20 June 2013

It's National Consumer Fraud Week! Don't get scammed!

| Barcham
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Simon Corbell is worried about you Rioters, he wan’t you not to be scammed.

He offers some advice to avoid online scams.

The theme of this year’s awareness week is Outsmart the Scammers, which is aimed at people who buy or sell goods online.

“If consumers arm themselves with the right knowledge, they can identify scams before they are ripped off,” Mr Corbell said.

“The single most important rule to keep in mind when dealing with any suspected scam is if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

Common traits associated with many online shopping scams are:

— the product may be advertised at an unusually low price compared to other advertised prices

— sellers or buyers may have a very poor rating on an auction site

— the other party wants to complete the sale outside of the official website to void any protection offered by the site

— the other party insists on immediate payment or payment via an electronic funds transfer or wire service rather than credit card or PayPal

— the online shopping site does not provide adequate information about privacy, terms and conditions, refund policies, and conditions of use.

I bet none of you could have worked those out for yourselves.

Here’s another pro-tip, that guy emailing you is probably not a Nigerian Prince.

Just saying.

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Madam Cholet said :

This title to me sounds like it’s the week where you are encouraged to de-fraud a consumer. Can’t they come up with something that is a better descriptor – Consumer Fraud Awarenes Week would be marginally better. The current one makes it sound like a fraud free for all with no recriminations.

You’re expecting a lot from a mob who doesn’t know when to use Attorneys General.

Madam Cholet8:50 am 21 Jun 13

This title to me sounds like it’s the week where you are encouraged to de-fraud a consumer. Can’t they come up with something that is a better descriptor – Consumer Fraud Awarenes Week would be marginally better. The current one makes it sound like a fraud free for all with no recriminations.

If anyone’s been scamming the electorate it’s Corbell!

Barcham said :

devils_advocate said :

Barcham said :

Ahem he WANT’s you not to be scammed…

Still no good, champ.

Ahahahaha I’m going back to bed. We’ll try this all again tomorrow.

I saw that too, but I didn’t want to kick you while you were down, so to speak :p I’m sure you’ll have it together after a nice sleep.

devils_advocate said :

Barcham said :

Ahem he WANT’s you not to be scammed…

Still no good, champ.

Ahahahaha I’m going back to bed. We’ll try this all again tomorrow.

devils_advocate4:39 pm 20 Jun 13

Barcham said :

Ahem he WANT’s you not to be scammed…

Still no good, champ.

I’m sure Simon wouldn’t approve but there’s hours of scambaiting fun to be had here:

http://www.419eater.com/

My personal favourite is the “Tale of the Painted Breast” under the Letters Archive.

FarrerGirl said :

We recently had our car for sale on gumtree. We got a grand total of four enquires – all text messages and all from people on oil rigs that could not personally view the car

Same – just took mine off (luckily it sold!) after being on there for a week. Within the first two days it was scammer after scammer messaging me. They gave up by the third day. It’s easy to see though how older people could fall for it. But then I felt bad the way I doubted some genuine people because I initially thought they were a scammer.

We recently had our car for sale on gumtree. We got a grand total of four enquires – all text messages and all from people on oil rigs that could not personally view the car – they would need to do the transaction via direct bank deposits blah blah blah…Classic scam. It was such a timewaster – I sometimes yearn for the good old days when selling a car involved the classifieds and a telephone. There must be 1000’s of these scammers trawling the internet to find gullible punters!

p1 said :

DrKoresh said :

he wan’t you not to be scammed.

Another sign of online scams, is grammar/spelling/language which does not what you would expect based on how the person represents themselves.

Dan’t click on the ‘worried about you’ hyperlink. We’re onto you, Hamcrab.

DrKoresh said :

he wan’t you not to be scammed.

Another sign of online scams, is grammar/spelling/language which does not what you would expect based on how the person represents themselves.

DrKoresh said :

he wan’t you not to be scammed.

Have a few too many at the poetry slam last night, did we Barchy? 😀

Ahem he WANT’s you not to be scammed…

And maybe. 🙂

he wan’t you not to be scammed.

Have a few too many at the poetry slam last night, did we Barchy? 😀

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