KBeanie

New ways of cheating

Recently, there has been a truck loads of new ways of cheating people. I have, once fallen into their trap but I realized very quickly. You should have heard about SpeakAsia scam which was recently in news. Hahaha, that’s not the one I fell for. There has been a whole lot of similar scams in the past. People, smart people, sometimes fall into their trap and end up losing their hard earned money.

One of the terribly pathetic and ugly trap is a program which is being aired on NDTV Imagine channel. The program is “Gold Safe”. This program, shows some images of well-known personalities and ask people to call in and recognize them. When I was in college, some 5 years back, I was lured into calling in. I must have spent at least 100 bucks that day. And, quite obviously, I didn’t win a dime. Someone who has the ability of adding up 2 2-digit numbers without a calculator would never fall into their trap. But, that day, I just thought of giving it a try. I mean, who would not be able to recognize “Priety Zinta”!!!!! People were continuously calling in and blurting out seemingly absurd answers. The images have been always too obvious for someone to give a wrong answer.

The next one is in the form of an E-mail. There’s a website which promises you really great discounts on some of their products. The website is “Bag it today“. It seems to be affiliated to “The Indian Today Group”. Atleast, the website shows it’s logo.

Almost everyday, I receive a mail from this website. Here is a sample e-mail that I received today.

Welcome
Kumar,

Congratulations! You have just received 5 products including Reebok Tracksuit,
Numero Uno Watch, Satyapaul Leather Wallet, Lotto Duffle Bag
and
Converse T-shirt worth
Rs 10442 at Re 5.

The catch here seemed to be this: You could get all these things at a final price of Rs.2999/- only. Seems to be a really cool deal. But, be warned, this is too good to be true. Please don’t fall for it. People have, and have repented. If at all, you want to see if it’s a real deal, opt for “Cash on Delivery”.

I am certainly not saying that all these websites/services that promise you discounts are fake and scams. There are really great services, such as SnapDeal.com where you would get real discounts and deals. But please don’t fall into obvious looking traps.

One more scam worth mentioning is the “Free T-shirt scam” that made rounds on Facebook recently. I mean, it was quite obvious to me that it was a scam, but many people still went ahead and gave them their phone numbers, email addresses and postal addresses. None of them have received their free t-shirts yet.

The other category of scams, which I think nobody will ever fall for are those e-mails that you receive from complete strangers who have found a fortune somehow(people make up real good stories, I read it for fun), and want to transfer it to your country to avoid getting caught, and promise you a large stock of bills for your assistance. Don’t ever fall for it.

I don’t expect the Government to do anything about these guys. They are probably busy handling their own scams. The best part is, unlike the government ones, you could choose not to be looted by these private scamsters and swindlers.

11 thoughts on “New ways of cheating

  1. yeah..way too many bogus schemes out there…my dad recently got an email that he has won some lottery from Coca-Cola and wanted address and phone number to contact…we don't even use Coke at home…its so obvious that it is a scam. And you wasted 100 bucks in college…saale..that could have been worth 10 evenings at Khokha..

  2. Speak Asia, pyramids, email fraud and deals have gained lot of people, by targeting people who want to earn huge in few days. Speak Asia is something which was trusted by people who were literate enough to understand such scams. But their idea was magnificent, they were all over newspapers and tv channels. Their marketing was damn too good to confuse and lure people.

    BTW I have also become part of such idiot same trap, but it did not go till 100 bucks. I stopped myself at 15 bucks and above to it I was trapped while I was working. 😉

    Government and police(Kuch log to vahan se bhi pagal bane honge) can not do much but we should create some forum which can send information about such threats to people. What do you say?

  3. Greetings! Really useful guidance on this short article! It really is the tiny adjustments that make the most important alterations. Many thanks a good deal for sharing!

  4. One more is job scam…very bad one you have been shortlisted in TATA groups or maruthi so they will ask you to fill a form and send some DD of 7k , they will promise to send you flight tickets to noida or delhi, so that you can attend interview, they will give some numbers to call, I had called once and showed him wat all bad things i can do to him he cut the call. What i know at last is there would be some fools who would have wasted their money.

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