Must have blacked out last night…

Got this email the other day…

Dear b3988efd9c84f71,
(uh you got my name wrong, it’s C3988efd9c84f71, my older brother is B…, little my sister is D… and my little brother is E… My parents won’t talk about what happened to A)

I was very furious when I listened to your voicemail last night.
(Sorry, I must have been channeling someone on the other side who has been haunting you, because I have no memory of leaving you an voicemail.)

You know, I did tell you about RNBI last month but you’re the one who was not interested in buying at the time. It was trading for just 10 or 15 cents if I remember correctly. You cannot now blame me by saying I didn’t tell you.
(Yeah, I don’t remember that either, this channeling thing must have been going on for a while.)

Anyway bullshit aside if you are still angry about missing the first wave I’m telling you its not too late but you need to listen to me now and buy as many s.h.a.r.es of RNBI as you can on Monday morning before they get too expensive and if you don’t it’s your own fault I don’t want you calling me again and leaving me another nasty voicemail.
(All supernatural stuff aside, I think I’ll pass.  Doesn’t look like your stock has done much in a long time.)

I spoke with my analyst buddy who is working on this specific stock-analysis and he told me we should expect to see shares hit past a dollar within the next 30 days. Do what you must.
(Oh, and did I mention that I did some checking on that new internet thingy.  Seems that your email is nothing but a big scam to artificially raise your stock value.  Here’s my guess:  If the incredibly transparent scam does work, RNBI stock prices will go up, until you decide it’s time to sell and then prices will plummet.  You will make a lot of money, and the people you duped into creating this rush will lose everything.  Amazingly, this seems to have worked before, back in 2013, as you can see by that spike on the graph above.  Hopefully, nobody falls for it this time.)

Take care
Your bud (my ass!)
Tamera

Before you think about getting in on this windfall, keep in mind that timing is everything.  Unless you know their timeline, you stand to lose everything.

For someone’s who never been to the South…

I’m sure making my mark.

First, it’s legal stuff in Georgia, and now it’s…

I’m just hoping that these are lawsuits that will net me some really big settlements, and not legal problems from a drunken rampage through the South that I can’t even remember.

***UPDATE***

This just in:

Seems my trail of blackout debauchery led me back to the state I spent my pre-teen years in.  Hmmm, musta been fun, wish I remembered it.

And I ain’t even been to Georgia lately.

Yet, I seem to be taking someone to court for some reason.

People really fall for this crap?  Even if I had been in Georgia lately, I probably wouldn’t forget filing some papers with the court a scant 11 days ago.

But then again, there may be big bucks in this, I should click on the link just to be sure, no?

Phone scams & bad air.

I don’t answer calls from numbers I don’t recognize.  If you’re not in my list of contacts, you’re going to have to leave a message and I’ll call you back.  But, if the message was someone moaning and claiming to be in danger, especially if it sounded a little like someone I knew, I just might call them back to see what’s up.  Which is what these scammers want you to do.  Calling them back leads to $1,000’s in long distance charges, for a 10 second call.  So don’t call them back.

I hope that all the people that came to Utah to escape the trappings of their homes in Southern California are feeling right at home this week.  According to airnow.gov, our lack of air quality now rivals that of the L.A. area.  Yea for progress.

People, people, people…

Don’t send money to people you don’t personally know unless you initiated the contact. (P.S. – answering a classified ad does not count as initiating the contact – the ad itself counts as the initial contact.)  Simple economics – if we weren’t falling for their b.s., they wouldn’t keep spending the time calling.

I’m just might start a new blog, devoted solely to these stupid scams that people are either too stupid or greedy to just simply say “Duh, kiss my butt you scam artist.”

The latest?

“Hi, [your name here], I’m a court clerk for the federal courts and my records show you failed to show up for jury duty.  There’s a warrant out for your arrest, but if you put $400 on an untraceable, reloadable debit card and send me the account number by 5:00 tonight, I’ll just delete that pesky warrant and you won’t even have to show up for jury duty.  Deal?”*

Let’s face it, it’s the scams that nobody falls for that we never hear about, because they don’t last long.  They can easily make 100 calls a day, since the ones that don’t fall for it probably last less than a minute.  If only 1 out of those 100 fall for it, that’s 1%, then you can be making $400 a day.

That’s $100,285.71 a year, and that includes weekends off and 2 weeks vacation.  Not to mention: it’s tax free!

But I digress.  The point is: DON’T FALL FOR THESE STUPID SCAMS.  You’re just encouraging them.

* – I kinda made the quote up, allowed myself a little poetic license to make it a little more interesting, but still get the point across.

Talk about a backlog.

I got an email today with a subject line that just said “Case #204609221”. 

The body of the email identified the sender as The Better Business Bureau and informed me that they were processing a complaint from one of my customers.

Near the end they warn me: “Failure to promptly give attention to this matter may be reflected in the report we give to consumers about your company.  We encourage you to print this complaint (attached file), answer the questions and respond to us.”  (note: “open the attached file” should always be a red flag.)

Red Flag #2 – I would never use my personal email for business purposes, so why did they send it there?

Big-Ass Red Flag #3 – The only business I ever owned went belly-up in June of 1985.

That’s one heck of a back-log, 27½ years.

But the best laugh was when I read the last line in the email:
“BBB Serving Metropolitan New York, Long Island and the Mid-Hudson Region”

Yup.  Provo, Utah falls under that region.  We often delivered pizza to the students at Brigham Young University of Long Island. 

Uh, yeah.

Would you?

You are looking for a place to rent and you see an ad for one in a great neighborhood, going for below anything else in the area.

You contact the landlord and they tell you they have the keys, just go drive by and if you like it wire them your first month’s rent and the deposit and they will mail you the keys.

Which of these are possible outcomes of this scenario?

1. You are so damn lucky, you just got a fantastic deal and will love living there.
2. The place is completely trashed inside and you’ll spend every penny you saved fixing it up to be livable.
3. It used to be a meth lab and after six months of living there you will find out that it made you sick and you have 6 months to live.
4. The house isn’t even for rent, the person you contacted not only isn’t the owner but doesn’t even live in the US and you’ll never see your money again.
5. 1 & 2
6. 3 & 4
7. 2 & 4
8. Anything but #1.

Seems that some people are believing it will be #1 because, according to an article on KSL.com, these ads are out there and they wouldn’t be if nobody was falling for them.

To be fair, before calling these people total idiots for falling for this, the article did point out that a lot of the victims have been young adults, probably renting their first place.

Now, youth does not excuse stupidity by itself, but also consider that these people grew up buying things over the internet, without ever seeing the item or the seller face-to-face.

Still, that doesn’t excuse the lack of common sense, but it does remove the “total” from “total idiot”.

A little common sense folks.

 

Seriously folks, I know the job market is grim out there, but if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

If these crooks had rented a store front, placed an ad in the paper and interviewed people who came to them in an office, I could understand falling for the scam.

But when someone walks up to you in a Wal*Mart or the South Towne Mall and on nothing but sight offers you a high paying job, you gotta (or ought to) question their honesty.

Then when they hire you on the spot, between the tighty-whities and the tube socks, and ask for your bank account information so they can direct deposit your paychecks, you gotta (or ought to) pull off your best Bill Cosby imitation and respond with “Riiiight!”

Now, I truly feel sorry for the people who got scammed, you should be able to trust your fellow human beings.  And I feel especially sorry for the mentally handicapped man that these people stole from.  But at the same time, I have to ask anyone with their full mental capabilities “What the hell were you thinking?”  Did no one think to ask where this business was going to be, to insist on seeing the working conditions, want to get a feel for the place they would be spending 8 hours a day, 5 days a week at?

People, people, people.  Think.  Ask.  Expect good answers.  And if your gut is telling you this is too good to be true, you’ve never been this lucky before, then triple check and don’t give out ANY information unless you are sure they are a legitimate business.

Please, I’m tired of seeing these stories and asking “How could anyone fall for that?”

DPRFFTS?*

.... Contemplate the sign a minute.  Hmmm, if you can pay someone ten to twenty thousand a month to train, why can't you spring $10 for a sign that isn't hand written?  Or how about: In this economy you can pay $10 to $20 thousand a month to train, why do you have to advertise at all?  Shouldn't people be knocking down your door? And if you do have to advertise, why in the median on 21st So. and 13th E.?  Or: if you're going to pay someone $120 to $240 thousand a year to train, shouldn't you have a professional firm screening applicants?  Why can't you afford a professional firm?

.... I'm not even going to venture a guess as to what the scam is, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts that a scam it is.

* Do people really fall for this shit?

Yet another email scam...

Hopefully you all know the "I've got 7 billion dollars I can't get out of my country, send me your bank info and I'll split it with you" scam. Or all the other "send me money, I promise my check, money order, etc. are good" ones.

Well, I just read about a new one. A lady got an email from an old friend she hasn't heard from in a while, saying she was in the hospital and asking to be wired money to help with bills. She was smart enough to ask for the name of the hospital, and got suspicious when the 'friend' got evasive.

It seems the latest is to hack into your email and send these messages out to all your contacts. So beware, just because you know or knew the person, doesn't mean it is actually them. And frankly, if I cared enough about someone to send them money, I'd care enough to call them and let them know first hand that I'd help them any way I could.

I've decided to change careers......

I got this job offer in an e-mail a while ago. I've been trying to decide if I want to give up teaching and try my luck at being a Allocation Manager. Well, I finally decided there just is no way I could turn down one fourth of $20,000,500. Why, that's over five million dollars, and all I have to do is help transfer and spend their money. What a deal. Wish me luck, I'm sending in my resume today!

DEPARTMENT OF MINERALS & ENERGY RESOURCES
PRETORIA 0001, SOUTH AFRICA.
FROM THE DESK OF: Mr. Daniel Matumbe (Manager Project 14 Allocation)
Email:

I am a member of the contract award committee and 14-project allocation manager, of the Department of Minerals and Natural Resources in South Africa; I am in search of an agent to assist us in the transfer of Twenty Million Five Hundred Dollars(USD) and subsequent investment in properties in your country.
You will be required to

(1) Assist in the transfer of the said funds
(2) Advise on lucrative areas for investment
(3) Assist us in purchase of properties.

If you decide to render your service to us in this regard, 25% of the total sum of Twenty Million Five Hundred Dollars(USD) will be for you. Thank you and God bless, as I wait in anticipation of your fullest co-operation. Email:

Yours Faithfully,

Mr. Daniel Matumbe

Oh, and I deleted his email because I didn't want anyone beating me out on this deal. Although I know I really shouldn't worry since it's obvious that I was hand-picked for the job.

The answer to all my problems

After last night, imagine how excited I was when I got this e-mail this morning. I just know this attachment "check.pdf" will be some description of a windfall for me and how to get a check for several thousand, if not hundreds of thousands, dollars. Maybe I'll open it and see exactly how much I'm getting. Sure gonna help with the repairs of the LTD. Yeah, I have no idea who Barron T Mildred of zdajb@uchile.cl is, but if it were somebody sending it as a scam or a way to infect my computer they would have included some bogus story rather than leaving it blank, right? So, it must be safe. And honest. Well, I'm gonna go open it up and see how lucky I got this morning.

Or maybe I'll just delete it. One blowout a week is more than enough....