Worst scam you've fallen for

mr_fegelien

DesperateDan wrote: »

I am pretty tech savvy so was surprised to find myself so easily duped into buying the US visa ESTA off the first Google hit instead of making sure it was the real government site. To be fair I did do it in a rush and remember thinking man this site is ****ty but proceeding anyway.

Cue €140 charge instead of the 20 it was supposed to cost or thereabouts. The sites are clever, they look just like the real thing and do provide you with an esta so you are getting what you pay for. Managed to get it back minus the real esta fee after I asked them. I suspect for every 10 people that ask for their money back 1 doesn't, great scam.

Oh yes...lol. I've heard of those sites. I don't actually know how they are legal but to be honest, they're like travel agents.

mr_fegelien

rainybillwill wrote: »

I slept with a transsexual

In all seriousness though, your talking about mtf? most have masculine features after transition so I don't know how you'd fall for that...lol

boardz

We got caught earlier this year. Needed a uk birth cert with an Apostille stamp. Googled and I could still swear to this day that I landed on the official government site with various links - Marriage cert , death cert etc . So I selected birth cert link and put in all the details and paid 98 pounds. I didn't get an email confirmation so I had another more detailed look. The site is a 'legal' site which insinuates its the official site (officialukrecords.co.uk) and you will get your cert but it costs double the price than if you order it yourself from the actual official site. Opened a paypal dispute. Got the birth cert a few days later but no Apostille stamp. Paypal eventually refunded all of the money. The site then sent me an email threatening to bring me to court if I didn't forward the money. I offered to pay the actual cost of the cert (10 pounds) I had received they refused - all of the money or legal action. Needless to say never heard from them again.

branie2

I've never fallen for one, thankfully.

ILoveYourVibes

branie2 wrote: »

I've never fallen for one, thankfully.

Will you look after me ?

mikeymouse

branie2 wrote: »

I've never fallen for one, thankfully.

Ignorance is bliss!

Gregor Samsa

, Nothing major, but it was a weird and somewhat elaborate experience.

First night in Agadir, Morocco. We hail a taxi to bring us to the local souk. The driver says the nearest one is closing at 7.30, but there’s another one just outside town that’s open till 10. We’re somewhat skeptical, but decide to go with it. A souk’s a souk.

20 minutes later, we arrive at a fine big souk. Driver says he’ll he’ll hang on outside and to take our time. Off we go in, there’s plenty of stalls and shops. We’re the only westerners in the place, but it’s all fine.

Next thing a guy comes up to us asking if we’re Irish. He’s so happy they we are. He needs our help. He once stayed with a family in Tallaght (he gives a plausible address) and wants to write to them - in Irish - because they were so good to him. So could we translate a letter into Irish for him? We say yeah, and he leads us through the souk to his little shop, sits us down on a comfy sofa at the back, and hands us a pen and paper. He starts dictating a thank you letter to Mary whoever in Tallaght, and we do our best to write as Gaeilge. A few people start to gather silently in the little room

When we’re done, he thanks is profusely, and declares that it’s traditional to have tea. We accept, and a few more people come into the room. I’ve a feeling something’s going to happen, so I’m on my guard. But they’re all very nice.

Next thing, they start producing trays of products for us to buy. Tea, sweets, silverware. We say we’re ok, but it becomes apparent we’re not going to be let leave until we buy something. It’s also apparent that they don’t care about the letter. I’m starting to wonder how much this is going to cost, so I buy a bag of tea for about 3 euro. They seem happy with that, and suddenly our taxi driver magically appears in the room and says it’s time to go.

An incredibly complicated ruse just to get us to buy a bag of tea.

gozunda

Was in Morooco years ago and visited the area of of the Atlas mountains. Small local town with area selling usual tourist stuff. Some locals descended on the group to try and flog the usual tat. Unfortunately they had never before met a bunch of country lads well used to bartering with limited funds. After some serious haggling where they were making no headway- we were asked where we were from and told us that we were not like the other tourists at all. They were grand after that.

pgj2015

gozunda wrote: »

Was in Morooco years ago and visited the area of of the Atlas mountains. Small local town with area selling usual tourist stuff. Some locals descended on the group to try and flog the usual tat. Unfortunately they had never before met a bunch of country lads well used to bartering with limited funds. After some serious haggling where they were making no headway- we were asked where we were from and told us that we were not like the other tourists at all. They were grand after that.

Are you from Cavan?

bear1

Probably nothing in the grand of things.
Back in April this year partner and I decided to buy our first car together.
Found a nice one and brought it to an inspection point where they assured us the car was in perfect condition.
Did the deal and brought the car home after handing over a pretty penny.
Few days later car develops a rattle which doesn't go away so I bring it to the mechanic to have it checked.
Entire suspension was wrecked and cause of the rarity of the car the bill would be more than what we paid for it.
Raging I try and contact the dealer who simply says to **** off.
Then started digging and it then shows that the inspection point we went to was linked to the dealer and things finally started to make sense.
Trying to get rid of it now but that was one hell of an expensive mistake.

Keyzer

Marriage...

Bandana boy

Not a scam as such but dented my ego

Was in Egypt with a tour group
one English couple and a gaggle of Americans
Whenever we hit a bazaar the others would ask a price and then pay that price , I knew better and would haggle down at least 50% of the price .
I became a bit famous among the group and ended up doing the buying for anything the guys wanted in the group .
In the evenings over a beer i would bask in how much money I was saving nailing these Egyptians to their collar with my purchasing skills.

Anyhoo
I come across a walking stick with a handle at the top that was in the shape of the head of a cobra.
guy wants 800 Egyptian pounds for it which is about 60 euro at the time .
I start at 100 Egyptian pounds and over 40 mins walking away twice I get him down to 250 Egyptian pounds .
the missus is like come on we are falling behind the rest of the group so I get it wrapped up and leave his tent/stall turning left walk about 3 steps and realise I needed to go right as I walk back past his tent he is in there doing a dance getting high 5s of the merchants beside him all laughing their heads off !.

Still have the walking stick though

whisky_galore

mr_fegelien wrote: »

In all seriousness though, your talking about mtf? most have masculine features after transition so I don't know how you'd fall for that...lol

Some of the Asian ones would have you wondering.

Most Western mtf are easy to spot as they look like they're auditioning for a Panto.

Cee-Jay-Cee

valoren wrote: »

Came home one day and our Dad asked me to take a look at a letter he’d received that morning. It was a letter addressed to him congratulating him on his win in the National Spanish Lottery.

It was all written with official and professional looking graphics. To say he was delighted was putting it mildly. He’d “won” €250,000. He was cordially invited to ring the attached number in order to arrange collection of his winnings. Now this was a man who is a self-proclaimed genius so I let it go for a few minutes. I could have told him that the real Spanish lottery was “El Lottoria De Espana” or something and he’d have believed me so gullible he is. Knowing he’d never set foot on Spanish soil, I asked him “You never told us you’d been to Spain”. He said he hadn’t been there at all and so I said “So how the hell did manage to win the Spanish lottery so?” He was convinced he’d won and he was warned to not ring the number and to throw it in the bin. Ten years on, he probably still thinks he won.

You do realise that once you had left the house that day or the next, he rang that number...just to be sure.

I was once young and broke living in London, only broke now these days, I was waiting on a bus back from work. Some lad asked me for a pound for the bus. I usually would never do such a thing but obliged for whatever reason. He goes into the shop just at the bus stop and comes out with a can of beer. He cracks it open in my face, thanking me, and walks on. I haven't given money to a beggar since.

FFred

Deleted User wrote: »

I was once young and broke living in London, only broke now these days, I was waiting on a bus back from work. Some lad asked me for a pound for the bus. I usually would never do such a thing but obliged for whatever reason. He goes into the shop just at the bus stop and comes out with a can of beer. He cracks it open in my face, thanking me, and walks on. I haven't given money to a beggar since.

Sorry man.

kenmc

I voted for Shane Ross in the last election, believing his bs about fixing the corruption etc.
Never again.

partyguinness

I was hammered in a nightclub in Mexico about 20 years ago. Deep in the early hours I was down to a my last few notes but they were of large denomination so I wanted to break into down into smaller change for the bar. There was this tip jar on the counter and the guy duly obliged.

Now I can't remember the exact breakdown but it was something like I handed him a tenner and he was to hand back 10 singles in coins whatever the Peso equivalent was. Now it was nightclub dark, music blaring and well oiled. Plus not familiar with the local currency.

Walked away content with the transaction until I realised he had basically handed me 10 pennies or something to that effect. Handed him a tenner and got back about 50p.

whisky_galore

kenmc wrote: »

I voted for Shane Ross in the last election, believing his bs about fixing the corruption etc.
Never again.

I voted for an FG candidate, thinking she would be a breath of fresh air. She became a national laughing stock later on in Dáil shenanigans on camera.

gerrybbadd

Still can't believe how stupid I was, to this day, and i'm still annoyed.

Was selling the original iPad on DoneDeal (you'll already know where this is going). Got a message from a guy wanting to buy it for his sister for college.

Not only was he willing to pay the asking price, but he would also give me extra for shipping it to its destination - in Nigeria. Why alarm bells didn't ring, i don't know.

So, i send him the request for payment through PayPal, and I get an email back from "PayPal" saying they have received the money, but they need the tracking code for the package, as a security measure to protect the buyer.

I virtually ran down to the nearest Super Valu, that had a post office attached. Bought a load of expensive packaging material, bubble wrap etc, and posted the iPad off, with insured postage and all.

And then, I logged into the link from "PayPal" and gave them the tracking code.

The followng morning - it hit me. "Didn't the spelling on that PayPal site look a little strange" I thought. So, I rang PayPal, and gave them the info. The guy told me straight away you've been scammed, and to ring An Post to get the package stopped.

Ring An Post, they didn't want to know. Told me it would take a court order or something along those lines to pull the package out of the postal system. Cnuts.

All I could do was follow the tracking as it reached it's destination in Nigeria. I killed the iPad remotely, but still, how fecking stupid i felt (and still do).

archer22

One at Manila airport a few years ago, after arriving on the long flight from Ireland myself and the wife got into a taxi at the airport and asked him if he knew any cheap reasonably priced hotels not too far away.
He informed us that he did indeed and said there was a nice one about 30 minutes drive away.So we said grand take us there, so we headed off and after 30 minutes driving up and down streets in Manila we arrived at a small little hotel...we paid taxi driver and even gave him a tip and got into hotel which was fine, reasonable price and clean room.
Next morning we got up fairly early and decided to go for a walk to see what kind of area we were in and where to get a taxi back to the airport later....Anyhow we walked down the path at the back of the hotel and climbed up a pedestrian bridge that crossed a main road, imagine our surprise when we got on the bridge and looked across, there was the phucking airport on the other side!
All we had done was got a taxi from the airport...went for a spin around the city and back to the airport again :pac:

pgj2015

archer22 wrote: »

One at Manila airport a few years ago, after arriving on the long flight from Ireland myself and the wife got into a taxi at the airport and asked him if he knew any cheap reasonably priced hotels not too far away.
He informed us that he did indeed and said there was a nice one about 30 minutes drive away.So we said grand take us there, so we headed off and after 30 minutes driving up and down streets in Manila we arrived at a small little hotel...we paid taxi driver and even gave him a tip and got into hotel which was fine, reasonable price and clean room.
Next morning we got up fairly early and decided to go for a walk to see what kind of area we were in and where to get a taxi back to the airport later....Anyhow we walked down the path at the back of the hotel and climbed up a pedestrian bridge that crossed a main road, imagine our surprise when we got on the bridge and looked across, there was the phucking airport on the other side!
All we had done was got a taxi from the airport...went for a spin around the city and back to the airport again :pac:

sounds very like an urban myth i heard before.

mr_fegelien

partyguinness wrote: »

I was hammered in a nightclub in Mexico about 20 years ago. Deep in the early hours I was down to a my last few notes but they were of large denomination so I wanted to break into down into smaller change for the bar. There was this tip jar on the counter and the guy duly obliged.

Now I can't remember the exact breakdown but it was something like I handed him a tenner and he was to hand back 10 singles in coins whatever the Peso equivalent was. Now it was nightclub dark, music blaring and well oiled. Plus not familiar with the local currency.

Walked away content with the transaction until I realized he had basically handed me 10 pennies or something to that effect. Handed him a tenner and got back about 50p.

I know a woman who went to Uganda that fell for something similar. Before she left, she got around €400 from the airport ATM in cash for emergencies and had €200 in her debit card. Stayed with a housemate in Uganda who ensured that she could leave her passport, cash in the house as it was safe (aflluent neighbourhood).

When she was leaving at the end of the month, she used her emergency cash at the airport as the debit was finished for some food. Cashier told her that it was fake. Looked at all the bills and confirmed they were fake. Got into a heated debate and got a bank teller who reiterated the same thing.

Someone had clearly switched the real bills for fake ones. There were many cleaners in the house who new that this "white woman" would be coming and it's almost certain that they switched the bills.

mr_fegelien

pgj2015 wrote: »

sounds very like an urban myth i heard before.

No it's not. i've seen this on one of those tourist scam shows. It happened to a guy in India (well not even that, it can happen in a developed country, where you don't know the place).

The taxi drivers prey on the lack of local knowledge about a place and take someone down the longest route to a destination in order to gain more money.

scamalert

wouldn't call that a myth at all, tourists often who dont know distance or location prob get taken for a round longest trip possible, if one doesn't ask for flat rate to location.

partyguinness

mr_fegelien wrote: »

I know a woman who went to Uganda that fell for something similar. Before she left, she got around €400 from the airport ATM in cash for emergencies and had €200 in her debit card. Stayed with a housemate in Uganda who ensured that she could leave her passport, cash in the house as it was safe (aflluent neighbourhood).

When she was leaving at the end of the month, she used her emergency cash at the airport as the debit was finished for some food. Cashier told her that it was fake. Looked at all the bills and confirmed they were fake. Got into a heated debate and got a bank teller who reiterated the same thing.

Someone had clearly switched the real bills for fake ones. There were many cleaners in the house who new that this "white woman" would be coming and it's almost certain that they switched the bills.

Ah right. I had to read that a few times to figure out what was going on.


The 'bills' as in notes were fake and had been swapped.

Bandana boy

scamalert wrote: »

wouldn't call that a myth at all, tourists often who dont know distance or location prob get taken for a round longest trip possible, if one doesn't ask for flat rate to location.

It certainly happens here
years ago I had some american friends staying in an apartment in Castleknock , we were out on the lash and I was mooching one of them in the back seat of a cab home from Town.
We got in at the rank at the old virgin megastore .
taxi driver heard an American say Castleknock when I looked up from my snog we were joining the M50 at Liffey valley.
Over the toll bridge back and taxi Driver added the toll to the fare which when we landed in Castlenock was over €25
I paid him a tenner and told him he could go an shoite for the rest in my Dublin accent.

Blitzkrieger

scamalert wrote: »

wouldn't call that a myth at all, tourists often who dont know distance or location prob get taken for a round longest trip possible, if one doesn't ask for flat rate to location.

Doesn't just happen abroad. Had an Irish taxi driver do this to my aunt (visiting from London) in Dublin.

mr_fegelien wrote: »

Could you take him to the small claims court or not? Was it actually a loan or a gift?

Pretty sure oral "loans" aren't considered loans at all.

'Loans' can be tricky. Whether it's cash or a lawnmower it can be very difficult to get your stuff back if the other person doesn't want to comply. The thing to do is to get a firm date/time for when the cash/item is going to be returned, but even if you had it in writing, it could be a nightmare to get your stuff back - even if you're willing to go to court. That's part of the reason why I hate loaning stuff. I don't want to be mean, but I don't want the hassle......

partyguinness

phutyle wrote: »

,

Next thing a guy comes up to us asking if we’re Irish. He’s so happy they we are. He needs our help. He once stayed with a family in Tallaght (he gives a plausible address) and wants to write to them - in Irish - because they were so good to him. So could we translate a letter into Irish for him? We say yeah, and he leads us through the souk to his little shop, sits us down on a comfy sofa at the back, and hands us a pen and paper. He starts dictating a thank you letter to Mary whoever in Tallaght, and we do our best to write as Gaeilge. A few people start to gather silently in the little room

.

Had a similar experience in Egypt. Was just walking around the streets around the hotel in Luxor.

This guy just runs up to me ****ing on about wanting help to write a letter in English. Starts following me and just rabbiting on. I made it clear I didn't speak English (in a German accent) thinking that would do it. But oh no, Abdul suddenly needs help with a German letter. Then I started saying I was not German and he starts reeling off all the usual languages. I just kept shaking my head and refused to tell him my native tongue.

I just smiling and walking on and he gave up. I had spent 3 hard weeks in Egypt at that stage so I was well hardened from all sale tricks.

pgj2015

pgj2015 wrote: »

I have just missed my train/bus and need 2 euro to get home, twice.

There used to be an English fella doing that outside Busaras, he was about three years trying to get the bus fare.