Have you ever been scammed?

I love watching The Real Hustle, do you ever watch it? I am well into watching all the scams.

I have been scammed twice in my life. The first time was when I was working in a shop during a busy period. I was caught out with the 'Change raising scam' as described in this video.



I was working in a shop in Cheetham Hill, many years ago. There was a big queue of customers, it was more fast paced than the old dear in the charity shop in the video and I remember the bloke kept saying "I only work round the corner" as the transaction was going on. I realised within about 10 seconds of him leaving the shop that I had been done and ran out after him but he was long gone.

The other time was in Las Vegas 10 years ago, a mate and I got scammed for $50 by a scam artist. It's a bit of a story. I was very wary that we were possibly being scammed but I still didn't put a stop to the situation.

In the wake of 9/11 it was possible to get very cheap flights to the USA, so my friend and I booked an 11 day trip to San Francisco early in 2002. The flights were beyond cheap, it cost us about £120 each return from Heathrow to San Francisco via Virgin Atlantic. We must have eaten and drank about half that on the flights, it was an unbelievable deal. While we were in San Francisco we looked into the possibility of a quick trip to Las Vegas. For $179 each we got returns flights from San Francisco to Las Vegas plus transfers and two nights at the Riviera including a complimentary show. Packages to Vegas hotels are very cheap anyway as the hotels are expecting you to be an American who is going to piss away all his money in their casino.

What happened was we were on Las Vegas Boulevard walking up and down looking for somewhere to book a trip to the Grand Canyon for the following day - we had to go the following day as it was our only full day in Vegas. I asked the man (who turned out to be a scammer) if he knew the right time, and he got into a conversation with us. We were near to a street outlet that was selling trips to the Grand Canyon and as I went 10 yards away to talk about prices and availability, the scammer started talking to my friend.

I called my friend over and the scammer followed, we booked our trip to the Grand Canyon there and then, and we were sorted. The guy was very friendly but seemed to be a bit of a pain in the arse, and said he was at the end of a gambling trip to Vegas, that he had spent all his money and was about to head to the airport later in the afternoon. He told us where he was from and started talking about exchanging contact details and visiting each other and all sorts of other overfriendly nonsense, but I forget now after all these years where he was actually claiming to be from.

Anyway he asked where we were from, and not wanting to give away any information, I just said we were from London. He then said he had two comp tickets to a world famous show (again I forget what the show was) at one of the major Vegas hotels and as he was leaving, we could have his complimentary tickets. On the face of it we had nothing to lose, so we followed him to a public phone while he phoned the hotel and changed the booking details from his own name to ours. We stood next to him while he did this.

That was all a ruse to earn a bit of trust and good will, presumably he was on the phone to a friend at the other end, or nobody at all. You see people on the phone pretending to be having a conversation and it's normally obvious when they are faking it but this guy had it down to a tee.

Anyway I think what happened next was we were going to head back to our hotel for one of the massive $4 breakfasts and probably back to bed for a bit more kip - we had arrived in Vegas around 5am and had probably had about 2 hours' sleep each.

The scammer asked my friend, in a way that I could hear, if he had "told him about the race". The scammer then explained that there was a horse race he knew to be fixed happening in about an hour's time, and if we were interested in making some money, he could put bets on for us. Given that there were two of us, he was about middle aged and we were young men, I considered the risk of him doing a runner to be pretty low at the time, and you have to bear in mind that he had earned our trust with the 'free' show tickets, which were surely worth more than $50 each anyway.

When we got to this huge bookmaker's a few minutes walk away, he said it would look suspicious if a couple of English guys placed a big bet on a horse at random, which seemed plausible, so we were happy to give him $50 each for him to place the bet for us. Actually, we wanted to give him $100 each but he insisted on only $50 each, so perhaps he had a bit of a conscience.

He walked towards the betting counter and looked at the screens etc. This bookmakers' was huge, it was about three times the size of Bolton central. He walked over to the betting counter, had a conversation with someone there, and then came back and said it was too soon to put the bet on and we had to wait a bit longer.

I was desperate for a slash, so I went to the loo, and that's when he gave my mate the slip.

As it was only $50 each it wasn't the end of the world and we got over it pretty quickly, it's not like we had lost a fortune and the guy had kept us entertained for an hour or so. But just asking the wrong person for the time led to being done by a con artist.

When we got back to San Francisco a couple of days later, we were staying in a hotel in Chinatown. As I was in the lobby waiting to check in, this big burly Chinese guy in a suit and white gloves posing as a porter brazenly walked in, and picked up all 4 suitcases belonging to two young girls, and walked out with it in front of them. That's an example of having your holiday ruined by a scammer.

So anyway, that's the two times I've been scammed. Have you been scammed?

Not really as entertaining as largehat's trip to Las Vegas but I was definitely ripped off by a double glazing salesman many years ago.

Briefly we needed a window replacing and made the mistake of letting a double glazing salesman in the house. After an hour or more we were desperate to get rid of him and asked what was the best price he could offer. After some more haggling we got a big reduction on his original quote and agreed a price. A couple of weeks later one of our neighbours had a similar window replaced by the same firm and I asked him how much it had cost. It cost him half what I had paid!

Lesson learned: always get three quotes.

Nope, but my debit card has, twice, by unscrupolous ex-pat Moroccans in Amsterdam. Only knew because of next day when hundreds left my account and had been spent in Morocco - luckily ABN have been good, both times, with money returned to my account - just be careful using ATM's or anything else that using the credit/debit cards.

Yep. some years ago I married a young, beautiful, shapely young lady. Here we are 38 years later, and I don't see any of the original anymore. (In fairness I feel as though I may have changed somewhat myself )

I once got very friendly with a guy online. It turned out to be a woman pretending to be a man. Very strange.

Natasha Whittam wrote:I once got very friendly with a guy online. It turned out to be a woman pretending to be a man. Very strange.

Yes it's weird the stuff that people do online.

Nat, you can be friendly with me if you like, I'm real, just away with the birdies at times.

gloswhite wrote:Nat, you can be friendly with me if you like, I'm real, just away with the birdies at times.

Sorry but I've been burned once, you might be a crazy lesbian posing as a man.

Hhmmm. That seems a reasonable point of view, but I think the crazy is a bit harsh

Well I must admit to being slightly disappointed that nobody else other than myself and xmiles has any interesting scam stories to share.

Perhaps if I tell you about a good friend of mine, not the brightest, who is quite easily taken in, it will encourage anyone who is being a bit shy in coming forward.

Story 1. My friend had just visited the dentist's, the one in Farnworth, between Long Causeway and Kearsley roundabout. As he was walking towards the bus stop, a white van pulled up alongside him and the driver asked for directions. Just as he was about to pull away, the bloke asked my friend, "I don't suppose you're interested in buying a telly?" and a conversation was struck up. The driver claimed that he was working delivering 2nd hand TVs for a shop in Wigan, but the owner was ripping him off or hadn't paid his wages or something, so he had filled the van with some extra stock and he was knocking them out cheap wherever he could.

The driver got out of the van and opened the back doors. Inside were about 20 TVs, not boxed, but shrink-wrapped with a remote attached to them. My friend agreed to buy a telly for £50 but told the driver he didn't have much cash on him and he would need a lift home with the TV as he lived a mile or two away and didn't drive. The driver agreed. My friend got greedy and negotiated a deal where he got a second TV and a DVD player, paying £130 for all three items.

The driver dropped him home with his 2 TVs and his DVD player, my friend handed over the cash, and off the driver went.

The TVs and DVD player had been recovered from a council tip, cleaned up and shrink wrapped. None of them even turned on. They were actually rotten inside.

Story 2. He had just moved into a new terraced house in a large town in the South of England. A week later, there was a knock at the door. There was a bloke stood there with a bucket and a ladder who told my friend he had just washed his windows free of charge and he was starting a window cleaning round in the area.

He told my friend that if he paid £40 up front for the year, he would come and do his windows once a fortnight. The £40 was handed over and the 'window cleaner' never seen again.

And here's one where someone attempted to scam my mother.

My mother lives in a cul-de-sac consisting of about 16 houses and has an inconsiderate next door neighbour. He doesn't tend to his garden very regularly, he had a problem with his guttering which meant my mother's gutter was overflowing, and so on.

Anyway the next door neighbour had a new boiler fitted in his house and left the old boiler and all sorts of other rubbish on his front path for a couple of days, which my mother wasn't very happy about.

My mother is retired, and her next door neighbour works, so he is seldom home during the weekday daytime. Early one afternoon a bloke in overalls knocks on my mother's front door and asks my mother if she knows if the next door neighbour is in or not. My mother tells the man that the neighbour works, and as his car wasn't there, chances are he wasn't in. The man claims that the neighbour had asked him to collect and dispose of all the rubbish on his front path and pay him £30 for shifting it and hints to my mother that he wanted her to pay it and get it back from the neighbour.

My mother can be a bit naive and I am always telling her to be incredibly suspicious of anyone ever knocking on her door asking for money for anything, no matter what the circumstances.

So she told the man, "I'm not giving you a penny" and shut the door in his face.

That evening, the neighbour came home and knocked on my mother's door. It turned out that the guy in the van was a complete chancer and thought he'd try and con £30 out of a neighbour while nicking the boiler to weigh in as scrap, kind of two birds with one stone. Of course, he left all the other rubbish.

OK no more scam stories from me if nobody else shares.

In my old job used to be approached by quite a few Scammers.

The Jewellery Salesman... who had a few samples left over and could do us a deal, all he needed was his petrol back home told him to Fuck off..

The Carpet fitters who had been working on a job round the corner and they had quite a bit of carpet left over... no thanks.

Was working at a house one day when somebody next door actually fell for it.
They paid , for what they thought was a bargain, next minute they came running out the house shouting obscenities , turned out when they unrolled the carpet there was a big hole the middle of it..

largehat wrote:Well I must admit to being slightly disappointed that nobody else other than myself and xmiles has any interesting scam stories to share.

You seem to be assuming that everyone has been scammed at some point in their life. I suspect they haven't.

I have never been scammed, and i hope not to be.

Same with me.

I don't want to come across all moralistic or anything but I've always stayed clear of anything that seemed 'dodgy' to me.

No doubt I've lost out on a few 'bargains' over the years but I've never been 'stung' either.

The bottom line is that if something sounds too good to be true - stay well clear!

Natasha Whittam wrote:

largehat wrote:Well I must admit to being slightly disappointed that nobody else other than myself and xmiles has any interesting scam stories to share.

You seem to be assuming that everyone has been scammed at some point in their life. I suspect they haven't.

No, I'm not assuming that.

Sluffy wrote:Same with me.

I don't want to come across all moralistic or anything but I've always stayed clear of anything that seemed 'dodgy' to me.

No doubt I've lost out on a few 'bargains' over the years but I've never been 'stung' either.

The bottom line is that if something sounds too good to be true - stay well clear!

True, but I wasn't doing anything dodgy when I got stung by the change scam, and nor was my friend when he naively thought he would be getting his windows cleaned for a year if he paid up front. Or nor was my mother when she answered her front door and there was a scammer there.

I've never been scammed, but thank you for asking.

I feel liked I have been scammed, bought something for £150 off amazon on thursday and paid an extra £10 for before 1pm delivery on Saturday and the fucker hasn't even been disptached from DPD (uk)

This is the 3rd bad experience I have had with Amazon this year and certainly will be the last time I use them.

Not sure if that counts as a scam Aaron, unless you don't get your tenner back, which I imagine you will if you ask for it?

Oh I know it's not a scam in the slightest but just had to get it off the old chest.