So my grandma wanted to buy a new place over in the countryside. She had a very nice apartment right smack dab in the middle of everything. So, she finds a nice place but instead of going to the owner of the units, finds a “friend” who already owns several units of the building. This “friend” is supposedly really wealthy and so he says that he will buy her a place for a bit cheaper. Asks for money down, she gives, he runs. It was like 120,000 dollars so…oof.
Now she is trying to sue him and he is bribing people so again…oof. She went to a hearing not too long ago. The person did not show up. The guys lawyer did not know s—. Didn’t even know why she was suing his client. Eventually the judge was fed up and threw out the lawyer.
Now, my grandma is getting threats from this person who was supposed to be her friend. A police officer one day knocked on her door and told her to drop all charges as she would not win. She did not talk to him and went to the Police Station where they told her nobody by that name was an officer. She gets letters and emails about how this man has people everywhere!?
So, as a side note, do you think my grandma should let the 120K go? The situation is very complicated but I tried to explain as best as possible.
Not first hand, but a close friend of mine was selling their home. They discovered that the MLS photos were being used on social media site to advertize their home for rent. Evidently scammer meets with potential renter at another location, secures a deposit, and vanishes.
Eleven years ago, I was looking to rent a room during the week – I had gotten a job that was 70 miles from home and didn’t want to drive every day. I got a scam answer that sent me photos of a particular house for rent. Naturally, it looked too good to be true, so I reverse-searched for the owner of the house and of course that wasn’t the person who was in touch with me to rent it.
I found out my Aunt fell for one of the computer help scams the month before she died. I had told not to give anyone her credit card number, just call me to fix it, but they got it anyhow charging her monthly for basically an email newsletter. Fortunately the bank canceled her card. But they still got over $500 from her and who knows how much otherwise.
We need to move later this year and are debating whether to continue renting or try to buy. As a result, I’m on both craigslist and zillow/redfin. I’ve seen multiple listings on craigslist for houses for rent, but the pictures seemed familiar to me. Turns out, they were pulling them from real estate listings to sell. We almost fell for one before we realized the scam; the person had held pictures from a house listed about a year ago, but disappeared when I included the statement of “…when we meet, I’ll need proof of your identity. Craigslist is awesome and full of scams. I’m sure you understand.”
Not sure If this has been mentioned…received this email today
The
Dear Beneficiary
This is Ms. Janet Yellen, as the new 78th Secretary of the Treasury appointed by US President Joe Biden. Please I am contacting you for your payment valued $11.5M deposited by the Federal Ministry of Finance to (Department of the Treasury in Washington) here for immediate delivery to your home address.
As I write you this mail your payment amount is issued and ready to be released to you, we need from you just to verify it with the one we have here to avoid wrong delivery of your check and note that your delivery will commence immediately we confirm your information full name and contact telephone and mobile number with your residence address.
I wait your swift response.
Ms. Janet Yellen
Executive Secretary
Department of the Treasury
Not a scam but sure seemed close to it. We have a small investment account at a big bank. When the ‘advisor’ left to start their own company, they sent ‘here sign this’ forms for us to fill out and send back to them to transfer funds out of the big bank and to their new company (affiliated with a big investment firm). Our account number was not on it. However, we received cell phone calls at both our phones (never answered but there were messages), above papers in the mail, and email messages!
I looked it up and apparently the big bank does have a policy when their advisors leave they can take emails, phone numbers, and addresses with them but not account numbers.
About a week later the big bank investing department new advisor called to introduce themselves.
Honestly, if I were 90 I might have fallen for this, thinking it was some formality.
This past week I have gotten phone calls from unknown sources with a garbled phone messages left. I think that they think I will call them back to see what the garbled message was.
Do you or anyone else get invitations to financial seminars at local restaurants? Like, “Come get a free surf and turf and learn about how you can maximize your retirement income!” H and I get them all the time, usually at a nearby steakhouse or fancy seafood restaurant. We never go…usually they seem to be sent to people over 50, but one of my co-workers who is in her early 40’s got one of these recently. Her 7 year old was upset that they weren’t going to go! Poor kid, thought a free steak dinner sounded like fun!
LOL. We get them fairly often. They aren’t a “scam” but are an advertising strategy. You get a free lunch (no such thing as) but then sit through the presentation. If it actually interests you then okay and if not prepared to be squirmy in your seat.
My husband doesn’t mind sitting through timeshare presentations when we go to resorts, because we always get upgraded to a nicer suite. But ugh, I hate them. One time in Mexico, the salesman (an American) got really nasty when we declined his offer. I told my husband I don’t want to do that again.
I value our limited vacation time per hour more than the value of any freebie we can get from sitting through a timeshare presentation.
As soon as we paid off our home loan, we got bombarded with mail from Fisher Investment. I think they trawl public info for home values versus mortgage balance and make their mailing lists accordingly.
There was one to a nice hotel restaurant, so I went with my elderly neighbors. They won the $50 AmEx prepaid gift card. None of us bought or signed up for anything. The meal was ok but none of us opted to repeat the experience. It was hard to put your finger on what they were selling—I guess nebulous “financial planning.”
No, you have to make a reservation to attend the dinner, and you have to qualify to make that reservation, like have a job, have a certain amount in retirement funds, both husband and wife have to go, etc.
@twoinanddone —actually, some of them say you’re free to invite anyone to come with you and attend, so technically, I could have invited people I saw loitering around en route to my dinner. I didn’t have to (and in fact didn’t) bring my spouse. My neighbors came as H&W just because both were hungry and curious. No one asked us about qualifications for attending or asked anything about our finances at any point. It as an ok experience and satisfied my curiosity.
If one doesn’t want to attend, one can just toss away the invitations, which is what I generally had done.
