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Business & Finance Being scammed

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JuddsABlue said:
50-60k a week?

3 million a year

25 years

How is he still getting away with it? All these companies are pouring in money for ads and none have noticed the ads don't exist or check to whether these magazines exist?

Can anyone in the industry confirm these numbers are real and if something like this is plausible

And also that's not really a scam, it's more outright theft on a million dollar level
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Basically it is..and never ceases to amaze me how it keeps on going year after year.


I actually work for him years ago selling ads. Good money if you can handle hours of phone selling and know how to convince people.

Take out commissions to the sales people 'blowers' and other costs and he probably nets 500K himself every year. He has a massive mansion on the water in Sydney and spends half the year traveling around the world spending it.

It's a emergency services magazine that actually gets printed up but only the actual business owners get a copy. They are told that the mag will be distributed to thousands of members which is a lie. There's articles and stories that are written up relating to that service but the ad section stapled in the middle of the mag is 5 times bigger than the other content!

I remember years ago back in the early 90s they got 'busted' by TV A Current Affair...a few times actually. But the story quickly fades and business returns to normal.

This type of scam has been around since the 60s in the U.S.A and still today in Australia there are dozens of such 'magazines' going around. As a business owner myself I get 2 or 3 a week calling me. I'm lucky I've been in the industry and I can spot a 'blower' as soon as he starts talking.

Another scam that works along the same lines is sending out thousands of invoices to business owners for ads in 'magazines'. The scammers work on the fact that something like 5% of those people who receive the invoice will just pay it without checking if they really did agree to something. Most just assume they got a call ages ago and can't remember if the placed an ad or not. Busy or distracted business owners just pay the bill (it's always small amounts $50 to $150) and the scammer says "thanks very much!".

Moral of the story is...if you're a business owner, NEVER agree to anything anyone tries to sell over the phone. If they come from a local paper or something you are 100% familar with thats different.

But if it's some obscure 'magazine', 'journal' or 'directory'..hang up and save your money.


http://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/ftw/Businesses/Scams/Business_scams.page
 
Shane Hird said:
I actually work for him years ago selling ads. Good money if you can handle hours of phone selling and know how to convince people.

Take out commissions to the sales people 'blowers' and other costs and he probably nets 500K himself every year. He has a massive mansion on the water in Sydney and spends half the year traveling around the world spending it.

It's a emergency services magazine that actually gets printed up but only the actual business owners get a copy. They are told that the mag will be distributed to thousands of members which is a lie. There's articles and stories that are written up relating to that service but the ad section stapled in the middle of the mag is 5 times bigger than the other content!

I remember years ago back in the early 90s they got 'busted' by TV A Current Affair...a few times actually. But the story quickly fades and business returns to normal.

This type of scam has been around since the 60s in the U.S.A and still today in Australia there are dozens of such 'magazines' going around. As a business owner myself I get 2 or 3 a week calling me. I'm lucky I've been in the industry and I can spot a 'blower' as soon as he starts talking.

Moral of the story is...if you're a business owner, NEVER agree to anything anyone tries to sell over the phone. If they come from a local paper or something you are 100% familar with thats different.

But if it's some obscure 'magazine', 'journal' or 'directory'..hang up and save your money.
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You had no moral problems with essentially stealing peoples money?
 
Sterge10 said:
You had no moral problems with essentially stealing peoples money?
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its all relative i guess.

say you charge someone 3k for an ad, and they get 4k worth of work a week through that ad (hard to quantify but i would imagine any small business owner who advertises should be probing to find out how the person found out about the company), then they probably view it as worthwhile, even though the small distribution of the magazine should mean the ad only cost 1k-2k?
 
Sterge10 said:
You had no moral problems with essentially stealing peoples money?
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That was when i was like 20 years of age, young and stupid and desperate for money. I actually didn't last that long because you do get the guilts knowing you are ripping people off.

I know for a fact that most of the blokes who do this type of 'selling' for living are the lowest form of scumbags you could come across. The bloke who runs the thing I'm talking about mainly employs drug addicts, alcoholics and people who don't or won't do normal jobs.

He's had one bloke working for him for 20 years who's a basically a functioning junkie. He looks like a street urchin but possesses a voice that's perfect for selling stuff over the phone.

The way I see it is that a lot of people are just plain stupid and naive. They believe just about anything anyone says over the phone if the salesperson sounds like a legit, professional person.

It's their own fault really being ripped off in this way. It's not like now you can't do some simple online research (like that link I put up) and educate yourself about the many, many scams out there...
 

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The Passenger said:
its all relative i guess.

say you charge someone 3k for an ad, and they get 4k worth of work a week through that ad (hard to quantify but i would imagine any small business owner who advertises should be probing to find out how the person found out about the company), then they probably view it as worthwhile, even though the small distribution of the magazine should mean the ad only cost 1k-2k?
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These scam ad sellers stick to small ads costing the business owner between $100 and $300. You get zero business out of it because they only print up copies for the actual ad buyers.

If it's 150 ads this edition- 150 copies printed,mailed and sent in a nice package to all the business owners who paid up.

Whats worse is that most of them are told "Don't pay for the ad until you receive a copy of the magazine".

This tactic works well because it gives the business owner confidence they are not being 'scammed'.

They look at their crappy ad in the 'magazine' and think they have got their monies worth.

The ad salesman get paid every week on the amount of ads they 'sell', but 4 weeks later when the bill and the copy of the maazine gets sent to the business owner and they refuse to pay up (for whatever reason)..the salesman gets that payment deducted from his next 'pay'.
 
Shane Hird said:
These scam ad sellers stick to small ads costing the business owner between $100 and $300. You get zero business out of it because they only print up copies for the actual ad buyers.
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interesting, the gist i got is that is was for a legitimate magazine but they told the ad buyers the distributions was 2000 or 3000 people, but in fact it was only about 300...

fairly solid scam.

would there not be as much money, if not more money, to be made by actually distributing the magazine to a proper market base?

surely the magazine sent to business owners wasn't just full of ad's. there must have been some content in there which would have taken some effort to putting together.

as an aside, i was looking through some 1970's papers on google archives and holy **** are there a shitload of ad's in the paper back in those days. you think the age, hun, terrorgraph and smh are bad now, it was about 90% ad's back then.
 
The Passenger said:
interesting, the gist i got is that is was for a legitimate magazine but they told the ad buyers the distributions was 2000 or 3000 people, but in fact it was only about 300...

fairly solid scam.

would there not be as much money, if not more money, to be made by actually distributing the magazine to a proper market base?

surely the magazine sent to business owners wasn't just full of ad's. there must have been some content in there which would have taken some effort to putting together.

as an aside, i was looking through some 1970's papers on google archives and holy **** are there a shitload of ad's in the paper back in those days. you think the age, hun, terrorgraph and smh are bad now, it was about 90% ad's back then.
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As I said before, the magazine has 'real' articles and photos and 'stories' in the content. But these are copied from legit overseas magazines or just written up by some dickhead who's employed at the office.

The ad section is just say, 20 pages of wall to wall ads staple together and inserted in the middle...or the ads are just placed amongst the 'stories'.

Good example is this....the other day I get a call from a bloke who starts off like this..." Hi it's Dave Mitchell from Police International..are you the owner of the business?"

(They always use fake names and their fake name is always simple and easy to remember..Dave, Barry, Don etc)

Because I know about this industry, as soon as he said "Police International" I instantly knew it was a blower and dismissed his call in 10 seconds.

But other not so clued on business owners would hear the word 'Police' and straight away think they're talking to an actual member of the Police organization.

From my experience, I reckon about only 1 in 50 people ever ask the question " Are you a real policeman, fireman" etc etc..most think and believe you are actually from that service..because you said you are when you introduce yourself.

If they do ask that question you say " No I'm just a representative who's employed to contact business owners and ask for some support ". Support meaning money.

The other thing is this....if you are running a magazine business and you want it to be totally legit, it costs a shit load of cash to get those magazine's printed and distributed- which of course eats into the profits.

Scammers only print a few hundred copies a month and will often use the same articles, pictures and content for years on end. Every new 'edition' is a new batch of business owners who haven't seen the last few 'editions' so they don't have a clue it's all bullshit.

There are thousands of legitimate magazines out there of course. Travel magazines, industry magazines and other totally legal publications.

But most are worthless to the business owner in terms of getting new clients out of it. They are usally magazines that sit on coffee tables in office foyers and get looked at by bugger-all people.

Legal or scam, the ad selling business is massive all around the world. But it's getting harder and harder to sell ads in printed publications because more and more business owners are putting their money into on-line advertising.

In fact, I get heaps of calls as well from legitimate salespeople who want you to advertise in their on-line 'business directory'. It seems there is a new one starting up every week on-line, all making promises that their site is the most popular and most used by people searching for your type of service.
 
JuddsABlue said:
50-60k a week?

3 million a year

25 years

How is he still getting away with it? All these companies are pouring in money for ads and none have noticed the ads don't exist or check to whether these magazines exist?

Can anyone in the industry confirm these numbers are real and if something like this is plausible

And also that's not really a scam, it's more outright theft on a million dollar level
Click to expand...
I can confirm that a number of commonwealth govt departments have been hit by a similar scam - goes like this:
  • Scammer sees employment ad (generally less than an EL1) in APS Gazette
  • Rings contact person (because job is lower than EL1, contact person is not too senior) and asks if it is okay to provide a copy of the ad in a journal which is somehow related to the Department
  • Contact person says, 'um, sure'. No mention is made of the cost.
  • A bill is then sent to the accounts section of the Department with wording indicating that the ad was run with approval of the contact person.
  • Accounts either pays it or queries
  • If they pay it - win for scammer
  • If they query it, contact person acknowledges that they gave verbal approval to run the add with no knowledge of cost
  • Accounts either pay it or contact scammer
  • If they pay - win for scammer
  • If they contact scammer, scammer states that they had approval and threaten legal action to recover debt
  • Accounts either pay it or they don't
  • If they pay it - win for scammer. If they don't - no loss for scammer.
On occassions the accounts department may escalate the matter to either a legal area of the Department or senior staff. If that occurs, said person contacts scammer and mentions job title, when phone is answered, scammer is 'not there at the moment' and will call back (budgies can be heard chirping in the background) Scammer does not call back.
 
RBW_007 said:
Got a similar call saying that I had been overcharged $5000 in fees over a time from my bank and the government was reimbursing me. Said they were going to send a cheque and wanted my personal details. Also get calls regarding my "Microsoft computer" and people claiming to be from Telstra.
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Got one from a person supposedly from the commonwealth bank proposing a new bank account or interest rate or something. No idea what was going on, told him i wasn't interested and hung up.

Real bizzar since commonwealth never call me for anything.
 
The two women arranged to meet at Sunnybank McDonald's where the transaction took place. The woman paid $1500 and was handed two iPhone boxes that looked new but she did not check inside.
When the buyer returned home she opened the phone boxes to find apples in them - real apples, not the iPhone variety.


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/queensland/brisbane-woman-scammed-out-of-1500-in-gumtree-8216iphone8217-sale/story-fnii5v6w-1226689346060#ixzz2ahWtqtsA
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You have to admire the guts to turn up to an in person sale with iPhone boxes that don't actually have phones in them
 
this is definitely a scam on facebook

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Αpplє-íMαc-Giveaway/1397661700451129

the spiel is

We've got 141 boxes of iMacs that can’t be sold because they have been unsealed. Therefore we are giving them away for free.

Want one of them? Just Share this Photo & Like our page and we will choose 141 people completely at random on August 6th and winners will be posted here.

Good Luck!

but what do they get out of all these people liking their page? doesn't make sense to me....

the only thing i can think is they are a marketing company, and maybe six months down the track when everyone has forgotten about it, they'll change the number of the page to something like "North England Marketing Company" and then they can say we have a facebook page with 10,000 likes?
 

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The Passenger said:
this is definitely a scam on facebook

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Αpplє-íMαc-Giveaway/1397661700451129

the spiel is

We've got 141 boxes of iMacs that can’t be sold because they have been unsealed. Therefore we are giving them away for free.

Want one of them? Just Share this Photo & Like our page and we will choose 141 people completely at random on August 6th and winners will be posted here.

Good Luck!

but what do they get out of all these people liking their page? doesn't make sense to me....

the only thing i can think is they are a marketing company, and maybe six months down the track when everyone has forgotten about it, they'll change the number of the page to something like "North England Marketing Company" and then they can say we have a facebook page with 10,000 likes?
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A lot of those end up sending you through alternate sites to 'apply' for your free iMac.
 
The Passenger said:
this is definitely a scam on facebook

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Αpplє-íMαc-Giveaway/1397661700451129

the spiel is

We've got 141 boxes of iMacs that can’t be sold because they have been unsealed. Therefore we are giving them away for free.

Want one of them? Just Share this Photo & Like our page and we will choose 141 people completely at random on August 6th and winners will be posted here.

Good Luck!

but what do they get out of all these people liking their page? doesn't make sense to me....

the only thing i can think is they are a marketing company, and maybe six months down the track when everyone has forgotten about it, they'll change the number of the page to something like "North England Marketing Company" and then they can say we have a facebook page with 10,000 likes?
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Pretty sure you can't change a group name once it has over a certain amount of likes

Most likely just gathering details for spam and junk mail and hacking attempts
 
Sterge10 said:
Pretty sure you can't change a group name once it has over a certain amount of likes

Most likely just gathering details for spam and junk mail and hacking attempts
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Yeah once you get to 25 likes you can't change the name I'm pretty sure
 
Not an overly big scam compared to some of what I have just read in the thread, but I am just back from a few months in Asia and probably got scammed more than I know, in fact I am sure of it, but a simple one that got me was in Bali a week or 2 ago was where you can convert Aussie Dollars from the 'Teller's' on the street where they offer a decent exchange rate and so on. I don't usually even consider these guys for an exchange but I was a fair way from the hotel, didn't have my passport or bank card but did have $200 cash in Aussie with me and thought it can't be too bad.

Basically it is all legit until the 'Teller' counts the exchanged money in front of you, he is quick and is a good counter as expected. It is all done right in front of you and apart from being fairly quick, he even did it twice for me and it all added up perfectly.

I handed over the $200 and grabbed what ever the amount was supposed to be, being fairly cautious I started counting as I walked to ensure it was correct. As expected was about $50 short. I was only 50 meters down the road and even though I was embarassed and deserved what i got I went back to challenged the bloke. I couldn't find him at his stall but as I turned around to walk off disgusted in myself I saw him over the road at the bank. After a heated argument and him telling me he already spent the extra he took from me he somehow negotiated with me and gave me half back!

I have travelled a fair bit but that was a simple scam and I can assure you infuriating and I deserved it. I probably walked off jumped in a Tuk Tuk and paid $20 for a 5 minute ride home that would have cost $2 in a Taxi :-(
 

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Atheist said:
Hey, I got a bargain. I paid $10 and it's worth $15!
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Charlie-Sheen-Winning-Duh.jpg
 
Not soo much a scam, but (many years ago) me and a mate were in maccas after a big night out and while leaving my mate (being very drunk) grabbed this plastic aus kick thing that contained competition entry forms.

The next morning he thought it would be funny to call people telling them they had won and to come to McDonald's at midday to receive their prize (grand final tickets and meet Nathan Buckley). Although harsh, it was funny sitting in the maccas watching person after person come in to claim their prize.
 

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