Oh, so many scams...

Being in the restaurant biz for many years, I was presented with so many scams, that I can smell them a mile away.
I only got taken once and I knew better, but really wanted to believe. *Sound of toilet flushing* $2500.

The wife and I used to breed Jack Russells, and now that we are retired, we are looking to get back into it.

She has found a ton of ads, but the people all seem not to be where the ads say they are. Most of them are offering a service to fly the dogs in from another state, and provide a to your door delivery service. Yeah, right! No one does this, and you can't just pop a dog into the cargo bay and fly it anymore. It won't happen.

Sure buddy, I'll wire you some money and patiently wait by my door in the middle of nowhere for a non-existent dog to be delivered by a non-existent carrier, after also fronting the money to the carrier.

So, for the heck of it, have you ever been scammed?
C'mon now, be honest.

Not through CL no. I fell for one when I was a young adult (19yo), and I had to involve the police and FBI to resolve it. No, I'm not kidding. I wish I was. Wiped my entire account, and the bank froze it, then had to close and open new, but thankful for bank protection.

BBQJOE said:

Most of them are offering a service to fly the dogs in from another state, and provide a to your door delivery service. Yeah, right! No one does this, and you can't just pop a dog into the cargo bay and fly it anymore. It won't happen.

Click to expand...

Some might very well be scams, but Intestate sales of many 'exotic' animals this way is quite common even if I agree it's not the best option many times... The breeder I purchased two of my Cattle Dogs from did this regularly for her other customers, I choose to drive the 24 round trip to pick them up instead, but many of her other customers she had chose to have them shipped...

Basically, just wanting to set the record straight you can still easily put a dog in a flight cage, drop it off at the airport cargo area and have it loaded into the belly of a commercial flight for delivery to another airport in another state... When I used to sell exotic animals for a living this is how all my shipments came in, same day airport to airport delivery to almost any US destination...

The to your door delivery sound a little far fetched but I'm sure that, that service could be arranged...

https://www.deltacargo.com/PetShipment.aspx

This might be a timely thread with a timely warning. There is a major scam going around, and despite him being one of the most intelligent men I've ever known, Ken fell for it. He was working on his computer one morning as we were preparing to go to Sessions in a couple of days, which is a state wide meeting for all York Rite bodies. As the Grand Secretary, Grand Recorder for Chapter and Council in the state, he has a lot of data bases on his computer and takes it with him, sets it up on the secretary's station up front, and then has everything he needs right at his fingertips. Well, this particular morning he had some last minute updates to do when suddenly a message came up on his screen from Microsoft, saying the some kind of risky thing was detected. If it had said, Click here to resolve, he'd have just shut his computer down, waited, then gone back on without clicking anything. But this message gave a toll free number for him to call. When he called it, the party answering said, "Microsoft Tech Support, how may I direct your call?" Sounded pretty official. So he tells the lady what he saw, and she rattled off some number and told Ken that was probably it and she'd transfer him to Mike, who could help him clear the error message. Bear in mind that we are both pretty new to this Windows 10 stuff, and it does lots of things we'd never encountered before, so he figured it was a protection feature built in to the computer. This scam operates one of two ways - either the computer message like Ken got, or a phone call.

Then my brilliant, college educated, retired Naval Officer proceeded to authorize "Microsoft" to remotely access his computer to "fix" the errors - after paying them $160.00 for the privilege. DUH< KEN!! He went to work on his other computer while they "fixed" his, as his old computer has his back up stuff on it. A couple of hours later I got home with Kendra and was putting things away when he came strolling into the kitchen. I asked him if he was all done already and he told me that he wasn't, that Microsoft had detected a threat and were right now accessing his computer remotely to repair it. I just started at him for a minute, then ran into his office...sure enough, the cursor on his computer was wandering all over. I ran back out, jumped on my iPad, and looked it up. Scam, BIG TIME! I showed him what I found, but also found out that this thing is so sophisticated that if you realize it's a scam before they're done, they totally shut down your entire system. You can't do a darn thing. They can also access your other computers via your network, so mine and his old one got shut down post haste! He just stood there looking at me like it was all my fault! I'm afraid I wasn't very nice back. I just glared at him and yelled, "Do you SERIOUSLY think Microsoft CARES if you have a computer issue? He(( no, they just want to sell computers and software so if yours breaks down they aren't gonna politely let you know and offer to help!"

So here we are, relatively intelligent, articulate adults looking at each other without being able to say a word. I got back on my iPad and did some more research. According to what we read, any attempts to suddenly shut down were more dangerous. So we had to let it play out for the next half hour, biting our nails and shooting each other dirty looks the whole time, until he got a message that said his computer was finished, and he should turn it off, then restart it. I'd called our computer repair company in the meantime, who told us to bring it and his back up computer right in. So we shut it off, took it in to Mountain View Computers, and Mark was able to get it cleaned out. But we lost all of our files...everything... which would have been a total catastrophy if Ken hadn't a full back up on his other computer. Since Win10 was new to us, and his was a new computer, he had been backing up as he finished any little changes just in case we had some trouble with the new operating system. While Mark worked on "The Beast", we ran over to the bank and changed everything - every account we had, and Ken's credit card. Fortunately there is no personal information about the members - just names and when they joined. All of their financial stuff is in the Treasurer's hands and it's all paper, not computer. Ken also stopped the payment to "Microsoft", and that was successful. We came home and both of us had to change every password to every site we visit, every store we shop at....it took most of the night. The next day he had to reload some of his software and all of his files.

Last week I was on the web doing some research for a column for the paper when I got the same message. I called him in and said, "Watch this." I reached up, shut my computer down, and waited a few minutes before turning it back on. He just shook his head....."I know, I know!", so the lesson sank in.

This is a real scam, and because you are the one who calls the number, it seems perfectly legit. But don't fall for it. You won't even be able to close the page you're on when it pops up. Just reach up for the button and shut down shut down shut down! Ken isn't a dummy. And he was humiliated that he fell for it. But like Mark at the computer repair center told him, "You aren't the first." But he wants to be the last so he tells people what he did. Mark also said that the phone call aspect was older, but the pop up is relatively new. We have two antivirus programs on each computer and it got by both of them. So be careful!

Well documented - - thanks so much for taking time alert us. Can't imagine the frustration of watching the remote entry explore your computer without being able to do anything about it!

I freak when I get messages like that but, have learned(after being yelled at often) not to panic and react. I stay calm and email my son(or call him) He works for Microsoft and will say "they never would contact you that way "etc.etc. Or never use the email or phone number they give you. If you want to check it out contact Microsoft on your own.
Then he will usually do all that for me so I don't flub up. I respect the fact that I know next to nothing about the internet and computers.

If anything like sender's name etc. seems strange to me, I do NOT open a email. I delete it.

drumstick diva said:

I freak when I get messages like that but, have learned(after being yelled at often) not to panic and react. I stay calm and email my son(or call him) He works for Microsoft and will say "they never would contact you that way "etc.etc. Or never use the email or phone number they give you. If you want to check it out contact Microsoft on your own.
Then he will usually do all that for me so I don't flub up. I respect the fact that I know next to nothing about the internet and computers.

If anything like sender's name etc. seems strange to me, I do NOT open a email. I delete it.

Click to expand...

Perzactly what I told Ken! They aren't gonna contact you! When that pop-up came up on my computer, it totally locked it up. The only way out of it was to reach for the off button - couldn't even do a correct shut-down. And I wasn't about to click any part of that pop up. So I hit the button. Haven't gotten another one, but believe me, they're out there. Mark calls them, "Drive by shootings" because they just randomly hit a bunch of computers and see if anyone falls for it.

Emails I don't open if I don't know the sender either, but Ken doesn't have that luxury. He gets emails from all over the world with his position both in York Rite, Scottish Rite, and as soon-to-be Grand Master of the state, and many, many times he has no way to recognize the sender's name. But they have to be dealt with, so he can't just delete them unless they are offering him a job, selling him a watch, or trying to get him to buy Viagra "at less than US pharmacy prices" no less. Forwards I never open, ever, and people who might email me regularly know it so they don't even try.

MeepBeep said:

Some might very well be scams, but Intestate sales of many 'exotic' animals this way is quite common even if I agree it's not the best option many times... The breeder I purchased two of my Cattle Dogs from did this regularly for her other customers, I choose to drive the 24 round trip to pick them up instead, but many of her other customers she had chose to have them shipped...

Basically, just wanting to set the record straight you can still easily put a dog in a flight cage, drop it off at the airport cargo area and have it loaded into the belly of a commercial flight for delivery to another airport in another state... When I used to sell exotic animals for a living this is how all my shipments came in, same day airport to airport delivery to almost any US destination...

The to your door delivery sound a little far fetched but I'm sure that, that service could be arranged...

https://www.deltacargo.com/PetShipment.aspx

Click to expand...

Actually yeah, that's how we ended up with our Bull Terrier... Not that I would ever pay that much for a dog again, though

They didn't deliver it to the door though, we had to drive to DIA, those slackers



I can only think of the teenage kids down the street selling the pies from school for $20, when I already knew they were $15 (lol my kids go to the same school, duh)..

I don't usually pay for service or product until AFTER it's delivered or done, though lol

My airline of choice, if I ever fly again is Southwest. Southwests policy is no animals in cargo,and only 6 carry on pets per flight, total.

Other airlines may vary, I didn't check, but it smells of scam to me, since almost everyone I contacted had the same MO and some sort of sobbing backstory that wasn't needed.

Here's one I used to get almost once a week.

It varies but they seem to always request the grilled chicken Ceaser salad, for anywhere from 100 to 500 people.
First off, I never had a CCS on the menu, ever!
So I think, well heck, I could order the fixings for that, hire a few temps to make it, and so on.
They pick the day they want it, and the time they want their courier to pick it up. You think, sure, I can pull that off.
They then want to know the total cost with tax.
You think, ok, 100 CCS's at say $10 a piece, that's a grand. Nice day!
You add in tax and come up with $1076.5. He promises a cashiers check. The check shows up and it's for $10,765. You call him back, and tell them they sent way too much. He blames his secretary, calls her stupid, and tells you to just deposit the check.

He then tells you he is flying, or in a hospital or something and is not able to contact or pay the courier, and asks you to do him a favor, and pay the courier out of the extra money sent, then wire him the difference after it is all calculated.

So you bought the ingredients for the salads.
You wired money to the courier.
You wired the balance back to the buyer.
The cashiers check bounces.
They skate, the phone numbers no longer work,
and you're left holding the bag.

I did not fall for this one. But had some serious fun running the scammers through paces and acting like an idiot.


The one I did fall for was a guy who claimed to set up franchises out of Mom and Pop businesses. I saw stars, and fell for it.

I understand when the rest of to pitch sounds fishy that it is probably fishy, just wanted to clarify that people do indeed ship dogs as airline cargo and it's quite common, this is also how most aquarium fish are shipped...

BBQJOE said:

My airline of choice, if I ever fly again is Southwest. Southwests policy is no animals in cargo,and only 6 carry on pets per flight, total.

Other airlines may vary, I didn't check

Click to expand...

Delta, American and United all ship live animals as cargo, as do a few others and I highly recommend them if you must ship a live animal domestically... And even recommend them for poultry if you can justify the additional cost and hassle of same day airport-airport delivery...