Prepping means getting ready for some kind of disaster, whether it be a natural disaster such as a hurricane or earthquake or a man-made one like a market collapse or nuclear war. Some of these events are more likely to happen than others; however, predicting when and where are next to impossible.
One thing is certain though, if you send the $1000 in legal fees to that nice Nigerian guy that wants to make sure you receive the big inheritance from the uncle you didn’t know you had, you can kiss that hard earned cash goodbye.
Preparing for anything also means making sure you have a spare tire, good insurance, a fire escape plan, and not getting scammed on the internet, but it happens to people out there every single day. There are the love scams where some poor guy or gal thinks they’ve got the love of their life on the other side of the keyboard and eventually start sending them money to help them out of a tight spot.
Guys, sometimes that’s a man on the other side of the keyboard. Icky eh?
Or email scams. My mother sent me an email a few months ago that said something like, “Help! I went to Europe and I got robbed and now I don’t have any money. Please please send me $xxxxx so I can get home.” I picked up the phone and called her at home. She was shocked when she found out someone had hacked her email address and was soliciting her friends for money, but you know what? One of her friends actually wrote back and asked how much she needed and to where should she send it? Big heart, but a dim bulb. If you know my parents you will understand they are as likely to go to Europe as I am to sprout wings and fly to the moon unassisted.
Not too long ago an acquaintance decided he wanted to be on the game show Deal or No Deal. Here’s a deadly combination for you: serious country bumpkin with almost no computer skills, a deep and very real love for a game show I hope to never ever see in my whole life, and his mother’s credit card (he’s 40 and still lives at home.) He gets on the ‘net and finds a site dedicated to helping people get on the show. I knew something was up when he asked if I could send a picture of him in his best wife beater standing next to his 4 x 4 to the game show because they needed to see a picture of him. Bemused, I helped him out and then forgot about it. Well, a couple of days later his phone started ringing off the hook. They absolutely had to have him on the show. He just needed to send $352.54 (or some such bizarre amount) so that they could take some special photos of him or something to that effect. At that point I knew something was definitely up (trust me – you’d understand if you could see him), so I got online and started searching. Within two minutes I called him back and told him not to give anybody a credit card number as it was a scam. Needless to say he was disappointed, but he didn’t lose any money that time.
And then there was the woman at work who approached me one day and asked if there was any way for her daughter to get her $5000 necklace back. Apparently she sent it to someone in Yugoslavia or the Ukraine and was quite upset when they never sent the promised money. Imagine that. Apparently the FBI said they’d look into it, but they told her not to hold out too much hope on ever seeing it again. Seems that particular scam is real popular.
Why Do Scams Work?
Scammers play on our desires and needs. If you’re a love sick guy waiting for Ms. Right to come along you could be an easy target. The desire for love is so strong that people will ignore warning signs and let their heart make decisions it shouldn’t be making. And usually the scammers are very good at what they do.
Whatever your weakness, whatever it is you want, there is a potential scammer waiting in the background looking for a way to bilk you out of your money.
Check out this site for ways they look to cheat you.
Tips for Not Getting Scammed
The above examples are the tiniest tip of the scammer’s iceberg out there. Here are a couple of tips for not getting ripped off by clever scammers.
1. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. A gorgeous girl is dying to hook up with you over the internet and you’re just an average looking guy and she suddenly starts asking for money? Scam. Get real pal, that supermodel is just after what little cash you have left after inflation and the economy is done with you. (Although it might be easier and cheaper than a divorce when I think about it.)
2. Always be on the alert for something that sounds fishy. If that foreign guy from Craigslist trusts you enough to send a cashiers check in an amount large enough to cover the car you’re selling, plus shipping to Europe (or wherever) and a little left over for you for your troubles…. scam. People have deposited the check and then sent their sale item overseas only to discover two weeks later that the check bounced. Imagine that!
3. Research anything that sounds fishy or sets off alarm bells. Google is a fantastic tool for finding these kinds of scams. Take an extra ten minutes and do a quick search and it could save you thousands of dollars and a ton of heartache.
4. Poor written skills. If the guy or gal writing you seems like they have terrible writing skills, like maybe English is a second language, it probably is. Don’t fall for it!
Remember that there are literally thousands of scammers out there wanting to get their greedy paws on your hard earned money. Don’t let them have it!
Here are a couple of sites to browse through:
Have you or someone you know been scammed? Tell me about it in the comments below.
-Jarhead Survivor
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Aye ladd’s and lasses, they are out there, I have a bit of a beef with a book review tho it wasn’t any sort of scam. Just finished the latest Joe Nobody book, book three of his that I know of dealing with WROL, disappointing, a twenty five dollar book with twenty cents worth of useful info, but that is a personal opinion, someone else may recieve fifty bucks worth of info out of it, just my thought.
Never read the book, but I can say that a lot of the literature out there is like that… $25 pricetag for about $2.50 of info.
OTOH, I do trust the book reviews on this site, mostly because they take the time to explain the guts, and to give an honest opinion.
As for the topic? It was very much in my mind, as I’ve found my BOL rental place via craigslist. I did a TON of diligence, however. I met the owner in person, we checked each other’s driver’s licenses, then I did a cross-reference of his name with the county records to insure that he did indeed own the property. Only then did I cut the check for the deposit.
I just got moved in Saturday. I spent most of last night opening preps (in boxes marked “Christmas Ornaments”, “library books”, “pantry”, etc. )
Cheers!
This isn’t internet but is fresh on my mind. This just happened to family friends. The Grandmother received a phone call from an upset-sounding person who said,”Grandma, I’ve been in an accident”, She said, “John, is that you?” So of course it became John. He needed money wired to him right away. She does it. So grandma calls the real John a day or two later and asks how he is doing. “Grandma, what are you talking about?”
I admit I use to be a scambaiter and user of 419eater :-D
My best one was I got contacted by USA scammers working with a Nigeria scammer. I had them send the overnight money order to a fictious name at my local police station using their street address. After a few weeks of messing around I had them come get my furniture with a truck … at the local police department. I used an alias that any police officer would have laughted his behind off at, but, would escape the notice of the dimwitted.
Fun times.
This stuff is very real and it can happen to your family. A little while ago we got a panicked phone call from our son telling us he was totally OK. Apparently someone at the large urban hospital where he works hacked his email and sent out a message too all his contacts that he was sending a last message and was going away to kill himself. Supposedly some kind of joke but it created a lot of upset scared feelings among his social group including his parents and his wife. So be careful out there!
A mid 20′s guy comes up to me at the gas station just yesterday in fact, and asks me for money. He proceeds to tell me his hard luck story of how he was out of gas & only has $3, but needs enough gas to get to a neighboring town. Meanwhile, his counterpart is sitting in the small Toyota truck (probably gets 18 mpg on a bad day) in front of a gas pump.
I asked him where – exactly, he was going since I know the area very well. He stammered a bit & said something remotely plausible. I explained that he was only going 5 miles & the $3 that you collected from others will buy you plenty of gas to get you “home” in your truck even at $4 per gallon.
A bit taken back at my reasoning, he walked back to his truck & sat talking with his buddy. A few short minutes later they were slowly backing out & away from the pump they were parked in front of (never bought gas) & drove off.
I had just finished & my curiosity had the best of me so I followed them for a couple of minutes until they turned into the liquor store & watched the one guy head in … I guess they were going to share a bottle of Jack Daniels and start walking home :-)
The gas station thing you just described happens in Tucson all the time , its so bad at one station , that there are 5 guys hitting people up . All appear to be under 23 . There is one area in that city ( 4th ave . ) that is full of wanna be hippies , all of them panhandlers , they try the group approach . It gets so bad that the local businesses have to petition the cops to make a sweep . Again , all are under 25 . Whats up with that ? I dont mind tossing a buck or two into a street musicians case if they are good , but the other guys …… at least they could change their stories a little bit lol .
This is kind of a no brainer , if their in a foreign country = 1st red flag , if you dont know them = 2nd red flag , if they write like the ghetto speaking troll we had on here awhile ago claiming high education or any education = 3rd red flag . Unless you hit the lottery , are at a casino , or a relative you know dies , or win a law suit , money just doesn’t fall out of the sky into your lap …….period . As far as people claiming to have been robbed and need money ….. how do they have access to a computer to send you an email in the first place !? they have a computer , they can contact the US consolate or British consolate if we dont have one …..thats what they are for . If they are too stupid to do that and dumb enough to travel to a shit country in the first place …….. they deserve what they get .
o-boy here we go again. grow up man get a life and let live. trust and wake up you be the first one talking over the pc to some fat guy thinking it’s some fine gal sending in all your money. live by example and write only what you know not what sounds impressing. if you only knew the true you wouldn’t be fast to judge but for a redneck thats hard work
Well, T.R. think this a valid comment? :-)
Picked up another bag of Purina Trol chow for him .
Heyba Manbah uba dah saem muthahbuhfuckabah dat haz all dat hi edumication and at dah top ov hiz clas ? I tink u iz ! Heyba manbah , u seeem 2 b dah 1 wit all dah freeee tiem 2 hang heer and troll . A bruthah got 2 do wat a brothah got 2 do rite ? I gez zo . Troll on Annie !
Heybah manbah ! I noez u , u bee dat saem rich muthahbafuckabah dat haz all dat moneee ! chit manbah , iv Iz waz az rich az you and had all dat hi edumication , Izah wood b spendin it an woodnt bee waestin mie tiem eeer on dis wed site . Juss goes tah show u r ahll full ov chit …………..doent be tryin to jive us into tinkin u iz all dat , cuz we no u aint . U juz a muthahbahfuckabin troll . bettah cach dat buss b4 it leaves u at dah stop again .
Tears coming down – stop before I bust a cap in yo ass!
:D
T.R.
There was a comment from me between the above 2 that vanished faster than flatulence in a stiff breeze.
I used the widely & mainstream accepted vernacular of a person of color living in a less desirable neighborHOOD, whom most all use deep base music to communicate their points of view. Where rapping is not a paper covering for a gift.
It loses a bit of punch in my opinion to say: “you go negro, black fella, African-American, Al Sharpton or following friends of Louis Farrakhan.”
Ah well, can’t go wrong with being PC I guess ….
Jason – just another leprechaun chasin’ Mick, glory be …
PC is just wrong . if they dont like the word , their people need to stop using that word first .
Couldn’t agree more my friend.
- and, right on cue, the ‘non-comment’ above. This sounds like a ‘bot’ trolling for new email addresses. You might want to look into Blogspot’s verification tool to eliminate inhuman responses. I think it’s under “Tools’ if I remember right. (This is why I’ve been spelling out addresses lately… )
My e-mail system usually roots out the spammers/scammers pretty well, but I have one other good rule of thumb to go by. If an e-mail is supposed to be sent from a big company or organization and uses an anonymous e-mail program (yahoo, gmail, aol etc.), it’s probably a scam.
It’s sad that some people will go to such great lengths to make money by scamming people. Even stuff like spam- why? If they put the energy instead to giving value, in the long run they’d probably make more money and have more consistency and stability in their business. It must be soul crushing to rely on this type of thing for your income.
Also, funny the irony in a bot spammer commenting on this article. Sometimes they just slip through….
watch what you buy from Ready Foods, received some Saratoga Farms, no meat in their food, good price on a 6 month supply, but you get what you pay for
Scammers make money because people are either naive or greedy. That old adage holds true “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.”
God bless you guys. The information you put out weekly will save thousands of lives. Anytime you guys want a free stay in Belize it’s on me. We would love to have you visit Biospharms anyhow. Keep doing all the good you are doing.
Darin Smith
Biospharms.com