay away from. just walk straight past any people on beaches, streets etc... who want to talk to me.

i too am highly intelligent it's hard to walk away from beautiful young women though

jhegarty

I can get all your money back... I just need your bank account & credit card details to send the money to you .....

Archeron

jhegarty wrote:

I can get all your money back... I just need your bank account & credit card details to send the money to you .....

Thanks jhegarty. I've PM'd the details, and in case you need it, I've also included photographs of myself and all my family, a list of my biggest fears, my address, and my intinery for the next 6 months.

Looking forward to receiving my cheque!!

Dave!

Archeron wrote:

A couple years ago, standing at the Spanish Steps in Rome, a beautiful roman goddess of a woman approached me and started to tell me about the history of the steps, and how it was traditional to make a wish at this place.
I kind of knew something dodgy was happening, but my God, if you seen her...... Anyway, she began wrapping a piece of string around my finger while telling me the story, and at the end, told me to make a wish.

I cant really tell you what that wish was, but it did involve her.
it didnt come true, BUT, 2 rather large and scary looking dudes suddenly appeared beside her as she asked (told) me to give her 20 euro, the charge for the little stunt she had pulled. I protested, but my wishing to remain alive for the rest of my holiday resulted in my handing over 10 euro, (I said that was all I had)

I then stood there feeling all ashamed at my utter denseness. She knew I would stand there transfixed looking at her wonderful bronzed boobies while I got ripped off, Roman style.
I consider myself reasonably intelligent, and would not normally fall for this type of sh*t. I console myself by telling myself it happens to everyone at some stage. Question is, Does it?

Have you ever been ripped off in such a stupid way it made you want to cry?

Ahh well, you can console yourself by thinking that you spent €10 on some seriously quality jerk-off material! I'll bet ya did as soon as ya went back to the hotel

Archeron

DaveMcG wrote:

Ahh well, you can console yourself by thinking that you spent €10 on some seriously quality jerk-off material! I'll bet ya did as soon as ya went back to the hotel

Yep. Thats called making the most of a bad situation.

jhegarty

Archeron wrote:

Thanks jhegarty. I've PM'd the details, and in case you need it, I've also included photographs of myself and all my family, a list of my biggest fears, my address, and my intinery for the next 6 months.

Looking forward to receiving my cheque!!

now just the small matter for the processing fee.... €100 via western union should do it......

by the way I am form your country, but I am on business trip in nigera at the moment....

Archeron

jhegarty wrote:

now just the small matter for the processing fee.... €100 via western union should do it......

by the way I am form your country, but I am on business trip in nigera at the moment....

Aah,it is you Princess Oboboa Naragantalo. I didnt recognize your user name your highness, please fogive my indolence.

Degsy

www.419eater.com

heh heh heh

Hobbes

There are a few in Greece that I was warned by my friends beforehand, so I had gotten attempts by them. One of them got nearly serious and only because I didn't think that a non-greek would try to rip me off.

I should point out I have been to Athens numerous times so I know my way around the place quite well and knew a handful of phrases at the time.

Scam #1: The meal you didn't order.
Quite common. You go to a resturant and order something. If your lucky the waiter will tip you off and say something like "I will get you xxxx instead", that being the most expensive item on the menu. They then serve it to you. If you have a group of people already drinking they tend not to think about it until the bill comes.

Scam #2: Helping with your luggage.
apart from the obvious of them running off with it. Two common variations of this is they drag you along to a place that is a dive of a hostel or to an alleyway to beat the crap out of you.

Scam #3: Cheap Drinks.
You will get a guy on the street saying he can bring you to a place that is cheap bar. You get there you get treated like royality and they help rack up a huge drinks bill which you don't get until the end of the evening.

Scam #4: The "Shirley Valentine"
There are actually hired by bars, clubs to flirt with you and get you to come to the club under the premise they like you. Again helping you to rack up a huge bill.

Scam #5: dodgy club.
Actually this one was part of a larger story. Heading back to Athens from the countryside on the bus got chatting with a guy who I thought was a tourist (Canadian). Seemed sound and mentioned a cheap place to stay. I already had a place arranged so I didn't have my bags with me. However he mentioned to go for a drink (again I am aware of the scams). His hotel is on the way to my friends so we are chatting before split up.

Before we split up he suddenly goes "Hey check out this place" and walks into a nearby doorway where two huge guys are standing. I mean huge. Thinking its a club and not to be rude wandered in.

At this point hes telling me sit down with him and some other people in various get up sitting on this long chair. So I sit down. There is an old woman sitting on the stool watching us.

At this point an absolute stunner of a woman totally naked wanders by. I'm somewhat in awe but then I cop where I am. I look behind me and the two bouncers are blocking the doorway. Just them being there scared the crap out of me.

So the guy beside me now says "Make an offer for her" so I just say "I wasn't planning on this, I only have 2,000 dracma until I get to my friends house" (2,000 is feck all).

The old woman said something I didn't hear as nearly everyone on the chair were throwing themselves at the old woman shouting "Me!". The guy beside said the woman had said "shes available at 2,000".

Thats the point where I realised I was being scammed. They normally invite the tourists in, get them shacked up with a girl and as soon as your naked with no clothes they tell you the price was for 1-2 mins and they have all your stuff at that point. If your lucky you get your clothes back.

At that point I we left the place and he was "Check out the next one!" but I just said I was late and left him with it.

Hobbes

also ..

http://www.boards.ie/wiki/index.php/Scams

Plug

This is a sickining storey but anyway its funny if its not you. It happened to 3 men at different dates.
Right....knackers approached this man and produced a top of the range laptop they show him it and say "thats yours for E500". So the knackers put the laptop back in the bag. Now they had 2 bags so when he biught it he walked off delighted with his new laptop, opened it and low and behold 2 litres of milk:D This happened 3 times Kilkenny:rolleyes:

Ruu_Old

Plug wrote:

This is a sickining storey but anyway its funny if its not you. It happened to 3 men at different dates.
Right....knackers approached this man and produced a top of the range laptop they show him it and say "thats yours for E500". So the knackers put the laptop back in the bag. Now they had 2 bags so when he biught it he walked off delighted with his new laptop, opened it and low and behold 2 litres of milk:D This happened 3 times Kilkenny:rolleyes:

Heard about that one alright. 100% scam free here thank god.

Brian Capture

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054954410

EWheelChair

I was in the pub one night and a fella there had been offered a laptop by two lads in a car outside when he was having a smoke. They showed it to him, working etc and said it was his for 350 so he went and got the three fifty.

I was outside for the money exchange part of the scam, i was having a smoke. They came up with the laptop once again, got out of their car etc showed it to him again, working. When he offered them the three fifty they said they were looking for 400 now, they had made a mistake or something (its clearly a scam now).

The guy refuses, saying he only has the 350, thats all he could get from the bank machine etc so they apologise and tell him they can't let it go for that price.. get in their car and drive about ten meters on but then they started reversing.. The guy rolls down the window and says **** it, gimme the 350, might aswell get rid of the laptop now.

The guy buying is fairly happy to see they changed their minds and he took the bag in a flash, they drove off. He opened the laptop bag in the pub and found three litres of milk and the evening herald lol

Anway, this is an old old trick apparently, i'd never see it before and they did the switch very very well, having two identical laptop bags etc.

(Edit: haha, just relaised someone else told this story above, happened to this guy in kildare but the litres of milk one is very common! )

Wishbone Ash

I walked into a pub in Boston and ordered a beer. The barman informed me that they were doing a promotion on another particular brand - buy one and get the second one free. Fair enough I said (all lagers tasting the same to a Guinness drinker like me). What he didn't inform me was that the lager he promoted was $12 a pint. (Most others were $4/). To add insult to injury, it was an Irish bar!

magpie

Its shocking when honest citizens try and buy obviously stolen goods from shady guys in a pub and then get scammed. What's the country coming to?

Terry

the laptop one happened to someone outside my local.
everyone laughed at him.

i was conned into believing in god. the catholic church even took some money off me.
i copped on around the same time i realised there was no santa clause, easter bunny etc.
i also got a little payback. i allowed them to confirm me into their church and lots of people gave me money.
i did not give any of it to the church.

monkeyfudge

Have a listen to the recent podcast to hear about my adventures in Istanbul.

http://www.boards.ie/podcasts/index.php?id=18

Raiser

julep wrote:

the laptop one happened to someone outside my local.
everyone laughed at him.

i was conned into believing in god. the catholic church even took some money off me.
i copped on around the same time i realised there was no santa clause, easter bunny etc.
i also got a little payback. i allowed them to confirm me into their church and lots of people gave me money.
i did not give any of it to the church.

Well said Julep

faceman

I fell for a scam once and her name was Imogen. She swore that she loved me and stole my heart.

Necronomicon

I'm afraid I did as well. On another forum I bought a few vinyls off someone, well, I thought I was buying them. Didn't quite happen.
Thing was, the guy was a regular. He must have been working that angle for months, because he became a pretty good contributor, I even had a couple of conversations with him. Then bam. After I sent the postal order, he never returned to the forum and I never saw my vinyls.

Plug

Plug wrote:

This is a sickining storey but anyway its funny if its not you. It happened to 3 men at different dates.
Right....knackers approached this man and produced a top of the range laptop they show him it and say "thats yours for E500". So the knackers put the laptop back in the bag. Now they had 2 bags so when he biught it he walked off delighted with his new laptop, opened it and low and behold 2 litres of milk:D This happened 3 times Kilkenny:rolleyes:

That reminds me of the time two lads drove by in a car and tried offering us a laptop for 50... we naturally said no anyway knowing there was something dodgy about it... maybe they were trying that one.

simu

No, I'm too street-woise/paranoid tbh.

jrey1981

mobile phone trade scam that is probably not widely known,and is less prevalent now was to offer a wholesale quantity of phones - typically 1000 or more, which traders, distributors or wholesalers buy on a daily basis.

It is more serious fraud really, than a scam on the public.

The company offering them would request a signed corporate purchase order for the buyer to get proof of stock.

Once they get the purchase order, they try and leverage it with a pre-arranged finance company for a percentage of the value of it.

eg. 1000 Nokia phones offered by the fraudster at $200. Purchase order made out for $200,000 to the fraudster which is then used as proof of an order to the finance company. Finance company then agrees to release, say 20% of that amount to the fraudster, ie $40,000.

Free money for fraudster. Finance company has no redress against the company who made out the purchase order. Fraudster legs it with money.

On other occasions the fraudster would request perhaps a 5% deposit. They then leg it with the money.

Have encountered more people doing this than I care to remember - the worst of which were a group of nigerians living in council houses in london, claiming to be authorised Nokia agents running a multi-million dollar business.

But we got an ex-MI5 private investigator to check it out and luckily we and our client didnt get shafted.

Another better known one is africans sending stolen cheques to pay for goods. The cheque isnt in their name, but they claim the person is a relative or agent or something.

You pay the cheque into your bank. Cheque clears, money is released to your bank and you send the goods. Then cheque comes back as stolen and the value of the cheque is withdrawn from your account.

Bank bears the cost of the fraud once they discover what has happened.

Africans sell the goods and get free money.

Peyton Manning

Ive heard of the whole labtop scam, happened here but instead of milk, it was 3 argos catalogues.

My mate also got scammed over ebay. Before iPod's were released, a guy told him he had 10 of them but because they hadnt been released, he couldnt sell them over ebay. They did a deal over email (dumb) and my mate basically got done out of 1000 euro.