Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The little black book of scams (2016)

accc.gov.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 70 posts

Re: The little black book of scams (2016)

#51

Post by pathseeker »

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #29
anonymouzz wrote: post #21

I recently fell victim to a nasty scam I've never heard about before. Wonder if anyone had similar experiences. Happened in Serbia on a highway. We had an RV on German plates and slept on a gas station there, next to the truckers. Morning comes and the clutch pedal is dead - no resistance when I press it (this is a manual transmission car). Obviously not driveable, and we're not car gurus to debug it. We call the ins…

Count your lucky stars it wasn’t worse than it was. A terrible scam indeed “tow it to my shop” should have set off a flag but I can totally understand your desire to just get going again. Sorry to hear about your terrible experience, it could have happened to anyone really, myself included. Try not to lose sleep over it and be extra careful from now on.

>A terrible scam indeed “tow it to my shop” should have set off a flag

Curious, why is this a red flag? Lots of small towns have combined tow-service/mechanic shops.

Re: The little black book of scams (2016)

#52

Post by ams6110 »

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #31

As a teenager I fell for the most dumb in person scam. I was coming out of Barnes and Nobles with my gf and a guy approached me asking for money. I said no initially but then he made up this whole story about being out of gas on the way to see his kids and so on. You’d have to be an idiot to fall for that and idiot I was. So I ended up giving him $20, left feeling weird right away. I got in the car, looked at my gf a…

I was approached at a gas station with a similar story. I figured it was most likely a scam, but I thought "maybe not" and, feeling generous, I bought the guy a tank of gas using my credit card on his pump, which was the same pump as mine but opposite side.

Then I filled up my car, and later reviewed my charges on that card and realized that my fill-up was never charged. Which is really weird because modern automatic pumps will not dispense fuel without validating the credit card.

Can't explain it. I just chalk it up to karma.

Re: The little black book of scams (2016)

#53

Post by ataturk »

anonymouzz wrote: post #43
anonserb124 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Serbian expat I would very much avoid putting too much trust in Serbian locals. Sure, there are obviously some nice people but overall it's a very poor, corrupt, and cut-throat country. Serbian doctors have been caught stealing children from hospitals for god's sake.

Learned this the hard (but not too hard) way. Also I hold no grudge against Serbian people in general - had some great Serbian friends in the US, they made fantastic barbecue. I'd sooner blame the general state of the country.

Except you don't know what the barbecue was made of!

Re: The little black book of scams (2016)

#54

Post by pathseeker »

takinola wrote: post #49
mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #31

As a teenager I fell for the most dumb in person scam. I was coming out of Barnes and Nobles with my gf and a guy approached me asking for money. I said no initially but then he made up this whole story about being out of gas on the way to see his kids and so on. You’d have to be an idiot to fall for that and idiot I was. So I ended up giving him $20, left feeling weird right away. I got in the car, looked at my gf a…

I don't think this makes you a gullible person. I think it means you are a helpful, empathetic person. That the world has a number of bad actors does not mean you should change.

Still gullible though. If all it takes is a story about going to see kids to get $20 out of you, you are gullible whether or not your are helpful/emphatic.

Re: The little black book of scams (2016)

#55

Post by pythonaut_16 »

CocaKoala wrote: post #37
woodrowbarlow wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

good content, but: why has it has become popular to use github in this manner? to create a repo for what is essentially a blog post?

I suspect it's so that people can contribute to the list through the pull request functionality that Github offers?

They could at least set it up to use Github pages then.

Then you could access http://openblockchains.github.io/awesome-ico-truths

Re: The little black book of scams (2016)

#56

Post by ada1981 »

leducw wrote: post #46
ada1981 wrote: post #38

I didn’t notice these scams: Higher Education Mental Health Religious Organizations Political Elections

Can you tell me why each one is a scam? I'm curious because none of those to me seem like a scam.

Higher Education is increasingly a bad investment, including unforgivable loans.

Religious Organizations that take your money while oppressing your sexuality and agency.

Mental Heatlh system that gives you drugs that often makes your problems worse or at best placebo.

Political Systems that promise change and consistently simply advance the interests of the rich.

Scams meaning these are things people spend money on with a particular result in mind, they end up without that result and the people promoting it are pretty aware they can’t deliver the result.

Re: The little black book of scams (2016)

#59

Post by geraldbauer »

woodrowbarlow wrote: post #34
geraldbauer wrote: post #2

FYI: I've put together an Awesome Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) Truths page. Subtitled The Art of the Steal - The Scammers' Big Lies at https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome-ico-truths . Buyer beware! Cheers. Prost.

good content, but: why has it has become popular to use github in this manner? to create a repo for what is essentially a blog post?

I'm the author. Why not a blog post? The idea is that the page is not frozen / done and gets updated (from time-to-time) and, yes, you (in theory) can contribute too. In practice doesn't really happen.

Re: The little black book of scams (2016)

#60

Post by geraldbauer »

pythonaut_16 wrote: post #55
CocaKoala wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it's so that people can contribute to the list through the pull request functionality that Github offers?

They could at least set it up to use Github pages then. Then you could access http://openblockchains.github.io/awesome-ico-truths

I'm the author / editor. Done. Works now with Github pages too. Cheers. Prost.
Post reply on HN