How have you been scammed?

[mikew]

My wife heard the radio advertisement last winter recruiting Mystery Shoppers. She called, gave them her CC info and agreed to the two-year contract at $149. This was in November. Since that time, we received 4 offers to shop a business. By the time I logged into their website, the job was listed as "not available" or expired.

I had completely forgotten about this program until this morning when I was cleaning up my favorites. I clicked on the link and their website was gone. Did some googling and found this:

http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/0623134/070316mysteryshopcmplt.pdf

Apparently, the FTC is onto them and a suit is pending.

Anybody else fall for this or any other advertised product?

BTW...She also had a run with InvenTech which cost $8k and yielded no result.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Call you credit card company and file a dispute.

 

[Claude Greiner]

You can't dispute something from last november!

 

[mdonnelly]

One's born every minute.

 

[SatelliteGAL]

I never paid for secret shop jobs. No matter what it is .. if it asks me for money I say no.
I belong to a couple of sites that never charged a cent.

 

[Van]

Sounds like two are born every minute.

As satelliteGAL states any potential job that asks you to pay for the privilage of having the job isnt a job worth having.

Credit repair is another scam to avoid, these companies charge you $249 to get help in repairing your credit.

 

[Van]

Oh I have a good one for you all.

Vending machines that take credit cards are a scam. I took the family to the Tanger outlette shops in Commerce GA the other day and purchased a bag of cookies from a vending machine with my cheque card for $1.25, later in the evening my wife checks the bank account online and theres a charge for the vending merchant for $5.00 with a charge of $3.75 to use the damn thing. Im checking with my bank to see if there is anything that I can do to dispute the charges as there was no charges listed on the machine so lesson learned.

 

[AllieVi]

What about debit card transaction fees? Has anyone paid them?

 

[SatelliteGAL]

What about debit card transaction fees? Has anyone paid them?

More times than I'd care to admit. When I decide I need cash and I'm at the mall it's the worst. I end up paying like a $2.75 fee.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

You can't dispute something from last november!

Sure you can.

I had purchased a computer part and it had a 5 year warranty on it from the maker (who is also who I purchased it from) one day it does with 3 years left on the warranty.

I contacted the company who made it and sold it to me and they said .. Sorry we don't stock those anymor so we can't replace it.

I called my credit card company faxed a copy of their 5 year warranty and had the money back the next day.

 

[mikew]

My CC company says they'll investigate but I have to send an explanation letter. Not hopeful, but I suppose it's worth the $.41 stamp.

My wife works hard for her money and I figure if she wants to give something a shot, she has the right to try. I wasn't too keen on either idea. Now that she's been taken a couple of times, she'll be much more hesitant to believe the ads on the radio.

 

[SatelliteGAL]

By the way, if your wife still wants to try the mysteryshop route I can send you a web addy. They do not charge a fee. Depending on where you live there are some good shops and some not so good. Sometimes you just end up with a free meal and sometimes they need someone badly and pay extra.

 

[srs913]

DTA - Don't Trust Anybody, i'm sorry but your wife giving out her CC number was the dumbest thing ever. If something in this world seems to good to be true, it is. Stand back and be as careful as can be while addressing the situation. It takes a lot for me to believe making easy money is as easy as it sounds. Heres a good example, you see all these get wealthy info commercials on tv. If any of these so called plans really got you the 5000 grand a week like it promises, you really think the operators taking your call at minimum wage would be doing what they are doing and not taking advantage of the wealth that these tv ads they are taking calls for has to offer.

 

[tonyp56]

I learned a long time ago, if it sounds too good to be true and it requires $, CC #, etc. I don't buy it, send it, or sign up for it. My ex-wife one time was on the internet and she put our phone # in on a website, a month later, had a charge for Voice mail on our home phone, I was like wtf. Called phone company, and they said they had lots of customers that this happened to, and all of them was from entering phone #'s online.

I won't give my CC #, my phone #, my address, my full name, etc. unless I am actually buying something. And only then when I know the retailer I am buying from.

 

[TheForce]

How have I been scammed-
Biggest scams that get me are software companies who sell products that just don't work as claimed. This year it was the biggest scam of all which was a MacBook Pro and Final Cut Studio. I gave it all benefits of the doubt, but every time they said it would do something I asked for, I bought, only to discover it didn't and then to hear their excuses.
I get scammed on the little software packs, like pay for shareware but I don't mind so much as the money is usually small, but when a huge company like Apple feeds me a pack of lies and I trust them it really irks me. So after 7 months of exposing their lies about their product, and listening to their excuses why it can't do what they claimed it could do before I bought, I'm done and won't buy anything more made by Apple unless I have no expectations on it at all. I know this will offend lots of Mac heads out there but you like those around here who have been through these claims would come to the same conclusion I have. Certain parts of their products just don't work as claimed.

Scott- What was referred to as a limit on time for filing a dispute has to do with Federal law. However, many credit cards today offer additional protection. I have two here I use for purchases. Sometimes you have to buy this protection, other times it comes with the card. Read your disclosure statement.

My biggest pet peeve is the Visa Check cards. Those do not have any legal protection protected by Federal law like CC's do. However. many major banks today are offering, in wriring, protection just like the CC's. They had to do something since there were too many people like me who made a big stink about the lack of protection with Check cards. Wachovia has a pretty good plan on their Check cards. However, I still do not have one. I prefer to manage my money with CC free float.

 

[Bogy]

My biggest pet peeve is the Visa Check cards. Those do not have any legal protection protected by Federal law like CC's do. However. many major banks today are offering, in wriring, protection just like the CC's. They had to do something since there were too many people like me who made a big stink about the lack of protection with Check cards. Wachovia has a pretty good plan on their Check cards. However, I still do not have one. I prefer to manage my money with CC free float.

It is not true that Debit/Check Cards have no protection under federal law. Its just a little different. In fact, one of the biggest scams out there are the plans that are sold by those who issue these cards to "protect you". They tell people they will be liable if their card is lost or stolen. They are charging people for protection that is already granted them by law.
From the Federal Trade Commission Website:

ATM or Debit Card Loss or Fraudulent Transfers (EFTA). Your liability under federal law for unauthorized use of your ATM or debit card depends on how quickly you report the loss. If you report an ATM or debit card missing before it's used without your permission, the EFTA says the card issuer cannot hold you responsible for any unauthorized transfers. If unauthorized use occurs before you report it, your liability under federal law depends on how quickly you report the loss.
For example, if you report the loss within two business days after you realize your card is missing, you will not be responsible for more than $50 for unauthorized use. However, if you don't report the loss within two business days after you discover the loss, you could lose up to $500 because of an unauthorized transfer. You also risk unlimited loss if you fail to report an unauthorized transfer within 60 days after your bank statement containing unauthorized use is mailed to you. That means you could lose all the money in your bank account and the unused portion of your line of credit established for overdrafts. However, for unauthorized transfers involving only your debit card number (not the loss of the card), you are liable only for transfers that occur after 60 days following the mailing of your bank statement containing the unauthorized use and before you report the loss.
If unauthorized transfers show up on your bank statement, report them to the card issuer as quickly as possible. Once you've reported the loss of your ATM or debit card, you cannot be held liable for additional unauthorized transfers that occur after that time.

Credit, ATM and Debit Cards: What to do if They're Lost or Stolen

 

[mastermesh]

As satelliteGAL states any potential job that asks you to pay for the privilage of having the job isnt a job worth having.

Wish I could tell that to my employer... The University charges us 15.00 a month just to park at work... and next year that price is raising 3.00 a month....

 

[AllieVi]

It is not true that Debit/Check Cards have no protection under federal law. Its just a little different. …

While there are some protections for debit cards, credit cards are still far more protected.

Debit cards are wonderful instruments for the issuers, saving them lots of accounting costs. I don’t see why prudent adult consumers who can control themselves would be interested, though. When my bank issued a new ATM card with the debit feature, I asked for a replacement without debit. The people at the bank seemed dismayed that I wouldn’t want it. Credit cards make a lot more sense to me and I only paid interest once in my life when the bill didn’t arrive.

One valid debit card use would be to provide a child limited ability to spend money and teach discipline. The parent funds the account and the child can freely spend until the funds are gone, but no more.

 

[FatBastard]

I once got scammed for about $500 worth of product. A customer wanted to place an order, but wanted it shipped overnight. They paid using paypal, and the name and other information seemed to match, but a few hours after they "received" the product I got a notice from paypal saying they reversed the charge because it was "fraudulent". They claimed the paypal account owner didn't authorize the charge, even though I showed that the name on the account is the same name that I shipped the product to. It turns out the address it was shipped to was a FedEx office, not a regular residential address, and apparently the person just picked the item up there. I assumed they'd have to show ID proving they were the person whose name was on the package, but still Paypal didn't seem to care, and they robbed me of $500.

It's a real shame too, because it ruined it for all those honest customers out there. I refuse to do any overnight shipping, and I refuse to ship to anything but a CONFIRMED address. For a short time I even made customers wait a few days before I would ship product, so that it would give people time to notice any fraudulent charges on their accounts BEFORE I lose anything. You know that saying "One bad apple spoils the bunch" is totally true!

SatelliteGAL, I might be interested in a link to the shopping site/s you mentioned, if you don't mind sharing the information. I had considered doing that a while back, but I was always worried that most of them would be scams like MikeW reported (charge you to sign up, and then never give you any assignments or anything that would recoup any of that money). Thanks.

 

[LER]

Visa has a zero liability policy for both credit and debit cards

Visa USA | Personal | Zero Liability