[HN Gopher] A 'scam manual' written to help immigrants not becom...
___________________________________________________________________
A 'scam manual' written to help immigrants not become victims
Author : BerislavLopac
Score : 74 points
Date : 2024-02-23 15:42 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| One of the Nero Wolf novels involved conning illegal immigrants
| in the 1930s. Interesting read...
| screenoridesagb wrote:
| I thought it was funny the references to scammy mail order
| colleges. Little has changed since the 30s.
| brolumir wrote:
| Really wish this existed in the 90's when my family moved to the
| US from eastern europe. A non-exhaustive list of scams my parents
| fell for:
|
| - Investing money in a friend's company - this was the most
| painful as it was perpetuated by our family members who lived
| here for a while that we trusted
|
| - Rainbow vacuum cleaner
|
| - Aqualife water filter
|
| - Hiring someone to take us to another city to buy a car to "help
| get a good deal" - turned out he was working for the seller, and
| it was not a good deal at all
|
| - A summer job for me selling Vector cutlery
|
| Unfortunately it's easy to scam new immigrants, this happened for
| hundred years and still happening now.
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| > Rainbow vacuum cleaner
|
| There was a wave of this in 90s and 00s but in Poland. In my
| eyes parents signed a loan for "Mercedes of vaccum cleaners"
| for an amount of over 2k USD. Average salary back then was
| something below 700 USD. Fuck this American scammers. Eat shit
| and bankrupt Rainbow. Rest of the above were occuring as well.
| People were looking at the west with hope and sympathy, while
| the west came over with smiling brutal extortionist rape fest.
| vdaea wrote:
| I don't understand this. Why did they sign up for a $2000
| loan if they could barely afford it?
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| Colleagues in workplace started buying and were receiving
| commission by referencing next client. Trained salesman
| visited home and used all dirty sales tricks and pitches.
| Until now I remember "don't say this vacuum is expensive,
| this is Mercedes of vacuum cleaners, everyone desires even
| a substitute of Mercedes", or "a salesman enters someone's
| home with an attitude that they _own him_ the commission
| money ". You grew up in Communism with an absolute shortage
| of everything and are unable to evaluate good value in
| market economy. Fuck this manipulative psychopats.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >Colleagues in workplace started buying and were
| receiving commission by referencing next client.
|
| You can blame the West as much as you want, but it sounds
| like Poles were stabbing Poles in the back too.
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| In novel free market and democratic ways. That was
| extremely bitter realization. The reward for hardships so
| far was new wave of MLMs, cults, sects, scams, and
| whatnot.
| bombcar wrote:
| If it makes you feel better, the Rainbow and the Vector get
| lots of non-immigrants, too.
|
| And some people swear by the Rainbows because of the water
| feature.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > - Investing money in a friend's company - this was the most
| painful as it was perpetuated by our family members who lived
| here for a while that we trusted
|
| I don't know your parents' experience, of course, but this
| method of losing money is one of the most popular for everyone.
| I once saw an expert who provides finanical education to new
| professional atheletes (known for being bankrupt soon after
| retirement despite millions in income). Loans to
| family/friends' businesses was top of their list of no-no's.
|
| On the other hand, many successful businesses have started that
| way. Many more legitimate but failed efforts also have begun
| that way. Not everyone has access to VC capital, personal
| wealth, or a bank loan.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> On the other hand, many successful businesses have started
| that way._
|
| It's called the triple F round: friends, family, and fools.
| brolumir wrote:
| Yeah, I should've been more clear: it wasn't really investing
| in a friends company. I agree it can be a source of funding
| when other sources aren't available, but in this case it was
| a total scam - the company was specifically designed to
| accept money and fold.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Isn't Vector just a weird MLM sales channel for Cutco? It is
| unlikely anyone will make money off it, but from what I
| understand it is not impossible. You just won't make money
| selling knives at least.
| nothercastle wrote:
| Most people could probably benefit from someone helping them
| navigate the car buying process. For a $500 I bet I could talk
| most buyers through the right lease, payment setup and
| financing and pre negotiate a decent deal in one of the 3-4
| neighboring states and setup an inspection at a good mechanics
| if buying used. I bet I could bring 1-2k of value into that
| transaction. If I was doing it as my day job I could probably
| squeeze out 2-3k or help them tap the auction market directly.
| bombcar wrote:
| The problem is there's no way to _prove_ that you 're doing
| that and not a scammer; you're almost better off just asking
| someone who bought one recently what they did.
|
| (What you're suggesting is basically Nothercastle's Used
| Cars)
| anigbrowl wrote:
| That's worth writing a book for. A short, straight-to-the-
| point guide in simple language would probably sell really
| well.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Reminds me, tourists as well. I often traveled to a certain
| location abroad, and never had trouble with taxis etc. Later,
| two older female relatives accompanied me on a trip, and the
| _first_ taxi we went on the driver tried two scams on us!
| mandelbrotwurst wrote:
| What's the scam with the water filter?
| myself248 wrote:
| I would love a better understanding of modern scams and crime in
| general.
|
| Like what does "money laundering" look like on the ground, how
| would I know if someone around me was trying to do that?
|
| I've had some random Amazon items show up addressed to me, but I
| didn't order them, and I think that was part of a scam, but I
| never fully got my head around how it works.
|
| I hear about various "work from home" jobs actually being scams,
| but what's going on there? Not just scamming the workers out of
| their personal money, I mean, like using the workers as the arms
| and legs of a larger criminal enterprise. What's that all about?
|
| I would watch a show on this, if it had better-than-mythbusters
| quality of explanations, think more like Connections or Newton's
| apple.
| c22 wrote:
| The random Amazon items are probably the "brushing" scam[0]
| which I guess is about using stolen payment to generate
| "verified purchases" for fake reviews.
|
| [0]: https://www.uspis.gov/news/scam-article/brushing-scam
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| TBH Many legit services funded from taxes, contributions, and
| insurances feel like scam. Many jobs fell like scam. Scammers
| focused on profit extraction exploit the decreased level of
| alertness. Unfortunately, random "friendly stranger" is almost
| always scammer especially if pulling out anyone's wallet is
| involved.
| myself248 wrote:
| Yeah. A friend of mine just shared this:
|
| https://i.imgur.com/KDUOq2j.png
|
| Great. They will look indistinguishable from scammers, and I
| have low hopes that anyone will actually check ID now that
| this notice has told them they're legit. Some scammers are
| gonna have a field day impersonating them.
| bombcar wrote:
| While I don't support abuse of 911 for things like this,
| they really need something like it, a known-trusted
| authority that people can verify with.
|
| Otherwise, you're using information _in the notice_ to
| verify the notice! That 's pointless!
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Hell, Troy Hunt just wrote about this:
| https://www.troyhunt.com/thanks-fedex-this-is-why-we-keep-
| ge...
| caseysoftware wrote:
| > _I hear about various "work from home" jobs actually being
| scams, but what's going on there?_
|
| Many merchants won't ship overseas due to fraud, costs, etc. In
| this scam, the fraudsters purchase something with stolen
| payment, ship to you, and then have you re-ship to them or
| whoever they've resold it to. Often at your expense which they
| promise to reimburse.
|
| If the merchant realizes they're fraudulent orders, they may
| block you as a fraudulent customer blocking your address in
| back office fulfillment services. Now you have trouble buying
| your own things.
|
| If investigators look into it, they come to you. Since
| shipments are going over state lines, it could turn into
| Federal trouble.
|
| And you never get reimbursed for shipping.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > I hear about various "work from home" jobs actually being
| scams, but what's going on there? Not just scamming the workers
| out of their personal money
|
| Often the scam here is that the workers have to pay for their
| own training, pay the company for supplies, whatever... And
| then just the work never materializes.
|
| "Once you've done the training we'll set you up with clients"
| and then ooops, there's just no clients available anymore
| sorry.
| stevenicr wrote:
| Earlier this week I was thinking similar..
|
| How do I teach a young person about to travel the world alone
| as a new adult the scams like bump-and-rob.. the pick pockets
| in new orleans and the ones that 'tell you where your shoes are
| from'..
|
| the ball and cups people in NY, the purse snatchers watching
| from the alleys..
|
| There are so many scams and criminal things I've seen over the
| years (and I am sure many more I do not know) - how to prepare
| people for predators that are waiting for the noobs in the
| cities..
|
| the dating app free dinner people and the dating app drug and
| rob common in Columbia these days..
|
| /random quick thoughts.
|
| We need a compendium and video to show some things they should
| be aware of and looking for instead of staring up at the pretty
| new lights or what not.
| gs17 wrote:
| > and the ones that 'tell you where your shoes are from'.
|
| Isn't it "where you got your shoes"/"what street your got
| your shoes on" ("you got 'em on your feet!"/"you got 'em on
| [current street name]")? Do they actually get violent or is
| the implication enough for people who fall for that?
| titanomachy wrote:
| > the dating app free dinner people
|
| This is a lesson that people can learn for themselves
| relatively cheaply.
|
| > the dating app drug and rob common in Colombia
|
| This on the other hand sounds quite scary, glad it hasn't
| caught on where I live.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > I hear about various "work from home" jobs actually being
| scams, but what's going on there?
|
| There's a lot of variants, but a couple of the most common ones
| are:
|
| 1) "Welcome to ScamCo! Here's a check for $X to help you pay
| for these work supplies, send us back the extra after you're
| done." (The check bounces; the repayment of the remainder
| doesn't.)
|
| 2) "Welcome to ScamCo! You'll be my personal assistant, please
| buy me some gift cards / cryptocurrency / whatever." (The
| payment to cover the cost of the cards bounces; the gift cards
| / cryptocurrency / whatever are unrecoverable.)
|
| 3) "Welcome to ScamCo! You'll help me move money between my
| bank accounts." (The bank accounts are stolen; the mark is
| working as a money mule.)
|
| 4) "Welcome to ScamCo! You'll help us reship packages." (The
| packages are stolen goods.)
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Looks like 50% of those scams could be eliminated simply by
| the general public not accepting cheques.
|
| I don't think I've seen one here for at least a decade and a
| half, same for signatures with credit cards.
| carstenhag wrote:
| Similar scams are done in Europe, where checks are almost-
| extinct. Sorry, scammers will always find a way
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Until bank-to-bank 0% fee services like Zelle become more
| popular, checks are still the best way to pay someone a
| significant amount without a chunk getting taken out as
| debit/credit fees.
| gottorf wrote:
| Here's a rule of thumb on scams: know what the risk-free rate
| is (in the American case, the benchmark would be 10-year U.S.
| Treasury note rates), and know deep in your heart that any[0]
| return above that bears risk.
|
| The 10-year note currently yields a fraction above 4%, as of
| the last auction[1]. That means that anything that has the
| potential to return above that also has the potential to lose
| money; and generally, the more potential for higher returns,
| the more risk. Anybody claiming to give you a "quick, safe
| return" on your money is lying about at least one of the quick,
| safe, or return; i.e., a scam.
|
| [0]: Very rarely, there are true arbitrage opportunities or
| some other situation where someone's cleverness leads to
| outsized risk-adjusted returns. "You" are probably not that
| someone.
|
| [1]:
| https://treasurydirect.gov/instit/annceresult/press/preanre/...
| titanomachy wrote:
| You can currently get a 5%-interest savings account with some
| quite reputable firms (Morgan Stanley, Robinhood,
| Wealthfront). Those are effectively risk-free ways to earn
| more than 4%.
|
| I think the 10-year treasury note rate underestimates things
| a bit. Maybe it's because there is an assumption priced in
| that interest rates will go down again?
|
| But the point stands: right now, anything offering you more
| than 5% return must have some risk involved.
| ls612 wrote:
| 5.4% from a Goldman Sachs CD promotional rate. That is as
| risk free as anything else.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > Like what does "money laundering" look like on the ground,
| how would I know if someone around me was trying to do that?
|
| You won't. Money laundering is giving plausible reasons for the
| government to think illicitly gained money is actually
| legitimately gained.
|
| It usually takes the form of a business. Generally speaking the
| more service oriented the better (You wouldn't want to explain
| how a restaurant can serve 1000 people with 1 grocery store
| run. But a laptop repair business? Pretty easy to fake a few "I
| uninstalled a virus from mister smith's computer".)
|
| > I've had some random Amazon items show up addressed to me,
| but I didn't order them, and I think that was part of a scam,
| but I never fully got my head around how it works.
|
| That one is a fun one. You generally aren't the one being
| scammed, someone else is. It's (probably) triangulation fraud.
| [1] [2] Though it could also just be a scammer checking to see
| if a stolen credit card will buy things.
|
| > I hear about various "work from home" jobs actually being
| scams, but what's going on there?
|
| Generally, these are MLMs. It's usually targeted at stay at
| home moms. It's usually "be your own boss". And usually the
| business model is you try to recruit people to sell the
| products you are ostensibly supposed to be selling. Basically a
| pyramid scheme but legal because there's a product in the mix
| (really dumb that it's legal).
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1119606931
|
| [2] https://chargebacks911.com/triangulation-fraud/
| snickerbockers wrote:
| >The chapter titled "The Con of the Matchmaker" describes how
| American con artists published their own newspapers, filled with
| ads for women looking for husbands. Anyone who answered such an
| ad would have their finances scrutinized and then wrested from
| them by a so-called marriage broker, with no actual wife at the
| end of the ordeal.
|
| Huh, i suppose some things never change.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| This wasn't for immigrants. This was for a subset of immigrants
| from rural areas. This manual could be equally applicable to a
| German farmer heading into Berlin for the first time. America had
| no corner on the scam market. Certainly Paris or London was home
| to scams over and above anything the US had to offer.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cour_des_miracles
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stock_Exchange_Fraud_of_...
| (People dressed up as French soldiers to convince everyone in
| London that Napoleon was dead.)
|
| And don't forget Scotland's history-altering national scam:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme
| bbarnett wrote:
| An endeavor with legitimate intent is _not a scam_ , not to
| mention how devastating that was to Scotland.
|
| But go ahead, make fun and light of a national disaster that
| saw people starve, die, and even an entire nation lose their
| independance.
| racl101 wrote:
| So..... it's not a scam manual?
|
| When you put things in single quotes they tend to negate the
| meaning.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-02-23 23:00 UTC)