The Black Vault

Had a strange phone call this morning. Guess what I won this time?

Voice starts out confiming who I am, all the personal information, I have won either one fo the following: LOng list of fantastic prizes from $100k, to cars, or trips, or airlines tickets, long long involved process of coming down to Ventura Blvd, spinning wheel, either get this or that, maybe a further scratch off, endless convoluted ridiculous steps, and finally the hook comes,where you will be responsible for the taxes. I stopped her asked how do we do that, do you withhold them? Then it started getting her frustrated as we got to the next thing, a resort presentation, I can just imagine that would have been after getting you to Las Vegas where you are trapped with an army of sharks, probably like the Glen Gary, Glen Ross movie, just a boiler room operation scamming poeple.

The entire thing began as telling me You filled out a card at the Northridge Mall for a Mercedes, which is where all the information came from on that card. I played dumb, and questioned her when, and she tried to tell me November 4, 2011. I said, "NO Way", I never filled out a card in November, I actually never go to the mall, but I did remember when we did fill out that card. It was a drawing for a Mecedes, displayed right outside Sears in the middle of the mall, so I filled out a card and dropped it in the box, that also had the name of a major local dealer as the supplier of the car. Galpin Ford if I recall, the biggest Ford dealer in the Nation.

I filled that card out at least 7 years ago or more. Who hasn't done these things, where you figured this is a major mall, major car dealer, outside Sears, and look where that card ended up.

As soon as I got real pointed with her about the card date, last November she started to end the call and hang up on me, but at least I let her waste close to 10 minutes of her time with the presentation, as I just listened and let her talk. I just waited for the hook, which was step one to get us to the resort scam presentation, and/or scam us to write a check for the taxes on the so called prize.

Moral of the story again, nobody ever wins anything, but we all think we might and probably have all done the same things, filling out a card to win that shinny new car. this is where it ends up 7-10 years later. If you ever saw Glen Gary Glen Ross, it was rather a depressing movie, but also showed Alex Balwin, the boss, who held the contacts from the sellers. You had the earn "The premium" contacts, as he held a packet of them in his hands. Cards that probably came from these kind of drawings in a mall. You give them everything they need to know as a profile of age, the targeted groups for time shares.

Sort of wished you would have played along with it greeney2, and found out more info on where to send the taxes.

Then you get LE onto it, and put a stop to it. These people really need to get busted for this crap.

I'm sure you had fun playing her, but I would have loved to see you stick it to all of them (involved with this particular ring) , so the next senior down the road who maybe more gullible , won't get rooked.

Not sure what the best way is to trap them, but sure would be nice to get some advice on it, so we could actually have a crack at shutting them down, with the right info.

My wife is from Mexico and she is fluent in English but she does have a little bit of a hard time reading it.

Just 2 days ago, we received a very official-looking piece of mail. It was addressed to my wife and she placed it on my armoire, which is reserved for bills and serious matters, taxes, etc. Obviously she was concerned with the letter inside the envelope, as well she should have been.

It was one of those perforated envelopes where you tear from each side and then open it up. The paper was a dark orange color.. similar, but not exactly the same as a document from the government/IRS. You know that color.

The letter said that ACTION IS REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY and had all these phrases that I can't recall now, bolded and capitalized, which really made you think you were in big trouble.

But alas, all the damn thing was, was an advertisement for extended protection for your car after the warranty expires.

I wish I hadn't thrown it away so I could tell you exactly how it was constructed and worded but I can tell you that only someone who has a VERY good command of the English language and some smarts and a ton of common sense could see through this thing. My wife would have called thinking she was in trouble. And I'm sure the operators on the other end are trained to sound very business-like and stern, using a tone of voice like a government employee who knows you are in trouble.

An older person without good vision, or a citizen with English as a 2nd language... those were the targets of that ad.

As I crumpled it up and threw it away, I said outloud, "How clever."

But now that I think about it, it sounds predatory and dirty. Kinda makes me mad.

OraProNobis I usually just hang up on this kind of stuff, but the card thing rang a bell, and I knew it was years ago. When I started with the questions, she knew I wasn't going for it, and started shutting the scam down. I do wish I would have gotten the address of where the Ventura Blvd. drawing would have been. We all get so much of this stuff in the mail like Ffrosty said, and the phone. We get construction company calls all the time, and they all say the same thing. We are in you area to see your neighbors , so one day I asked them, what neighbors, and would not let them off the hook. I frustrated the guy so bad he hung up on me. He couldn't even tell me the right zip code I was in.

As the consumers get more and more protection and the ability to block calls, block spam messaages, etc., the sales tactics of these companies are getting increasingly crafty.

It is just incredible--and scary--that 7 to 10 years after you dropped that raffle ticket in the box, it came back to haunt you and was in the hands of a company totally unrelated to the dealership running the raffle.

I know someone who literally has a unique disposable email for every place he has needed to provide an email address...He's got to have at least 50 different emails. When spam comes to one of them, he has kept track of who he gave that email to and he reports it. I have an email account that autoresponds with something that looks like a bounced email but is really a vacation responder. And guess what, I get like zero spam in that folder any more.

greeney2 wrote:OraProNobis I usually just hang up on this kind of stuff, but the card thing rang a bell, and I knew it was years ago. When I started with the questions, she knew I wasn't going for it, and started shutting the scam down. I do wish I would have gotten the address of where the Ventura Blvd. drawing would have been. We all get so much of this stuff in the mail like Ffrosty said, and the phone. We get construction company calls all the time, and they all say the same thing. We are in you area to see your neighbors , so one day I asked them, what neighbors, and would not let them off the hook. I frustrated the guy so bad he hung up on me. He couldn't even tell me the right zip code I was in.

I agree the ones who use lies and deception to drum up business can be a pain, but that seems to be the flavor of business these days anyhow..(much of it, not all). Lie in commercials, make your product seem like more than it is, and SELL ! SELL ! SELL!

Its the scammers of the money that get to me, like the "you have to pay the taxes" to win this great prize. So many seniors are too humiliated to report it to police after, let alone tell their children about it.

There must be a way to get all the info down on where and how to send it, then inform police, and then send some sort of bogus check through a set up police account, and when it gets cashed, use surveillance.

With all the surveillance techniques that police have you'd think they could have these calls monitored at a finger snap, and eventually break through with enough arrests, that it deters others from trying it. I mean the shear amount of these calls tells you people must be getting away with it a lot, or they still wouldn't be at it.

Is that because no one is reporting it? Are the police actively trying to do something about it? Makes a person wonder.

I have watched some TV shows showing LE busting some of these crime rings, but they seem to pop right back up. The ones they do eventually catch have been at scamming for years and years and are into all sorts of scams.

I don't think they are clever, or brilliant, and I will never call any thief, or any serious criminal those words.

The last thing evil needs is a pat on the back, and an ego stroke, making it feel like its superior , when in actuality it is depraved .

I am going to pretend to send the money next time I get a call , and then talk to police about it.

Problem is the cops are busy with real crime, not that this isn't fraud and a phone scam, but bottom line is its a sales gimmick, so they just put into the catagory of Civil and not criminal, to pass the buck. These things the cops do not do, if you get cheated, they might go after fraud, but not until you are a victim. Until that time, no crime is committed to them. If they did, they would have 90% of the car dealers in prison for lying and fraud.

Greeney, if you don't report them, you are most likely going to hell.

greeney2 wrote:Problem is the cops are busy with real crime, not that this isn't fraud and a phone scam, but bottom line is its a sales gimmick, so they just put into the catagory of Civil and not criminal, to pass the buck. These things the cops do not do, if you get cheated, they might go after fraud, but not until you are a victim. Until that time, no crime is committed to them. If they did, they would have 90% of the car dealers in prison for lying and fraud.

Sounds like what you explaining in the OP was not a sales gimmick, but more a lie so you would send money to them, with no product at the end.

I can understand why they don't go after all the lies and mistruths told to us as consumers , but this sounds like more than a faulty sales pitch.

at1with0 wrote:
Greeney, if you don't report them, you are most likely going to hell.

Haha..aren't you so clever, and cute. Not really