How am I getting scammed?

[Morfiend]

Color me interested too.

 

[Kitsune]

Well, consider this a learning experience.

From now on put inventory labels on everything, take photographs of equipment that comes in, mark down serial numbers and install a video camera.  I am sure the cop will have some tips for you too.

That's fine for visible hardware, but does nothing for internal stuff or software.  Sure, video footage and serial numbers on the cases will keep someone from having a leg to stand on if they say we swiped their whole computer or the case, but it won't do a thing if someone says we stole the memory, swapped the CPU, erased their programs, etc.  Shot of having some awesome Star Trek scan of the computer, we can't possibly gather enough proof to deter a sufficiently crazed individual.

[Salamok]

computer laundering! I hope everything turns out okay but  I think you are going to get screwed here.  On the other hand if you do not get screwed sounds like she is committing felony of some sort, so if you come out of this with the upper hand be sure and press charges.

edit: best defense may be a good offense, start talking about pressing some sort of fraud charges asap.

[Kitsune]

New update: Lady arrives with police in tow, a different officer than the one we'd been dealing with.  Wants the serial numbers off of her computer and the case in the back room, which is fine.  Now she's claiming that we've moved her data onto this 'new' computer after we show the officer all the cobwebs in the case that pretty clearly prove that the hardware inside hasn't been moved.  She then wants to take the computer, because she has important work to do on it.

 

So even though we stole her computer and have this doppelganger in its place, she wants it.  My partner flips out a smidgen and says she can't take someone else's computer and has to leave it.  Jerry Springer antics ensue for a bit until I wave him down and tell him to let her take it.  We've got as much important evidence as possible, and have no legal claim to the thing, so I'm not about to get in a tug of war for a crappy HP.

Then the officer gives us his laptop to work on.   

[Cadaverine]

I hope you at least put the viruses back on it, seeing as she didn't pay for the cleanup, or anything.

[Ozzu]

Oh me. She's definitely a nutjob. How old is she? I picture an older lady with wild-ass hair. Amiright?  

[Kitsune]

Middle-aged, short to medium size, medium to heavy girth, a lady of color.  With her kid around both times, which is a little odd given that she came for battle the second time.  And she unsurprisingly didn't have the documents proving the ownership of a different computer.

[Sky]

With her kid around both times, which is a little odd given that she came for battle the second time. 

How else are they going to learn how to fight back against The Man?

[gryeyes]

Once it was obvious she was insane you should have refused to deal with her. She cant substantiate her claim of PC thievery. She has admitted to hiring you for a service that you clearly performed. The police are not going to just arbitrarily give her a random PC. And she sounds pretty fucking stupid, and does not appear to even have a rational complaint beyond you did something to her PC. Many scams are perpetuated on causing so much drama the rational innocent party will take a loss just to get rid of the fucks. The whole "I can prove it with papers" is just a ruse, she never intended on being required to show them. You should have completely refused her access to the PC until you were paid.

Never should have volunteered to swap her case, your pragmatism could be construed as guilt. As soon as you made it clear to her you were willing to deal with her regardless of her stupidity of her claims you got marked.

[NowhereMan]

The other problem being there is good fucking reason people will be willing to take a loss on something like this rather than fight the crazy all the way to almost certain victory. He loses some time on labour vs. losing a shit load of time going to the courts and dealing with police, etc. if she decides to fight it. Even if you know it's going to get tossed out you'd probably have to spend more time getting paperwork ready for the case than you would have spent on the thing in the first place. Though you're right, offering to swap the cases, while nice and with a non-crazy/scammer person would have been the straightforward thing to do in this case can be construed as guilt or at least undermining your case. Sadly people like her are the reason society apparently cannot have nice things.

[Lantyssa]

Then the officer gives us his laptop to work on.   

At least that sounds like an endorsement from the officer that he thinks you're fine.

[Kitsune]

Well thanks to her, I now have new non-crazy customers in the local police department.  So yeah, not wasting time crying over seventy-five bucks and a flash drive I got for free with a newegg order last year.  As long as I never see her again, I've come out ahead.

At least that sounds like an endorsement from the officer that he thinks you're fine.

Yeah, both officers who came by basically shrugged and said, "She sounds crazy."  Nobody could figure out what profit she thought we were getting out of stealing the case from her computer.

[Montague]

Well thanks to her, I now have new non-crazy customers in the local police department.  So yeah, not wasting time crying over seventy-five bucks and a flash drive I got for free with a newegg order last year.  As long as I never see her again, I've come out ahead.

At least that sounds like an endorsement from the officer that he thinks you're fine.

Yeah, both officers who came by basically shrugged and said, "She sounds crazy."  Nobody could figure out what profit she thought we were getting out of stealing the case from her computer.

I worked at a Greyhound bus station in my younger days, and I saw a lot of these types of people back then. She just wanted her computer fixed for free, and was willing to make all sorts of fuss to get it. I guess the unusual part is her wanting the cops involved, most of the con artists I saw wanted to steer clear of cops.

[MahrinSkel]

The third act in this drama will be when she claims that the interior of the computer is no longer the same except for the hard drive.  IOW, she's going to claim you put her HD in an inferior computer.  The goal is to provoke you or your partner into saying something that can have a racist spin put on it, at which point she goes to her local Al Sharpton wannabe, and you have to spread lots of money around through his preferred front charity to make it go away.

--Dave

[gryeyes]

Sexual assault combined with claims that they threatened her toddling son during the confrontation.

[tazelbain]

So Earth will look bad in front of the Glaxistons during negotiations over nebula gas processing equipment tariffs levied on non-sanctioned Class D interstellar vehicles operated by parties who have not ratified the Nebulae and Asteroids Development Treaty, Amendment LVII, Section 19.

[Kitsune]

The third act in this drama will be when she claims that the interior of the computer is no longer the same except for the hard drive.  IOW, she's going to claim you put her HD in an inferior computer.  The goal is to provoke you or your partner into saying something that can have a racist spin put on it, at which point she goes to her local Al Sharpton wannabe, and you have to spread lots of money around through his preferred front charity to make it go away.

--Dave

Wow, I really hope she's ignorant enough to make that claim.  On top of being utterly unfeasible (Windows crashes like it hit an iceberg if you pop a system drive out and plug it into different hardware), the system registration info I pulled from the computer contains Windows IDs that are generated in part from the ID numbers in the hardware it was installed on.  IDs that wouldn't match if the OS were made to run on different hardware.  So if I were possessed by evil and did decide to go through the huge PITA of swapping her drive and reinstalling every driver to make Windows run, there'd be clear evidence of the fact when Windows starts bitching about needing to be re-authenticated for the new hardware.

Provoking my excitable partner, on the other hand, is a more feasible tactic.  I headed it off today, but'll need to have words with him to make sure he doesn't do anything foolish if she runs in and starts a scene later.

[Grimwell]

If you have not done this already, I strongly suggest taking in a 'broken' computer to your local Best Buy and paying the smallest amount you possibly can to let the Geek Squad take it in and 'fix' it. 'Break' your computer by unplugging a few of the power wires or something simple so it's a fast turn around.

Do not tell them about your store.

Then, take their contract that you signed at turn in and check through it with your legal advisor and see about creating a drop off contract for your store. That document is your protection. From what I remember it will list make, model, serial #, etc. and pretty much avoid everything tantrum lady wanted to pull.

"That's not my computer!"
"Ma'am, as you can see from the drop off receipt that you have, (and we have a copy of), this computer clearly matches the make, model, and serial number on your ticket. You signed that the information was correct and I have hardware to match the in formation ready for you. Let's go to the register and ring you out so you can pay and get back home."

It's never that easy, but it makes it even easier for the cops to back you.

[Oban]

Middle-aged, short to medium size, medium to heavy girth, a lady of color. 

Ah.

[Nevermore]

I think I've run in to her, complete with kid(s), a few times in my previous career in retail.

[Strazos]

You could probably just ask BB for a copy of their drop-off contract/receipt without even paying.

[Trippy]

You should've asked the kid if it was his/her mom's computer.

[Paelos]

Middle-aged, short to medium size, medium to heavy girth, a lady of color. 

Ah.

Yeah, I thought the same thing.

[Nerf]

Racists.

[Trippy]

Cut it out.

[Khaldun]

I think you can't underestimate how much a computer is a totally alien device for many of the people who use it. I'm not really knowledgeable myself: I can manage my own machine, swap out components like video cards or RAM if I need to, I understand how most software works, I can patch and identify software conflicts or problems, and so on. But that still means I end up getting a knock on my office door from 8 out of 10 of my colleagues on my hall whenever the slightest thing is wrong with their computers, and I mean things like "I don't know how to turn it on" and "I clicked on the flashing thing on the web page that said I had viruses on my computer and it took me to this weird site" stuff" and "I can't find the file I just saved", as well as more complicated things. They're genuinely helpless beyond opening applications and using them for basic things.

That's sort of their fault, but it's also kind of the fault of the industry for reasons that are now well known and which no one really has a good answer for at this late date. That helplessness also makes people perennially suspicious of people who aren't helpless. Occasionally for good reason--one job I temped at way back in 1990 when I was in grad school, I got to know the one IT guy who ran the whole facility's infrastructure, because I was pretty much the only other person who knew anything about computers. Dude basically would crash the local infrastructure every month or so if it didn't go down on its own just so he could emphasize how much they needed him.

[ghost]

It sounds like this lady just didn't want to pay.  It is too stupid an accusation for her to think of anything more complex than that, methinks.  I bet you never hear from her again.

[schild]

That Oban -> Paelos -> Nerf -> Trippy exchange is awesome.

But, yea. Anyway. The only thing you're getting scammed by is the lowest common denominator. She couldn't tell her computer from a copy of War & Peace.

Edit: LCD was probably a poor choice of words here, but whatever. She's an idiot. Case closed.

[Kitsune]

Oho, case NOT closed.  I was talking to a friend about the drama, and his eyes bugged out when I mentioned her (very distinctive) name.  "Holy shit, HER?" he asked.  "I KNOW her!  She came to the dealership I work for last week and raised hell with the sales manager!  Got all crazy and screaming."

I have established now that she's not crazy, she's a scammer.         

Oh the fun games we shall play now.

[Khaldun]

Yup, scammer. This is a racket. Get the cops on her stat. That explains, by the way, why she brings the kid: the kid is designed to make her targets even more uncomfortable and more likely to pay up something just to get her the hell out of there. It may turn out that the computer is in fact not hers at all, in fact.

[gryeyes]

The other problem being there is good fucking reason people will be willing to take a loss on something like this rather than fight the crazy all the way to almost certain victory.

Its not in the scammers best interest to take anything to "court" they are just trying to become such a nuisance in the short term you will pay them to disappear. Scammers of this level are just looking for a quick comeup from as many sources as possible as quickly as they can. Usually they make loud scenes in places with lots of customer traffic (see coming in with a new police officer during business hours). Claims of racism,sexism or physical threats add some spice to the situation. Lady brings a child with her for additional armor. They work on fishing for bites from as many places as possible. Once Kitsune showed he was willing to negotiate even tho her accusation was 100% scamtastic the radar was locked on.

And there is a pretty marked distinction between a completely ignorant rude shitheel and someone attempting to perpetuate some form of conscious fraud. Some completely ignorant PC user tends to not just point at merchandise and claim "DATS MINES!".

[TheWalrus]

You should have installed a keylogger and destroyed her life. Just sayin.

[Tebonas]

All shops she did this in banding together and suing her into nonexistence is way more fun. Hell, she even uses her kid as a prop in her scams, that can't be a healthy environment to grow up in. If I was child services I'd take a real close look into that.

[Kitsune]

You should have installed a keylogger and destroyed her life. Just sayin.

I don't need a keylogger to destroy someone's life, I have google.

My good friend Google whispered to me that she's going in to bankruptcy court next week for a hearing about whether they dismiss her bankruptcy protection for lack of paying the creditors.  Google also told me the judge's name.  I have a letter to write.

If she'd just come to be and said, "Look, I have no money, people want to foreclose on my house, I need the computer to make a living and it's broken, will you help me?"  I'd totally have done it for free.  But instead she went and accused me of really stupid theft to try to con me, so now it's on.

[Triforcer]

It might be best to just let this one go.  If she somehow finds out you wrote that letter, she's the exact kind of crazy to find an ambulance chaser to write a 20 page complaint alleging 5 different kinds of constitutional violations.  Even frivolous lawsuits are a pain to deal with and take time to resolve.