Top Scams

[EternalOptimist]

Reading the Upton thread, depressing as it is, made me think of some of the scams that I have had tried on me over the years and also some of the more ingenious that I have heard about.
Here are a couple I heard about (they may be urban legends, but they sound semi plausible)

The first one was donkeys years ago in Liverpool. Someone put a sign on the nightsafe at a Barclays bank, saying the safe was out of order, please put the deposit through the main letterbox.
They had taped a bin bag to the back of the letterbox and came back in the early hours to retrieve all the loot.

The second one was the financial advisor, who gave informal side-advice to his clients. He told half of them to buy a little gold because it was about to rocket, the other half to sell because it would plummet.
When he saw the price rise, he told the some of lucky half to get into oil, the others to get out

he now had a quarter of his clients who had seen two successes on the trot, he told half of them to buy rio tinto, the other half to sell.

After a few rounds of this he was left with a very few people who thought he was a genius. Every forecast and prediction he made came true
after that, it was easy to fleece them

[KimberleyChris]

A man in Manchester built a model night safe in his flat, then trained his little pet monkey to go in through the hopper to recover notes, and he got a piece of banana each time :-)

[TimberWolf]

We probably don't even notice the biggest scams.

[AtW]

Pension system.

[EternalOptimist]

this thread needs a new title

'Top Scams, that have come to your attention and that are not of a political or HMRC nature'

[wim121]

The first one was donkeys years ago in Liverpool. Someone put a sign on the nightsafe at a Barclays bank, saying the safe was out of order, please put the deposit through the main letterbox.
They had taped a bin bag to the back of the letterbox and came back in the early hours to retrieve all the loot.

Has been done before. Variations include someone dressing up as a security guard beside a van with the night safe taped over. All you need is a uniform, blue van and a few stencils and most people will hand their takings over without hesitating.

The second one was the financial advisor, who gave informal side-advice to his clients. He told half of them to buy a little gold because it was about to rocket, the other half to sell because it would plummet.
When he saw the price rise, he told the some of lucky half to get into oil, the others to get out

he now had a quarter of his clients who had seen two successes on the trot, he told half of them to buy rio tinto, the other half to sell.

After a few rounds of this he was left with a very few people who thought he was a genius. Every forecast and prediction he made came true

I think Derren brown did this one as well with horses. Got the numbers down from hundreds to one person that won every single gee-gee race.



The house break-in:
Get a utility bill for a house with a name on. Then go to a gym or something that will give you a photo ID card. Then, when the owners are at work, arrive at the house with a gym bag and call a locksmith. Show them your ID card and tell them that and paying the gas bill is what you have just been out to do. That should be enough ID for them to pick the lock for you. Then clear the place out.



The dirty chip on your bank card:
We all have mag strips or chips that sometimes need a good rub, some serving staff, may have a skimmer on them and go to rub your card in their sleeve, drop your card, etc, giving them ample chance to skim it.



The heavy tv scam (woolworths):
This one was very popular when I was younger. You go to one woolworths, get a receipt for something, then carefully fold face over. Go to the same one or another one later. Walk to the back, wander around for a while, then pick up a TV and walk towards the front of the store, with your receipt in your mouth. Security guards will see the receipt in your mouth and you struggling to carry a heavy TV and might even assist you by holding the door open.

[hyperD]

There was a well known scam where a vanload of homo simians would flag down a driver on the motorway to try and sell them an expensive "surplus stock" hifi/TV system. The unsuspecting driver would pay cash for the heavily discounted goods and take the branded cardboard boxed items back home, only to discover once opened, they were full of bricks.

Actually happened to me on the M25 many years back when I had the roof down on the TVR Griff, some guys in a white van tried to pull me over saying they had some cheap plasma they wanted to sell me.

I just laughed and floored it in a maelstrom of 5 litre V8 hoonage.

[Sysman]

This one happened to a chap I knew back in the 1980s. His company lost about 30K.

Some crook got a job as a postman picking up the day's outgoing post from largish companies on an industrial estate. They worked out what day of the month the cheques went to suppliers, then next month steamed them open to find the names on the big cheques.

By the following month they had accounts set up and ready to deposit the cheques. In the normal course of events the supplier would eventually ring the customer to say "'Ere where's our cheque?", to be told "Yep, cheque number <nnnnnn> was issued on <date>, it's in the post.", or even "The cheque has been cashed, so your accounts are wrong.". This worked best with companies big enough to have a large accounts department.

Long before anyone worked out the cheque had gone AWOL; the crooks had cleared the money out and scarpered.

[KimberleyChris]

And of course the Asian gentlemen, who opened an account under the name ' Inlandi Revendi' with a handful of stolen cheques.

[RSoles]

...and it's not just people trying to scam money out of you.

Last night I tried to log into my RB$ account.
Entered the correct details, pin and password, three times, nope it wasn't having it;
forwarded me to a reset password page. I entered all my details again.
Checked twice that it was the right site. New password accepted, about to click on Finish
when I noticed the small box, already ticked, which said turn off paper statements.

Bastards had made me go through all that so they could con me into going paperless.
Thanks RB$, I'll remember that one. Might bring it up at the next shareholders' meeting.