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My Friend Got Taken By Scammers


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Charlie Prime

Charlie Prime

Paranormal Adept
I post this because I would like for you to warn any old people you know about this creative scam.

Yesterday morning I noticed a couple of police sedans at my elderly neighbor's house across the street. In the afternoon I inquired if everything was okay.

My neighbor told me scam artists took him for $10,700. This is a sharp old man who was an engineer for a large manufacturing corporation, and Korean a war veteran. He's no fool. He does not suffer from Alzheimer's or anything.

The scammers called Saturday morning and pretended to be his grandson who is away at college. "Grandson" told the old man he was in jail for being drunk at a party the night before, and needed bail money because his parents were out of town.

The scammers called several times, sometimes pretending to be the police, sometimes an attorney. They had the old man run up his credit cards, and send them cash via Moneygram. The old man became suspicious and managed to get hold of the boy on his cell phone at 2:00 am, but it was too late.

The FBI and local detectives told the old man he will not get his money back, and the odds of catching the thieves are low.

These things seem like urban legends until they happen to someone you care about. Please warn any old folks you know about this "grandchild in jail" scam.
 
Ten grande to get out of the drunk tank? Shame there are such people in the world who would swindle money from the old folks. If caught, they should be deported to North Korea. (appropriate, considering their victim served in Korean war)
 
I got an email once from a familiar name, who said he was stranded overseas and needed money to get home. But the person I knew was really a retired physician from New York who'd hardly travel overseas without enough money to cover his trip and then some. So the scam was obvious.

Having made pleas for donations myself to cover my ongoing financial issues, I know that whatever I say becomes part of the sea of fakery that pervades the online world. But of course, people hang out outside banks claiming to represent the financial institution's security department, or put accessory readers on ATM machines and other card readers to capture information about your credit and debit cards. It's a nasty world.
 
There was a scam several weeks ago at a mall where someone called a hairdresser, said they have their sibling hostage after a car accident, and send money or they will die, sounded pretty crazy until police showed up and had them call their sibling first ( who was fine), that's a really cruel scam there.
 
New scam I heard about this morning:

A Sheriff’s Deputy calls your house and says there is an outstanding warrant for your arrest because you missed jury duty.

To prevent the arrest team from showing up at your house, you need to deposit with the Sherrif's Department $500 for the Bench Warrant for missing jury duty, $500 for Contempt of Court, and $370 in processing fees. Debit cards accepted.

I just asked my wife if she would fall for this scam. She said she would. This scam works because:

* Most people are so disgusted with government corruption they ignore jury summonses which demand they waste their time performing free services for corrupt judges and corrupt lawyers.

* Depriving average Americans of their liberty used to be a big deal. Today local governments have no qualms about throwing good people into rape cages at the slightest whiff of profit potential.
 
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Maybe, but there's no such thing as requiring $1,370 in fees for missing jury duty.

The reason so many people get jailed, even for very minor offenses that would often be settled with a fine and probation is because of the growth of private jails. This is a particular problem in some states, such as Arizona. The private company earns money for each prisoner, and thus wants more prisoners. They fund politicians with contributions and keep the flow. In states where the prisons are more in the public sector, such as California, they release people en masse who really didn't deserve it.

But a certain political faction in this country believes that "greed is good," that the private sector can run everything and government is no good. Problem with that is that government is at least accountable to the public; you don't reelect the officer holders you don't like. Private companies are only accountable to their stockholders and/or owners, and thus don't care about people. You really think your cable company cares more about you than Medicare?
 
The fines and fees for outstanding warrants in Texas can easily reach $1,500. No attorney will take your case for less than $1,000.

Private jails are a huge problem in Texas where I live. See: Texas Prison Bid'ness |

Gene Steinberg said:
Problem with that is that government is at least accountable to the public; you don't reelect the officer holders you don't like.
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False. The sad fact is that you don't elect anyone, because you don't pay for elections. Governments are not accountable to the public. Governments are accountable to the people who pay to have politicians elected, corporations, as we see with our current situation of endless war, staggering debt on unborn children, and growing police state.

Gene Steinberg said:
Private companies are only accountable to their stockholders and/or owners, and thus don't care about people.
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Also incorrect. Private companies are 100% accountable to the people who are their customers, and care intensely about pleasing them because they would die if they didn't. Governments are the exact opposite because they can use brute violence to acquire funding while businesses cannot.

I don't fault you for not knowing economics Gene. People our age suffered decades of intense, mind-crippling State indoctrination to believe that Fascism (the melding of corporate and State power) is good and normal. During your formative years information about human freedom and the Non-Aggression Principle were not readily available as they are today.

I'm near your age and went through it too man. I even spent tens of thousands of dollars to get the high academic credentials in Public Policy which would allow me to become a technocrat in that economic system.

Actually working inside it for twenty years is what caused me to begin questioning it.
 
Your patronizing response indicates you aren't paying attention. Tell me how a monopoly cable company or ISP is accountable to customers if there's nowhere else to go and cutting the cord isn't always possible. Before the Affordable Care Act was passed, tell me how health insurance companies were accountable to customers. They would routinely deny people with a preexisting condition, and make it difficult for you and your physician to get payment for covered illnesses. They were not serving customers, which is why you have Obamacare. If you didn't want to see more government regulation of insurance companies — which is mostly what it's about despite the fear-mongering — then the insurance companies should have learned to consider customers above profits.

Do you remember when health insurance companies were non-profit? These days, if an insurance company spends more than a certain percentage of their revenue for administration, they have to refund the excess to customers. Tens of millions have been paid to customers as a result. The law is heavily flawed, but what it replaced was far worse. You cannot imagine how many lives have been saved by giving people health insurance when they didn't have it before.

As to government accountability, the people still elect those who run those governments. But when the populace relies on news networks that would rather fear-monger than inform, they end up not knowing what's going on and working against their interests. It starts on the local level. Elect the right mayors and council people, county reps and state government officials. These are the people who will, in the end, often seek federal office. If all of their campaign money is coming from the Koch brothers and their ilk, they will serve big business rather than the people because the people aren't paying attention.

If it's revealed that big money interests are running someone's campaign, don't vote for them!

Should the system be changed? You bet, in many ways. But short of a revolution, you don't end the corporate state unless you make it clear that those people are unwelcome and vote them out of office. This is about baby steps, maybe, but the situation as it stands now is not acceptable, and it doesn't matter what political philosophy you follow.

Just FYI: I think Bush was a nightmare, someone who brought about the worst economic disaster ever — we now know it was worse than the great depression. But Obama is no bargain either. He caters to the same corporate interests and his policies are only slightly different when you get past the myths. Goofballs like Rand Paul and Paul Ryan will kill Social Security, Medicare, and other services people depend upon. Hilary is no bargain. But where do you go. Whom do you elect?
 
Gene, you are making my case. You don't know economics because you don't know that monopolies cannot exist without the violent force of government. It's simply impossible, and you cannot find one that did. I encourage you to try.

Gene Steinberg said:
As to government accountability, the people still elect those who run those governments.
Click to expand...

In reality they do not. As you've clearly stated, the people who control the media really determine which politicians are elected, not the citizenry.

Gene Steinberg said:
...it doesn't matter what political philosophy you follow.
Click to expand...

It matters a great deal what political philosophy people follow. In fact, it is crucial, and determines the future of the world.

Our current American political philosophy is called Fascism, a flavor of socialism. Socialism is based upon the premise that it is moral for mobs to use violence to violate the human rights of others.

If my cousin socialist Cletus and I hold an election to decide whether your sister's body is a public good, to be enjoyed by all, your sister must abide majority opinion as long as we were careful to ensure she was also given a vote on the matter.

The results of such a blatantly immoral, irrational system are entirely predictable and obvious. We are living with them today; endless war, crippling national debt on unborn children, and a growing police state that treats human beings like animals.

I realize your mind recoils at the idea that a person's body is their own property. Study the matter in depth. Really dig into the philosophy of ownership. Compare it to other philosophies. Play Devil's Advocate and really attempt to make the rational case that human individuals are public property.

Clear reasoning and political philosophy are *essential*. Baby steps are indeed how we change political philosophy for the better.

I apologize if I sounded patronizing. I am merely relating facts to you. I have no mal intent in that.
 
Without going into detail, there are different views about what constitutes facts.

I do not find your version, or your assumption that people who old other opinions as just plain wrong or somehow ignorant of the facts, to be very persuasive.

As to owning one's body, well women are being told by conservatives that they do not control their own reproductive systems. Talk about hypocrisy from the people who want fewer government regulations.
 
Weve got one doing the rounds down here , Cold caller phones and pretends to be from your telco. Says they have detected a fault with your connection.
They get you to go to your browser and key in an IP addy or site address and DL software to "fix" it.

Its usually a keylogger or similar and they get your passwords banking details etc.

A friend of mine who knew about this got the call, they asked him to open windows. He made them wait 5 mins and then came back and said OK ive opened windows, will this take long there is a cold wind blowing through them now.
 
mike said:
Weve got one doing the rounds down here , Cold caller phones and pretends to be from your telco. Says they have detected a fault with your connection.
They get you to go to your browser and key in an IP addy or site address and DL software to "fix" it.

Its usually a keylogger or similar and they get your passwords banking details etc.

A friend of mine who knew about this got the call, they asked him to open windows. He made them wait 5 mins and then came back and said OK ive opened windows, will this take long there is a cold wind blowing through them now.
Click to expand...

Whew! That's a slick one. Thanks for the heads up.
 
Not necessarily a scam but pretty crooked if you ask me. My wife was having computer issues when I was away so she googled Microsoft support and a website with tech support popped up. She called them asking for help and they ended up remoting in to her laptop and running some type of diagnostic that showed she had all of these "critical" errors. They wanted $500 give or take to install a software package that would prevent all these errors. Luckily she called me and I had her terminate the remote in and scrubbed her computer. Later we found online where these guys were known to go in and start deleting things off the laptop of the person they were logged in. Lesson here is to make sure you are actually talking to the manuf. if you need help.
 
A known fraud. I'm actually concerned about any of those online support people who require access to your computer — it's a PC thing, not a Mac thing. Better to deal with your dealer or the manufacturer when things go wrong.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
The woman. But some people in government want to own their privates.
Click to expand...

I agree with you. I believe every person has a higher claim to the use and control of their body than the State does.

Unfortunately, Democrats and Republicans do not believe that. They believe the State owns our bodies. This is why I oppose them at every opportunity.
 
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