I recently wrote about my experience buying an iPhone from Rogers. To summarize: when I called, I had only planned on trying to get the $35 activation fee waived. I was fairly confident I’d be able to accomplish this since I’d read online that it was fairly common for new clients to get this. To be honest I didn’t really care about the $35, but I would have felt like I didn’t negotiate hard enough if I didn’t try to get something. I’ve always been a poor negotiator so I wanted to try to improve on that skill.

When I called, the guy I talked to didn’t even let me try to negotiate – he just started giving me stuff; activation fee waived, first month free, upgrade data plan from 500mb to 1 gig. Of course I agreed thinking that I had done quite well. In a similar vein to my Swiss Chalet story, I thought that giving the first month free was a bit dumb, but I wasn’t complaining.

Unfortunately, it turns out that while I thought I had been talking to the ol’ Gil of Rogers, in fact I had actually been talking to the Lloyd Braun* of Rogers.

*In one Seinfeld episode, Lloyd Braun worked for a short time for George’s father, Frank Costanza, allegedly selling computers (although the phone line he was “using” to make sales wasn’t even connected). He was the superstar salesman that George couldn’t be.

Things were fine the first month – no charge on the visa and everything was great until I got charged $126 in the second month. I called up to see what the deal was and the girl I talked to said that it was for the monthly charges and the activation fee. I told her about what I had been promised and she said that my account had none of those things noted. She couldn’t do anything for me – couldn’t waive the activation fee and would only upgrade the data plan if I paid $5 per month. I told her that I was pretty annoyed that I had been promised all these things and none of them happened. She documented my claim and promised to escalate to a manager who would get back to me within 4-24 hours.

Still waiting for that call.

Young and Thrifty (an excellent new blog) recently wrote about her experiences with “negotiating” with Rogers. Her take on it was a lot more upbeat than mine, but it seems that the same modus operandi was used in her case – a deal was reached (with Lloyd Braun*), but later on it turns out that there were “no notes” with any details about the deal.

Maybe someone should tell the Rogers reps that the “notes” screen is actually the equivalent of the Springfield power plant pneumatic tube system.

Homer drags Marge away from her paperwork for lunch. He takes her
form, puts it into a canister, and sends it through the pneumatic
tube system.

Marge: But where does it go?

Homer: Don’t worry Marge, the tube will know what to do.

The canister takes a wild ride through the tube
system, eventually being deposited… outside, where a nearby beaver
collects it and adds it to a dam built entirely of message canisters.

I hadn’t really thought about it before, but when someone promises you something on the phone then you really have no way of making it happen. Now that I’m an existing customer, Rogers can treat me like shit like all their other customers so I can’t get anything done until my 3 year contract is up

FU Rogers! You won’t be getting my phone business next time around.

I did learn one thing from the call – apparently I had been given the upgraded data plan for a couple of months free. I didn’t even know that. Oh well – I think that time frame is almost over so I better get going with some downloads.  After 2 months, I have yet to download an app.

There have been a number of signs that have gone up in my area that promise “EARN CEO INCOME FROM HOME”.  On the face of it, this is clearly a scam.  The way to make CEO income is to become a CEO.  There is NO WAY anyone will sell you a program that easily let’s you earn a massive salary at home.  It’s a claim that’s inherently ludicrous.  Sadly, some people will believe and will call (and I’m not sure if there’s any way to protect them from themselves).

What really got me about this sign (I still chuckle every time I see it), is that these scammers aren’t even willing to sell to pretty stupid people (who would call with a few questions before handing over their credit card number).  Nope!  They want COMPLETELY IDIOTIC people who believe them based on nothing more than this sign and a phone number!  And if you don’t believe?  Don’t call (their life in the fast lane doesn’t allow them to explain their fabulous system or listen to people tell them off for being crooks).

Years ago, I was involved in “buy and sell” communities on newsgroups or BBSes.  Occasionally someone would advertise something that was very overpriced for what it was.  Often other members of the community would call them on this, which invariably was met with some (less polite) variation of “mind your own business”.

Part of what was surprising was that this would normally shut the critics up (and they would then let the scammer try his best to sucker people in peace).  As a society, we’ve allowed the same thing to happen when slander and libel laws are abused by people behaving badly.  This happened to Lazy Man at Lazy Man and Money when Monavie sued him.  The same thing happened to John T. Reed for criticizing Russ Whitney.  Sadly, with deep pocketed low-lifes, this is a standard approach to suppressing their critics (and really, should critics be expected to subject themselves to the ordeal of a lawsuit just to publish the truth?).

Heck, I even covered up the phone number of the picture in this post (since I didn’t want them coming back and accusing me of defamation).  And for the record, the only labels I’m applying to Monavie and Russ Whitney is to call them low-lifes (which is defensible as opinion).  Nothing else in this post applies to them.  At all.  In any way.  I’m not even sure why I included that paragraph in this post…

I think Ellen Roseman does a fabulous job as a consumer advocate, but I sometimes get the feeling that she’s holding her comments in check (and being careful how she criticizes companies).

I don’t offer any suggestions on the best way to strengthen the role of people sharing reputations about shady dealers in society.  As John Reed described his battle:  “No one was paying me to put on such a show. I was just defending my home and life savings.”  I think it’s vital information which is being provided by Messieurs Reed and Man and Ms. Roseman, and I don’t think it’s right that they have to put themselves in such a vulnerable position to do so.  It’s my belief that society (that’s us!) should go to greater lengths to protect them.

I’ve travelled in developing countries such as Thailand, and one of the interesting things is that they won’t protect you from yourself.  You might be climbing up a mountain and where in the West there’d be a massive fence to prevent anyone from falling over the edge, in a developing country there’s a single chain around the outside.  Perhaps the message is “if you’re dumb enough to fall off a mountain, we’re not going to kill ourselves trying to prevent it”.  Another example is the ability to come into close contact with wild animals.  At a Thai zoo they were letting visitors bottle feed a tiger cub (which was VERY cool, but I suspect even a baby tiger could do some damage if it got its claws or teeth into you).  They also have elephant shows that involve things such as having the elephant step on an audience member.  Having a 10,000 lbs animal standing on you isn’t very bright, but if the audience member is willing to volunteer, the people running the show are happy to let it happen.

We all have our bone-head moments, and it’s no good if it leads to serious injury or death.  I remember one time at a camp fire I decided it was a good idea to move one of the rocks around the fire, reached out to grab it and gave myself a good burn.  The people with me were sympathetic but (rightfully) told me it was a pretty dumb thing to do.  And you know that elephant thing?  Yup, I did that too (it put one of its feet right on my chest, knocked the wind out of me).

Beyond physical danger, there’s also numerous people looking to take advantage of consumers by selling shoddy products (or outright fraud).  All levels of government try to protect their citizens from this but, as with many government endevors, they do a painfully bad job of it.  I’m certainly not blaming the victims, but I sometimes suspect there’s an unintended consequence happening where such attempts end up leading to MORE harm to consumers.

Because people living in a western country are protected so much, they start counting on it.  Some people ask, after seeing a commercial for the “$49.99 Path to Instant Wealth!”, if it isn’t true, how can they be advertising it?  Wouldn’t the TV station or someone in government quickly shut them down???  Others may not be so upfront about their feelings, but in their heart-of-hearts they can’t believe a scam artist would be advertising in the Globe & Mail’s classifieds or on network television.

I’m planning at some point to do a post on the anatomy of an infomercial, but basically there’s a group of people who’ve made an art of quickly gearing up some bogus product, advertising the heck out of it, then shutting down the company and draining all the cash as the regulators come knocking.  They re-brand themselves, and start pitching something similar, rinse and repeat.  The laws to prevent this type of thing (and people enforcing them) just can’t keep up.

As an aside, you sometime get a similar justification on the other end FROM the scam artist.  Apparently a number of people involved in running “Nigerian advance fee scam” truly believe that Western government reimburse citizens for money they’ve lost to the scam artists.  This is how they morally justify what they’re doing (“they’ll get all the money back from their government, so it’s ok if I steal from them”).

Once people become more trusting, because they’re used to this protection, it becomes easier for them to harm themselves, which leads to greater protection, and people making worse choices in a vicious spiral (every time you make it idiot proof, they invent a better idiot).

“Well Mr. Cheap,” you may ask, “do you want us to go back to a wild-wild west marketplace where scammers operate with impunity and there’s little protection for consumers?”  Yes, I suspect in many ways this would be better (or at least should be taken into account when considering expanding consumer protection).  We’d all get burned early and often, and learn that you have to factor the merchant’s trustworthiness into any transaction.  People such as Ellen Roseman would become even more important, as they’d propagate information about who is behaving well and who is behaving badly.  I think the door-to-door energy marketers are scum, but I also think they’ve made Ontario consumers far more cautious about doing business with strangers who come knocking at the door (which is good).  The obvious counter-argument would be that the barriers to commerce of having to evaluate the trustworthiness of everyone we want to do business with (and the varying ability of each of us to do so), would lose us more than any gains that would be made by encouraging more cautious consumers.  I don’t believe this, but I don’t have anything but a gut feeling for doubting it (and would be delighted if someone could provide compelling evidence that this is the case).

This post is part of our scam category. With scams the best defense is often to discuss them and let people who haven’t run into them know how they work. Unfortunately, talking about scams can seem like a “how to” for scam artists, which IS NOT my intention here. I always love reading about scams and cons, in part to protect myself, and in part out of amazement at how devious people can be when they’re trying to part us from our cash.

During tough economic times, you might hope that scammers would lay low.  Since people are having hard times, they might have a more suspicious attitude (and scammers would do something worthwhile with their time).  Sadly, the scam artists are hurting just like the rest of us and hustling to take advantage of the desperation of others.

Advance Fee Fraud

One scam that is popular during tough times is the advance fee fraud (which we’ve touched on before).  After trying to get a loan, maybe you have the “good fortune” to run into someone who has the inside track on getting all the cash you might need (and at a very attractive interest rate no less).  The details can be whatever convoluted story the scammer dreams up, but the end result is that the loan is yours if you just pay a small “application fee” or “service charge”.  This small fee is all the scammer is after, and once he’s got it, he’s gone (along with the imaginary  loan).

The famous Nigerian Bank Scam is a variant on this. Instead of a loan, a portion of a fortune is yours for the taking, just say that you’ll accept!  Without fail, a string of “roadblocks” will crop up, each requiring you to send a “relatively minor” sum of money.  They will string you along as far as possible, bleeding you dry (and trying to get you to embezzle money “temporarily” from any other sources of funds you have access to).

It’s definitely not something you want to try at home, but Silicon.com and 419 Eater have hilarious records of exchanges where they respond to Nigerian scammers and mess with them (the ULTIMATE is when they convince the scammer to send embarrassing pictures, or to send the “victim” money first, an advance fee for the advance fee if you will).

I loved a blogger’s reaction piece (unfortunately I’ve lost the link) when a scammer called him up offering him free grant money from the government.  He just had to pay them a $50 processing fee.  He tried the obvious and said, “Ok, take the $50 out of my free money” and the woman said they couldn’t do that.  He said he wasn’t interested then, and she kept pestering him why he “didn’t want free money?”  He had to tell her forcefully that it’s not free money if he has to pay for it.  There are a large number of posts detailing that there is no free money for the taking (not even stimulus money) and the books and CDs promising to tell you how to quickly and easily get it are scams.

Employment Scams

Also related to advance fee fraud, an employment scam preys on someone’s desperation to find work.  The service posts in a variety of places (newspaper classifieds, on-line job boards, etc) that they’ll help you find a job, guaranteed or your money back!!!  You go for a meeting, and the “recruiter” spends his time chatting you up and convincing you to write him a big check for the services he’s about to provide.  You’ll be told that there’s no effort on your part, just pay the money, they’ll do all the work, and you’ll have a high paying new career in the near future.  Nothing happens (of course), and they keep stalling you.  Eventually you get angry and their tune changes (NOW they say all that they offered was resume advice and career coaching, and it’s far too late to take advantage of their money back guarantee).

I actually encountered this years ago.  I was job hunting, came across a job that looked like a fit and had an appointment scheduled.  The day of the interview, I was reading up on the company ahead of time, and almost immediate found a string of complaints that had been posted that they don’t actually offer jobs, just try to talk you into paying them money for worthless services.  I called to cancel the interview, and when the woman asked why, I told her I’d done a Google search on their company and after reading about them I didn’t want to have anything to do with them.  She started saying that I couldn’t believe everything I read on the Internet, at which point I politely got off the phone with her.

A host of similar scams prey on job hunter anxiety, like resume services.  They offer a free “proof reading” of your resume, which will result in their identifying “major problems”, and selling you a brand new resume (that they’ve just plugged your information into their standard template, something that will be obvious to the hiring manager or HR department).

At the end of the day, as rough as it is job hunting, you have to do the legwork yourself.  There’s no “hidden job market” you can buy your way into.  While it’s certainly worth getting help with your resume, talking to friends who are good writers, reading resume advice online, going to an Ontario Employment Center, or going to a university’s career services (often they’re happy to help non-students) would be far more effective (in addition to being free).

Have you encountered any scams recently trying to take advantage of people’s desperation in the current economy?

The Canadian Capitalist recently highlighted two terrific Vanity Fair articles about Bernie Madoff.  For those who weren’t watching CNN or reading papers in December 2008, Mr. Madoff operated an “asset management business” (hedge fund) that was actually the largest ponzi scheme of all time. He took massive amounts of money from rich people, famous people (like Steven Spielberg), and numerous charitable foundations.  Apparently people were desperate to invest in his fund.

The two articles, which details who Bernard Madoff is, as a man, from the perspective of his victims and his employees are great reads (normally the only part of Vanity Fair I’m interested in is the photographs of naked celebrities on the cover).  What surprised me most about him was that, according to these articles, he basically had no personality at all.  To his investors he was smiling, benevolent “uncle Bernie” and to his employees and family he was a bully.  He would be around clubs and organizations where rich people would beg him to take their money, but beyond living “the good life” the guy seems to be more of a shell than anything.  He wasn’t flirtati0us, didn’t take much interest in recreational pursuits (other than apparently cheating at golf according to Donald Trump), wasn’t a big drinker and wasn’t passionate about religion, politics or other topics of interest.  He basically existed to be a blank slate to keep money coming in, and hide what he was doing from regulators.

When this story first broke, I was visiting my parents and we were glued to the TV as more information kept coming out about it.  These articles paint a sadder story of people who have gone from being “ladies who lunch” to having to work (or move in with children) in their golden years.

Some are painting Madoff as a devil who set out to defraud his family, friends and community.  I don’t have anything to base this on, but my feeling is that the whole situation probably evolved gradually.  He might have been running investments profitably at one point (in the 80’s or 90’s is the speculation), got used to being viewed as a “market genius”, took a risk that didn’t pay off, then instead of being upfront, he hid the loss.  Perhaps he was hoping to get back “in the black” then move forward again, or maybe he just couldn’t take the blow to his ego that he’d messed up.  At a certain point he must have thought “I’m never going to be back in the black, but I’m not a young guy, maybe I can keep this under wraps until I die then leave it for other people to unravel”.  One Warren Buffett quote I like is “You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.“  The recent market drop was the tide that went out and showed that Bernie had been swimming naked.

Some people have compared Madoff to Hitler (many of his investors were rich Jewish families) which is insulting.  Comparing someone who defrauded a bunch of wealthy people to a man who attempted the systematic genocide of a race of people is offensive.  Godwin’s Law certainly applies.

There has been a number of racist perspectives on the whole deal as well.  Some anti-semites have apparently been happy that the whole situation occurred:  both for discrediting Madoff, who is Jewish, and his victims (many of whom are Jews as well and often very committed to philanthropy).  This is a blatantly ugly attitude, however some Jews have also made very racist statements claiming that “it’s especially bad that Madoff did this ‘to his own people’”.  Come on!  There are good people and bad people of all races, genders and religions.  Thinking that someone is going to be a good person because they’re Jewish, or not take advantage of the Jewish community because they’re a Jew is ridiculous and naive.  Madoff is a man who behaved badly.  His ethnic / religious identity has nothing to do with that.

Beyond being more sympathetic to Madoff than most (although I don’t think he’s Hitler or the devil, I do think life imprisonment is probably reasonable), I’m also less sympathetic to his victims than most.  Given, any time you’re robbed it’s bad.  And, it bothers me when people think it’s ok for bad things to happen to rich people because their rich.    A number of investors with Madoff lost EVERYTHING (they gave it all to him and were living off of the returns) and went from being rich to being poor.  Even if these are people who don’t have a lot of experience managing their money, it was pretty stupid of them to put 100% of their money into one investment (no matter how good they thought it was).  People did the same thing with Nortel and with income trusts.  They’re happy to cash the checks in the good times, but start howling when their luck turns.  Grow up!  If you’re retired and don’t have enough investments with ultra-safe, conservative investments (like fixed income) to get you by at a minimum standard of living, then you’re gambling with your future (and shouldn’t get much sympathy if your luck turns).  Madoff was giving consistent returns of 10-12%, which tells anyone with a brain that there’s significant risk there.

That being said, it’s remarkably easy (although crass) to tell people who have lost on investments that they were greedy.  However, Madoff investors who lost it all were being greedy (there, I said it).

What has been your feeling about the whole Madoff situation?  Do you think spending the rest of his life in prision is a reasonable punishment?  Do you believe that he was acting alone?  Should investors be required to return money they withdrew from Madoff before the news broke?

It’s been a while since we did a scam post.  Fake reputation scams happen on-line and off-line and can be one of the toughest frauds to detect or avoid.

On E*Bay it’s well known that malicious users will build up a reputation by selling small, inexpensive items (paperback books are popular) or by running an honest-to-goodness real E*Bay store.  They will follow through with the transactions and get a large amount of positive feedback.  Then they make a number of fraudulent auctions / sales and not fullfill any of them.

One of the worst (or best depending on your perspective) parts of electronic commerce is you can usually abandon an identity.  This allows the scammers to then start doing the exact same thing again under another name.

Off-line a friend of one of my relatives got burned by the real-life version of this.  He ran a computer business, and started doing business with a man for the first time.  They did a sequence of transactions, each larger than the last.  Each time there would be something unusual about the transaction, but it would work out, and he would get paid.

It turned out the con man was feeling him out, determining what he could get away with, and the maximum order size the friend could handle.  Eventually it was time to pull the trigger and the con-man managed to make off with dozens of computers without paying for them.  It destroyed the computer store owner, who abandoned his business (and his marriage) and basically had a nervous breakdown where he wandered the continent sleeping in the back of his SUV.  He was talking at one point about trying to hire a hit man, which luckily friends talked him out of.

Since these sorts of scams work by gaining our trust, there’s no sure-fire way to prevent it other than to be suspicious of everyone (which would cause its own problems).  When the friend who got conned was relating the experience to me, he remembered clearly that with each deal it seemed a bit funny.  It can be a hard thing to say “no” to someone, or to admit that we don’t understand a deal that’s being proposed.  Some people will prey on this reaction to try and take advantage.

When I was trying to rent my condo, a man showed up who was interested in a rent-to-own and we talked about that extensively (he was going to do a sandwich lease where he rents-to-own from me, then rents to his own tenant).  Discussing the details, he was very accommodating (and tried to buy me dinner).  Later, he tried to change elements of the deal that he had previously agreed on.  When I pointed out that what he was saying was different than what he’d previously agreed to, his response was “I have to admit I love the way you think , very detailed too detailed at times , just kidding” (notice that in the same sentence he’s complimenting me, then telling me that I’m “too detailed”).  He told me about 5 times that he didn’t think we should involve lawyers in the transaction (and I told him 5 times that I’d be involving a lawyer in the transaction and encouraged him to do the same).  Throughout our interactions, he also told me repeatedly how much he liked me (while it’s true that I *AM* a very likable guy, it’s just creepy to say it out loud).  I kept asking him questions and he eventually told me it was “none of my business” (when I’d asked him who he was planning to rent to).  This was enough red flags for me at that point that I just killed the deal and kept looking for a normal tenant.  I could be wrong and maybe everything would have worked on with the rent-to-own guy, but I hasn’t regretted for 1 second walking away from it.

Years ago when I went backpacking across Europe an aunt told me to trust my feelings and if I was getting a bad vibe about a person or situation to just leave.  I’ve found it was good advice when traveling, and is probably good advice for business and life as well.  There are times when you’ll be nervous about a deal, just because it’s larger or different than you’re used to.  But if you’re honestly getting a bad vibe about doing business with someone, make sure the safe-guards are in place that they won’t be able to “take the money and run” (and don’t be afraid to just not do business with them if they fight you when you try to put those safe-guards in place).

Have you ever had someone gain your trust, then steal from or defraud you?

There are a number of behaviours which are universally despised, yet often creep up as a scummy way to get a good deal out of someone.  When an offer is made and accepted, to then take back your offer and try to get a better deal is a very low move.  If you’re haggling in a developing country and you make an offer which is accepted by a merchant, try withdrawing it and offering a lower amount.  You’ll see someone go, rightfully, from cheerful and happy to near violently angry.

This creeps up as a scam when people negotiate with you and while you’re negotiating in good faith (and assume they’re doing the same), they are in reality (and without your knowledge) only the first line of negotiation.  Once you’ve reached an agreement with them, they’ll then say they need to get someone’s final permission for the deal.  This permission will be withheld, then negotiation will reopen and the new person will try to get an even better deal out of you.

This often happens with car dealerships, where you think the salesman has the power to negotiate, but all of a sudden at the end the sales manager won’t go for it and the deal you thought had been accepted disappears and you have to pay more.  A similar situation happened to a friend of mine recently where she’d negotiated a trade-in value and told the dealership that she didn’t want them saying the trade-in was in “worse shape then they expected” and try to reopen the negotiation.  She invited them to inspect the car before it was brought in, or stand by the valuation they offered.  Of course, they tried to do exactly this (expecting once she’d had her car towed in she’d take the lower offer) and, good for her, she walked.

A car BUYER could do this in reverse by one spouse going in and pretending they were going to buy the car, get to the final stage of making the purchase, and then say they needed to get the final ok from their husband / wife.  Of course, the spouse would refuse, then show up and use the previously agreed purchase price as the starting point for the new negotiation.  I would recommend AGAINST doing this for three reasons.  1)  It’s a really scummy thing when people do this to you, and it’s just as scummy if you do it to then.  2)  The dealership is going to recognize this trick and not fall for it (they’re happy to play games with you all day – you’ll probably get frustrated and give in before they do).  3) There are ethical ways that you can get a fair deal from a car dealership which are far more likely to work.

Another friend used this as his favourite trick when negotiating real estate deals.  He’d hash out a deal, haggle away and pretend he was ready to do it.  Once an agreement was reached, he’d suddenly reveal something that stopped the deal in its tracks (which he’d known about all along and avoided mentioning in the negotiation), then he’d use this to reopened negotiating, trying to get a better deal than previously agreed to (with him having the new information that he knew a price they WOULD agree to).  With some people he was able to get away with this repeatedly (improving the deal each time).  I was somewhat impressed at the deals he negotiated, but was unimpressed with his tactics (and unwilling to do this personally).  He even tried it with me and it almost killed our deal (and unfortunately would have involved lawyers if he hadn’t honoured what we’d agreed to).

If you’re negotiating with someone, and you reach an agreement, DO NOT accept it if they try to reopen the negotiation by adding someone new to the conversation or by bringing up some previously undiscussed issue and trying to reopen the negotiation as a whole.  In some circumstances, such as if a buyer discovered damage to a property they had agreed to buy, you should negotiate about the new issue (the damage in this case and who should pay to get it repaired), but don’t let them use it to reopen the deal as a whole.

If the deal is very important to you, keep reiterating to them that you’ve made an agreement and an offer has been accepted.  If the deal isn’t very important to you (or you have another option for a comparable deal), refuse to do business with someone who tries to pull this on you.

I’ve written before on my opinion of experts.  I definitely think there are times when we need to seek out someone who knows more than us about a subject, but that certain professions cultivate this to a degree that’s detrimental to their clients.  Beyond this, there are people who go even further and try to set themselves up as the guru on the mountain.

Gurus are particularly attracted to real estate, but you come across them in a number of areas.  As well as writing up reviews of particular gurus, John T. Reed also provides general bullshit warning signs (most of which are applicable to gurus in any area).

I come across the occasional blog or website where the author is clearly trying to lay the groundwork to set themselves up as a guru.  Sometime they provide tidbits of worthwhile information, but there seem to be a few glaring warning signs that I think should warn people off.

One of Reed’s points that has shown up in the early information in scams I’ve looked into is #44: Saying they only do it for the love of teaching and sharing their secrets.  It’s amazing to me that people will describe how passionate they are about teaching others then charge a ridiculous premium for what they’re selling.  Books, called courses, will sell for hundreds of dollars.  Courses, called boot camps, will sell for thousands.  Expensive monthly memberships provide a wonderful “passive income” FOR THE GURU.

If someone’s actions are so contradictory to their claims, it’s time to move carefully towards the door.  Why would you trust the information being provided by someone is proving themselves to be dishonest with you from the start?

I was reminded recently of #1: Emphasis on luxurious lifestyle when I was on a woman’s site where she was selling her guru services.  Her site talked about how wonderful it was to be rolling in dough, and showed pictures from around the world of her and her kids and their luxurious vacations.  When I looked her up on Rip-Off Reports there was a litany of complaints about her (claiming she was charming and helpful until she got your check or credit card number).  Digging further she has a criminal record of repeatedly defrauding friends and family.

Anyone can say they’re a millionaire.  Anyone can post pictures of themselves next to fancy cars or in front of a mansion.  I’ve never signed up with any guru (I see enough warning signs that scare me off well before I give them any money), but I imagine it gets harder to as you get deeper in with them.  You have to realize you’ve made a mistake giving them cash, which makes it harder to see the ever more obvious warning signs.

While visiting the parental units for Thanksgiving, my dad told an intersting story about what happened to their van when he went to get an oil change.

There was a young man (my dad said he looked about 16) who was driving the vehicles into the bay for the oil change.  My dad thought he was acting kind of nervous when he took the keys.  After the oil change, my dad went to start the van and the key wouldn’t turn in the ignition.  After trying for a minute or two, he got out of the van and the young guy ran over and asked what the problem was.  After my dad said the key wasn’t turning in the ignition, the guy said “I’ve seen that before!”, ran off and got a can of WD-40, sprayed some in the ignition and it started.

My dad said he was doing everything but holding his hand out, clearly expecting some sort of reward for getting the car started.  My dad was suspicious about the whole situation (he hadn’t been having any problems with the ignition before this, found the guy’s behaviour quite odd, and was skeptical that the guy would have known EXACTLY what the problem was, and been able to fix it immediately).  Since then ignition has locked up again repeatedly, and each time it requires WD-40 to get it to turn (and start).

My dad’s theory is that the young guy sprayed something in the ignition to make it seize up (and WD-40 fixes the problem temporarily).  He figured the guy hits a few people each day, and tries to make a bit of money getting a “reward” when he gets their vehicle going again.

I’ve done a Google search and haven’t come across a scam like this.  For anyone who knows much about cars, do you think the guy did something to my dad’s van, or do you think he’s being needlessly suspicious (and maybe should have given the guy $20 for fixing the problem on the spot and saving him from having to call a tow truck)?

This post is part of our scam category. With scams the best defense is often to discuss them and let people who haven’t run into them know how they work. Unfortunately, talking about scams can seem like a “how to” for scam artists, which IS NOT my intention here. I always love reading about scams and cons, in part to protect myself, and in part out of amazement at how devious people can be when they’re trying to part us from our cash.

Growing up I was good friends with one of those “super smart” girls we all knew. She’d have her compositions read in English class and everyone would make a fuss over her. You know the type (actually, if you do know the type and they’re over 18 tell them Mr. Cheap is single!).

One day my parents showed me a picture of her in the local newspaper. She’d had a poem accepted and was published in a collection. The next time I was at her house I congratulated her. She mentioned that she had got two copies of the publication and one was on their mantelpiece. I asked her if they’d sent her the two copies as author’s copies and she admitted that no, she’d bought them. I congratulated her again and let it drop as I knew she’d just been the victim of a vanity scam.

The person putting out the publication puts out a call for submissions far and wide. Everyone who submitted was accepted, then he offers the publication for sale at a hefty mark-up over his printing costs. He then sold a couple copies to each of the authors (not to anyone else – if some authors didn’t buy who cares? Most did) and started soliciting submissions to his next edition. The “authors” would have been just as “published” if they’d headed down to the local print shop and self published (although that might have been less likely to get their picture in the local paper). More info about this type of scam is available here.

Vanity scams work on our pride in ourselves or our loved ones (usually a spouse or a child). Most of us are predisposed to think that we’re pretty darn wonderful, and when someone comes along agreeing with us its tough to ignore whatever they’re selling.

“Modelling agencies” will do something similar when they tell you how beautiful your daughter is and how they can get her modelling and TV work. Who doesn’t think their daughter is beautiful, so the parents buy it hook-line-and-sinker. Then comes the pitch that a $800 photo shoot is necessary for them to accept your princess as their client. The parents pay, poor quality photos are taken, and they never hear from the agency again. If asked the agency can just say they haven’t found anything yet.

An uncle of mine years ago had an idea for a business selling fake pot plants. People could buy it to try and look cool to their friends without risking trouble from the police (I’m not sure what you’d do if one of your cool friends wanted to actually smoke it). At one point he got invited in for a meeting with a bunch of guys dressed in suits who claimed to be venture capitalists and wanted to invest in his business. The catch was that they wanted a couple of thousand dollars to do “market research” on his idea. Needless to say, if he’d had this money to give them it would have been gone.

A few weeks after her purchase, the book disappeared from my friend’s mantelpiece. I didn’t bring up the subject, but I hoped that she had got some wisdom as a “gift with purchase” of her book.

Be VERY careful when someone tells you that you have a wonderful opportunity (because you’re so special) if you just can come up with a bit of cash. They may be selling you a dream and nothing else. If you really have so much raw talent, they should cover the costs of giving you author’s copies, taking pictures or market research.

“O that men’s ears should be To counsel deaf but not to flattery!” – W.S.