Scam warning

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alas
Posts: 2357
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 2:10 pm

Scam warning

Post by alas » Tue Apr 25, 2023 10:31 am

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Cry by the time we are finished with the scam.

So, we never use the old computer, and Geek squad automatically has been renewing our membership, without bothering to ask or even tell us. So, today my husband catches it at renew time and calls up to cancel. And they start with this long involved process to refund our money. Supposedly, to make it easier for their telephone service center, obviously in some distant land with minimum English, they make the customer do all the work by doing it all on line. No big deal everybody does that.

But the first strang thing is the phone guy says do not put in the decimal, just type the 499, instead of 4.99. Then the computer “glitch” happens and it locks the 9 key down on how much they are supposedly transferring to our account as refund. Strange and my husband can’t figure out why the key typed two 9s because he knows he hit it once. But he can’t back it up or correct it, and without him OKing the transfer, it goes through as $4,999. And the guy on the line is going, oh my god oh my god oh my god. So he explains that it just transferred almost 5k by mistake and their account is transfers to customer only so he can’t get the money back from his end and my husband will have to send it to them by gift card or those untraceable money orders you get from the bank and for his inconvenience they will let him keep some of that money, as part of the refund along with the correct refund.

At first it sounded funny, that a tiny stuck key on a computer could make such a mess and waste so much time getting it corrected.

So, he goes to the bank, still thinking it can’t be a scam because *he* called them. And when you call the real company, you are supposed to get the real company.

The bank says, it sounds like a classic scam and checks our long term savings and sure enough, they had DH transfer $4,999 from one of our accounts to another and then demanded “their” money back.

So, before you agree to send money to anybody over a “mistake” you made, check with your bank.

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moksha
Posts: 5050
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 4:22 am

Re: Scam warning

Post by moksha » Wed Apr 26, 2023 3:39 am

Sounds like the Geek Squad is from India. I was pestered by those guys with an average of six calls per day for a year by virtue of being on a senior citizens list.
Good faith does not require evidence, but it also does not turn a blind eye to that evidence. Otherwise, it becomes misplaced faith.
-- Moksha

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Hagoth
Posts: 7075
Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2016 1:13 pm

Re: Scam warning

Post by Hagoth » Wed Apr 26, 2023 11:59 am

Yikes! Gift cards are always a dead giveaway.

So, was the bank able unwind the transaction?
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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