What is the worst scam you've ever fallen victim to (or come close)?

There was that faith healer that said he could heal my std with prayer. Morning Neff. :)

Ouch, that’s pretty messed up.

I just had some fake company pretend to be one of my creditors calling for a payment, although I wasn’t paying attention when they stated who they were, I assumed it was one of my companies, so I processed a payment with them. I later saw on my balance online that it wasn’t my company and it was too late :(

This is not as bad as that.

However, I was once looking to “work from home” to “make extra income.” I was looking into various ways to do this and I uncovered a couple icky things.

1. “Assembling simple products in my spare time at home.” First off, they wanted me to buy the materials on my own, and that was supposed to be reimbursed by the money I got when I sent them the final product. Second, the quota that they wanted was impossibly high, although if I didn’t have a day job, and also had five kids doing the work with me and sent in their completed products as my own, I could have perhaps filled it. At any rate, they paid essentially pennies per hour, which is not enough to justify my labor in a first-world country.

2. “Stuffing envelopes at home for easy money.” This is my favorite. It starts when you see an ad in the paper that offers information about how you can make easy money in your spare time at home by stuffing envelopes. You send them a few dollars for the information. What you get back is a copy of the ad you responded to, with permission to post it in your local paper(s), and then you get envelopes of a few dollars each from people who want to stuff envelopes in their spare time for cash. The envelope stuffing comes in when you send them the ad you received, and permission for them to place it in their local paper(s)... Luckily it was only a friend who fell for that one, not me.

Neither of these was quite so bad as the job a chiropractor friend was offered shortly after she graduated. She was to “staff a chiro booth” at a local mall, where she would “examine” consenting passers-by and tell them about all the horrible “problems” they had, and how they’d soon be falling apart if they didn’t visit the chiropractor who was sponsoring the booth – sort of like your dentist scam. She didn’t take the job; it felt too dirty.

When I was 15 years old I almost fell for a pyramid scheme. I had just quit a job in a child labour swet shop, and was determined to make something of my self.

The add in the paper looked legit, the guy I spoke with on the on the phone sounded legit, and the intro movie looked legit, but the meeting I went to revealed it was a scam… why should any job require you to pay in order to start, bye.

I hate visiting dentists, I rather be given a pointy stick and be made to fight a bear. I would probably be behind bars now if anyone had messed with my teeth.

EDIT:

Worst “scam” I actually fell for: buying a $30 watch for $50 from a dodgy looking street vendor, or some similar thing.

@Adirondackwannabe morning! :)
@Blackberry oh my gosh, that is awful.
@laureth how do places like that stay in business? How is that legal?

Thanks for pointing out the Aspen Dental scam. By publicizing it you have helped more people you can ever know.

I once brought my car in to Monroe Muffler for a free, NY State inspection required annually. I do my own work so I knew everything was fine. While in the waiting room the Service Coordinator came out and told me a had a broken brake drum. “No way! I want to see it.” He took me into the service area where my car was on the lift and there was a my brake drum with a chunk missing. However, the metal at the break was shiny and the missing chunk was still on the floor! Clearly the guy dropped my drum on the concrete floor (either purposely or accidentally) and broke it. We had a “discussion” about it but I lost. I needed the inspection and the brakes to get home. They won.
But, I put up a sign at the office of 600 employees explaining the situation – and asked everyone to tell their friends.

I don’t know how many times the place has changed hands since then but they are never busy. I wonder why. Poor b*stards.

Only the usual shit when first starting out as an apprentice in the workplace.
Fetch the left handed screwdriver & go get the tartan paint, that sort of thing.

@worriedguy when it originally happened I posted it everywhere that I could think of, and I told everyone I knew. I was furious. I still am. If we had paid for them to treat my husband and I (which is what they wanted), it would have been $10,000 plus interest, out of pocket. Should be considered grand larceny. It makes me sick just thinking about it.

@ANef_is_Enuf You showed ‘em. A Nef is enough! Thanks for doing it again.

@ANef_is_Enuf

I’d also like to thank you for pointing out the AssPen Dental scam.

Did you consider billing or suing them for the cost of replacing the filling they removed, or did you get that done for free by the real dentist?

@Brian1946 no, I just got it fixed last week by my old dentist. We finally have dental coverage, and by some stroke of luck (or maybe I just have amazing teeth), after two years without a filling that tooth didn’t require a root canal or a crown. Just a new filling. That still remains my only cavity, and I had no signs of periodontal or gum disease. Healthy mouth all in all.
I tried to complain to the BBB, but they don’t deal with any type of medical establishment – though a quick Google search will show that many people have made similar complaints. My dad suggested that I sue for the repairs to that tooth, but I just didn’t want to. Frankly, I don’t want to spend a second longer in a courthouse than absolutely necessary at this point in my life.

This is minor, but…
I was in New Orleans with my wife when a young kid (12-ish) came up to me and said, “Ten bucks says I can tell you where you got those shoes.”

“OK”, I said.

“You got those shoes on your feet on Bourbon Street.”

My wife laughed; I gladly gave him the ten bucks.

The envelope thing @laureth described.

Speaking of auto mechanic scams, I once to the car in for an oil change. A young man that looked like the poster child for Boy Scouts told me that the differential fluid needed to be replaced and that it would cost over $100. I gave the go-ahead. My BIL, a car guy, later told me that it rarely needs to be changed, and certainly not mine due to its age and mileage. I now keep the BIL on speed dial for situations like this.

@ANef_is_Enuf I don’t think anything could be much worse than your experience though. Did you have to pay for all of the “work” that they did?

@Pied_Pfeffer no, we recognized that the whole thing was fishy and never went back. I did spend weeks absolutely devastated that my teeth might fall out, though. I was suspicious of what they told me, but at the time I also had no way to verify whether or not I really did have this severe periodontal disease that they claimed. We didn’t have $10K to spend, regardless. Even if we had fallen for it there was no way we could have agreed to it at that price… and if we did have $10,000 just laying around, I would have just paid my regular dentist to fix my tooth in the first place.
We managed to avoid the real damage, but it still infuriates me that they are doing this to other people on a regular basis. There are new Aspen Dentals popping up everywhere nowadays.

My car was running great, but I needed a smog test to renew my registration, so I took it to a local smog tester. They said it didn’t pass, and told me they might be able to get it to pass for about $80.
I took the car to another smog tester, and on the way noticed that it was running a little rough.
Got to the second smog tester, and they said I didn’t pass, and said they could fix it for about $150.
Well, I had just spent about $300 on a muffler, so I decided to take it to a Smog Referee (in California, if you fail a smog test, the Referee will look at your car, and if you spent so much already fixing up your car, they will let you pass for one year). The ref popped my hood, looked inside, and found TWO places hoses had been pinched off by the smog testers. He removed the clamps, and it ran fine, and passed.
He took the names of the testers, and said he would deal with it.

Yeah, Aspen Dental’s business practices are questionable, although my experience there did not have to do with questionable business practice. When I went there I asked the dentist if when he filled my teeth that he would only use certain dental products in my mouth that I know I am not allergic to. I do know that if I really am allergic to these chemicals, it’s life threatening. This nut actually raised his voice and told me off, claiming that I was “trying to tell” him how to run his practice. That guy had issues.

I did have another dentist who hollowed out my four back molars at age 20. I’m convinced the jerk was simply looking for a way to pay off his new x-ray machine or something because I had never had a cavity or filling before, and didn’t have another one for almost 25 years afterwards. Then those first fillings degraded and had to be replaced. As a result some of them cracked, and had to have root canals, caps, and/or be pulled. I’ve spent 1000’s on that mistake, and probably will pay many many more because the next step is to have an implant.

@filmfann wow!! That’s crazy.

@snowberry I left out the part about the staff and the dentist being rude and intimidating. That’s the honest truth, though. I felt like they were pushing me around, and the hygienist was downright mean. When they directed us to the woman in control of billing and she gave us the estimates for our treatments, she was condescending and intimidating. She is the one who repeatedly told me that my teeth were going to fall out if I didn’t find a way to get the treatment. (At the same time, another patient in the next “booth” was receiving the same lecture.) The whole experience was distressing. Yours sounds just as bad, if not worse. What a horrible place.

@ANef_is_Enuf Yeah, I turn into a quivering bowl of jelly, crying and blubbering, etc. in the dentist’s chair. Post traumatic dental stress big time. But that’s another story.

I usually don’t take risks in real life but I do like to take them in online games. It’s better that I do it this way because I only have a few things to lose and not important ones.

Oh, there’s the time that Bekins movers tore up my centuries old antiques and said it was my fault. But they set both an antique couch and a 275 year old sofa on their ends to travel the length of the country. How is that MY fault??? I’ll never pay a mover to store or move my stuff again. We might pay someone to help us load, and unload, but we’ll direct the placement of the stuff inside the van, and haul it, store it, and and manage the entire move ourselves from here on out.

Around Christmas time a different mover stole a fire place set. I know they did because it was the only item I had packed in its original container, and nothing else was missing from the load. It probably ended up under someone’s tree.

Talk about scams! Moving companies are right up at the top of the list.

I’m surprised (but not really, I guess) that no one else has mentioned “Social Security”.

@CWOTUS OK, you just did! ;)

Holy Moly, I guess the worse scam that got me was when I had my online electronic business going awhile back. It was more supplemental than providing the bread and butter. It was Christmas time and some woman wanted to order a digital camera for her son who was over seas. I told myself I would not ship over seas unless to the UK, Canada, or Australia. I told her I would ship it to her in the US and then she could ship it to him (her son). After she paid for it she came back and asked if I could ship it directly to him because it would not get there by Christmas any other way. Being a softy I agreed. Then the location changed, he was supposed merchant marine and on the move by ship. Needless to say when I informed her that the package had been shipped and would get to him by Christmas, they reported it as an unauthorized purchase or that their card was stolen, some BS like that, and got their charges revered by PayPal, and they stuck me with $900 bill. Never again though.

One I flushed out without ever really falling for it. I answered an email from some guy looking for help making a better than average amount of money. He never said what the job was until you sent all the info to him then he tells you that he needs an agent to receive some cash for him. You are to receive the money, immediately cash it, and send the money, less your fee, unto another person to whom he owes an invoice to. Out of curiosity I told him to send the money. The check cam FedEx the next day but the sender was not the person I was in contact with. The check was from some weird bank in the South. I searched for it online but I could not find it. I contacted him back and told him there was no way my bank would cash it, it would have to be held until it cleared, if it ever did. I told him to send a money order or a cashier’s check. The next day by FedEx, a cashier’s check shows up. But they messed up bigger that time, they printed Chase bank on the check; I bank with Chase. I took it to my bank and asked them if they had a branch where this one was suppose to be or by that routing number and as suspected, both were bogus. I contacted the person back by email telling them if they really wanted my help, they would have to seen a money order or a Moneygram only; needless to say, I never heard from them again.

@Hypocrisy_Central ouch! :(

I don’t know if it’s an example of a scam or just bad business but I would like to burn a hole in the ground where all Lucille Roberts gyms exist. They were absolutely the worst about cancelling my membership which you can’t do at the local gym, for some idiotic reason, probably just to drive us insane. You had to cancel somewhere else that was unreachable by phone (never pick up) or mail (no answer to letters) or fax (doesn’t work). I couldn’t even get rid of them by cancelling my credit card, that fucking money got transferred to another credit card of mine. I hate them.

Does having had faith in our government at one point count?

@ANef_is_Enuf Have you thought about posting on Angie’s List? My experience with the BBB is that they tend to side with the merchants, not the rest of us, so I love Angie’s List.

Years ago my husband and I were invited to an evening information session for a time share. I told the company that we weren’t really in the market for such a thing but they said that we should come just to get information.

When we got there they asked everyone how much money they would be spending on vacations in the next 5 years. We were in camping mode so my husband and I told them that we would probably be spending $300.00 and then we were asked to wait in a side room. When we entered the side room there were 4 or 5 other couples there. A lady walked in and told us that there would be more information just through this door in the back of the room. We all went through the door and we were in the alley. LOL.

I was extremely intrigued so I called the BBB the next day about this company and they told me they had received many, many complaints about shady business practises. We drove by their shop the next day and they were gone…like they had never been there.

I once ordered magazines as gifts for other people from a door-to-door kid supposedly representing their high school. No magazines ever arrived and I was really embarrassed because a few were gifts for people that were supposed to mailed to their addresses around birthday and Christmas times.

When I was 18 I took a job doing “set up and demonstration” of “high tech products”. I knew it would be sales before I walked in, but there was a guaranteed wage for the first month to cover training so I figured I’d be good even if it didn’t work out right away and it was something new to try.

Went in and interviewed, they didn’t ask a whole lot, they just said they tried everyone out and we’d see how I did the first month. Sounded fine. I liked to work and I liked talking to people so I figured this was a good fit for me to try out.

Well, “high-tech products” were Kirby Vacuums and after two weeks of training me how to use and sell them they loaded me and 5 others like me in a minivan each morning to go out and do our spiel.

We’d literally cruise around the neighborhood while the group leader looked for “credit” in the form of new cars, satellite dishes, and anything else shiny you can see from the road. When he spotted something he liked, whoever’s turn it was would walk up to the door with a “free gift” and ask to speak to the homeowner. After giving the homeowner the “free gift” we’d come back to the van, grab our demonstration stuff, and go back with the group leader. From there the conversation went something like

<confused homeowner I just spoke to answers the door for the second time and sees two people standing outside with a vacuum and a bunch of demonstration stuff>
“Hey, did funkdaddy tell you what we’re doing today? No? Well, he’s new and doesn’t really have this stuff down yet. We’re in the neighborhood demonstrating these awesome vacuum cleaners, would you like to let him come in and clean a portion of your house? It only takes about 30 minutes.”

If they were nice, I would go in and try to show them how filthy their house was, hoping they’d buy my $1100 vacuum. It was horrible. When I was done, the group leader would lay all the dirt I’d gathered out in front of them and basically ask if they liked living in a filthy home.

I made it a week because I was broke and thought at the end of the month I’d get my guaranteed check. I sold two and was expecting checks for those too.

Turns out there’s a clause in the guaranteed pay that says if you don’t show the vacuum 60 times during the month you don’t get the money. 60 times was impossible because two weeks were spent training and the most I ever did in a day was 3 demos. Also, the “free gifts” we were handing out were paid for out of the money coming to us. To top it off, even when you sold the product, any discount that had to be given was taken out of your commission first. So if they didn’t want to pay $1100 for the vacuum, the group leader would try to haggle the person down. He could give away up to $300 without affecting his commission at all. Coincidentally, my commission was exactly $300.

It was the shadiest deal I’d ever been a part of and when I approached the owner about how none of the things we were told through training were true he essentially asked me what I was going to do about it. Like we should fight it out in the parking lot or something.

I didn’t go back

Apparently I’m not alone on this one Kirby Company – Criticism of marketing and sales practices from wikipedia

@funkdaddy Evil Mr. Kirby got you too?? What about Mrs. Rainbow and her aqua ways?

@Hypocrisy_Central – nah, I learned my lesson pretty quickly. I saw a few though, never really understood why you’d want a vacuum to take dirt and make it into mud.

Probably just my deep rooted love for the Kirby talking though ~

Oh yeah. When I was jobless in Florida one year, I went for a job interview where, once I was told that the original job was a non-starter, I should apply for another job at the other company the guy owned. I would be earning money and promoting AIDS awareness and safety at the same time! How could I resist?

Turns out this is how it worked: I would pay my employer $100 and go get an AIDS test at some clinic. If it came back negative, my employer would issue me an ID-style card, suitable for putting in my wallet, certifying that I was HIV-negative. Then, when I meet people to date, I should tell them about these ID cards, take their money, and have them get a test, etc. Lovely.

When our car overheated in Rome in 1983 a tow truck took us to a car repair shop that looked a bit strange. They said they needed to take a better look and we should come back the next day. Which we did. We found that the whole engine had been taken apart and supposedly there were a lot of problems with several parts. We should come back the next day. Which we did. The invoice was a nightmare. But we wanted to enjoy the rest of the vacation so we paid. 200 miles later the engine sounded funny. This time we chose a real Volkswagen repair shop and showed them the invoice. They checked the car. It turned out not a single part had been replaced. And actually nothing was wrong with the engine or any of the parts. Just the taking it apart and back together was not done in the best way. And this could be fixed. A few screws here and there.

We went to the police. Even took a lawyer. All of it led to nothing. It was too complicated to prove. The lawyer told us to forget the whole thing and learn from it.

That was a hard lesson for a 21-year-old student.

@mattbrowne‘s story reminded me of one…

In 1972 as a 19-year-old my dad got me a weekend job driving a pickup truck from Florida to Massachusetts for the company he worked for. Basically, the job was to deliver the truck from a construction site in Tampa, where it was no longer required, to the jobsite my dad was working in Massachusetts.

So I flew to Tampa (first airplane ride, first time that far from home, etc.) and I eventually got to the jobsite, where they handed me the keys and waved goodbye. I started driving. A hundred miles or so north of Tampa the truck started to overheat pretty badly (it was a very hot day in the summer). So I pulled into a service station where the mechanic opened the radiator. He saw some bubbles in the coolant and immediately opined – without looking at anything else – that the head gasket must be failing, and in need of immediate replacement. My heart sank, because I knew this wasn’t going to be quick or cheap. The mechanic got called out on a tow just then, so he promised that we’d talk as soon as he got back.

While I was waiting, I put the cap back on the radiator and drove the truck across the street to another service station. A kid, younger than I was, even, opened the radiator and looked, and all he said was, “That coolant looks pretty dirty. Why don’t we just flush it out first and see what we got?” That sounded safe and cheap, so he ran a water hose in the top, opened the petcock at the bottom of the radiator, and I ran the engine while he put water into the radiator and we let it flow and drain.

That radiator was so full of MUD that the drain just “plopped” for a while as we continued to flush. When the draining water started running clear again, we closed the drain, added some antifreeze, and I drove out of there about a half-hour later for about $10, and I never had another problem with that truck for the rest of the drive. Well, until the differential blew up in Connecticut on what was supposed to be the last day…

@CWOTUS – How one person can make a difference! I wish some kid in Rome would have given us this kind of advice ;-)

Even today, picking a good mechanic is basically an exercise of trust.