Let's talk about how to scam businesses

[ghost]

So I get this letter in the mail a couple of weeks ago from a company named "US Business Network" claiming to have provided my business a "search optimization business listing" in March of '09.  They state that in order to close my account I owe them $499.00 and to send the money to some place in Nevada.  The invoice date is 9/16/10 and was supposedly authorized by my office manager.  Of course my bullshit detector is screaming from the minute I opened the letter, primarily because my current  office manager didn't work for me in March of 2009 and it lists her by name.  Still, the letter really got me thinking about ways that you could scam a business.  Obviously, the better knowledge I have of such practices, the more protection I will have and the better educated my staff can be to not fall for such shit.

1.  Has anyone else had shit like this show up at their place of business?
2.  Does anyone have any recommendations on follow up other than the FTC and/or BBB?  


Edit:  Ah, sure enough, someone else on the net had the same issue.  This is a nice listing of people that have had similar shit happen to them.

Fraud

[pxib]

Up on one of the bulletin boards here at the library is a fax offering our director top dollar to sell her business "in this booming market". Her business... the library.

[Sky]

A bunch of domain-nabbers have been trying to bilk me for the .com of our library's address. Fuck off, slime.

[Paelos]

Big scams we have to deal with are people who call up trying to offer online service solutions without any confirmations from people in charge. Then, we get bills and they claim "Andy" authorized it.

Andy is short for Andrea, our front desk receptionist.

[ghost]

A bunch of domain-nabbers have been trying to bilk me for the .com of our library's address. Fuck off, slime.

Do you mind posting some of the details of this? 

[Sky]

For a couple weeks before it came up for renewal, they bombarded me with offers to sell me the .com (getting my email from the .org registration) before it went up for renewal. Then another scumbag nabbed it when it went up for renewal (it was over a weekend and I forgot to check) and let me know how he'd kindly sell it to me.

[schild]

You're the only person at fault there Sky :(

[Sky]

Yes, I should have remembered to waste time on a saturday night dicking around with registering a domain we don't use just so some scumbag can't squat on it. Nothing at all wrong with people who buy up domains just to squat on them and extort money from others.

[Paelos]

Yes, I should have remembered to waste time on a saturday night dicking around with registering a domain we don't use just so some scumbag can't squat on it. Nothing at all wrong with people who buy up domains just to squat on them and extort money from others.

Or you could have done it on time.

You're not exactly on the moral high ground here. You didn't even bother climbing up the moral hill.

[KallDrexx]

Don't most registrars have automatic renewals for domain?

[Sky]

Or you could have done it on time.

Got, it. Extortion is fine. The american way.

KD: our .org domain is fine. I was just talking about two separate entities trying to sell us the .com. The reason I didn't get it in the first place is that it was already being squat upon by the time I got the job ten years ago.

[Samwise]

You'd think there would be a proxy-bid sort of service where you could just say that you want this domain when it becomes available and you're willing to pay this much for it, rather than having to play eBay ninja games when it expires.

[Paelos]

Got, it. Extortion is fine. The american way.

The internet is the wild west when it comes to laws. We all know that.

[NiX]

You'd think there would be a proxy-bid sort of service where you could just say that you want this domain when it becomes available and you're willing to pay this much for it, rather than having to play eBay ninja games when it expires.

There are. It still boils down to the same eBay ninja shit.

[Mrbloodworth]

Don't most registrars have automatic renewals for domain?

They also have a list of domains that just ended and are now available right on the front pages.

[Nerf]

Back on topic, this forum popped up on one of the gunboards I frequent a few days ago - some guy was pretending to be some sort of internet james bond who went around busting hackers and being a general badass - enough people finally got pissed off enough to dig up his activity here:

http://www.zoklet.net/bbs/showthread.php?t=17090

Theres a whole shitload of different scams listed in that forum, some of which most of us have probably encountered at some point.  Better to read up and protect yourself then get caught with your pants down.

[ghost]

Thanks Nerf.  That's a good site to read as it brings up a level of shadiness that I'm not typically confronted with. 

[Khaldun]

I get emails from this one person (who changes addresses) fairly often trying to bill me for content and services they allegedly provided my blog, threatening to refer the account to a bill collector if I do not pay promptly. The problem with that is: a) it's a plain-jane Wordpress blog that I set up myself; b) everything on it is written or created by me and there are no ads; c) it runs off of a server owned and operated by my institution.  This is someone who has just harvested every blogger's email they can find and sent this email out to the whole list: if even one person pays up, that's profit.

None of this is new, either: the first generation of robocallers used to pull a lot of the same things, and before that, scammers used fake bills send through the US mail, though there it often paid off to specifically target the elderly or other markedly gullible populations since the costs of the mailings or calling weren't entirely nonexistent.

 

[Morat20]

None of this is new, either: the first generation of robocallers used to pull a lot of the same things, and before that, scammers used fake bills send through the US mail, though there it often paid off to specifically target the elderly or other markedly gullible populations since the costs of the mailings or calling weren't entirely nonexistent.

That's still the debt collectors general take. Buy up debt for pennies on the dollar, tack an obsene amount of 'fees' on top, call everyone and claim they're late, hint at suing, and harass them, hoping someone will pay. Or better yet, someone will pay just enough to cover the cost of their bulk debt purchase AND reset the legal clock on their debt.

Of course, they actually have -- good or bad -- debt to start with, mostly. Except they generally don't care if they have the right person. (Of course, now they're branching into -- I shit you not -- tax collecting and foreclosures. Some cities basically contract out to private parties past-due taxes and the like.