Club Homepage Forums Classified Ads Buy & Sell - Everything But Airplanes WTB - WARNING

Members who post "WTB" ads - especially for high value items are reminded that this thread is public and can be read by anyone.

A common scam is to get contacted by a seller who has what you want, who sends you pictures and who then asks you to pay with one of the less mainstream payment apps. Like VENMO or similar.

You pay, the item "ships" - it never shows up and your cash has gone.

This is a common scam - especially with Avionics.

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Buyer Beware and insist on using a payment system like PayPal, a Credit Card or Escrow. Where you get protection. If sellers are unwilling to use these services - this is a RED FLAG.

I hate people who steal......low-life, scumbag maggots.

+1.


But Jim... comparing them to low-life scumbag maggots... I have to ask...


...what do you have against low-life, scumbag maggots?


These cyber crooks are the newest form of thievery. talk about a misplaced area of expertise. The sad sad part about it, is that they wouldn't be doing their nefarious actions if it didn't work. The victims being mainly older people really bothers me.

It's gotta stop. These spam phone calls and whatnot... (I've already had four today, and it's not even 1:00 pm)... well, they deserve THE ABSOLUTE WOSRT. I mean eliminate the 8th amendment for them.

Wife has a small clothing alteration shop, so she has to answer all calls to her phone, whether she recognizes the calling number or not. She got a strange call today.... When she answered the call, there was a woman crying loudly in the background. A guy speaking with a Mexican accent said "We have your friend here who is in trouble with us and she needs your help". My wife asked "What's her name and how did you get my number?". The guy said the woman gave him my wife's phone number, but refused to tell my wife the woman's name. He said "I work with a Mexican organization and we want you to send us some money to help your friend". My wife said "Let me put you on speaker phone so I can record this call to make sure I get the information correct". The guy hanged up.

At no point in the conversation the guy indicated that he knows my wife's name or our address. I save his phone number just for record, but they always change numbers. If he calls back I'll record the conversation and contact the police. Right now we don't have much to go on.

I've gotten calls allegedly from the Social Security Administration, the Federal Reserve, FBI, DEA.... all saying my SS number is under suspension, i'm going to be indicted, and to call this number or press "1". All with a computer-generated voice. Sometimes there's no recording. I really have fun with these characters if i'm in the mood. Most of the time there's just a number, but sadly, I have to answer most of them because it could be a random student. i'm kind of trapped into answering even if they don't leave a message on the phone.

these characters are real slime. They deserve the absolute worst - slow and and as painful as possible. No mercy.

I used to get these a lot until one day I went all in on the "you are about to be indicted for social security fraud" scam. Acted as if I had been caught at something and was begging for mercy. I got handed off to more and more people till I was deep in the belly of the beast and could almost hear them panting with desire. We got right up to the point where I was to give them my credit card when I said "Thank you so much for this. I'm going to bring my accountant on the line now just so he knows what's going on. Hello? Hello?"

Not a single call since then.

I did the same with the hearing aids they wanted to sell me. I kept going "What? Can you say that again? I don't hear too good". All the way up the line. When we got to me buying and "Spell your first name" I spelled out Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo..... They were off the phone so fast. Kept me amused for 30 mins while I was driving. But you are only off the list for so long..

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Back to my original post - they tend to contact you by email with pictures of what you WTB.

I have noticed a significant increase in the spam calls over the past couple weeks - like as of the new year, they had a greatly increased quota or something. I'm now getting somewhere between a few and a dozen calls every day. I never answer the land line unless I recognize the caller ID. Sometimes I just unplug the phone for the day.

It's been quite a while since I actually picked up and got one of these scumbags, but every time I do, I make my mission to 1) keep them on the line as long as possible to waste their time (pretty easy), and 2) do my best to bring the person making the call to tears. That's harder, but a worthy goal.

Maybe we oughta get the folks that worked at BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO to track these guys down.

Ever had a tape not returned to them on time??? They'll find ya...

Blockbuster Video? Tape? Return a movie?

What's that all about? I just click a few times on my Apple TV and watch what I want.

You must be from another era!

(PS: I'm older than you, I think)