All Articles Tagged "con artists"
Is He Who He Says He Is? 6 Ways To Research Your Man
Source: istock.com
Today was “Girl’s Day” at work. As you already know, when a group of women get together, and there are no men around, the conversation is bound to turn toward shady dudes. Shady dudes we’ve known personally, shade dudes our friends have been involved with, all the shady dudes we’ve ever heard about. The conversation about these unscrupulous men was compounded by the fact that there was a 20 year old man on Maury lying to a woman, saying he was 27. That’s not so bad but the two had been dating for three years. So, needless to say when she first met him, he was 17 and she was probably, unknowingly breaking the law. This crazy story had a couple of my coworkers sharing even crazier stories about men who ended up being complete con artists. When you start dating, you never know who you’re dealing with initially. So, what precautions should you take to make sure you don’t end up bitter and bamboozled? We also discussed a couple of protective measures in the office. Some of them are a bit much for my taste but to each her own. Check out these techniques and let us know what’s acceptable, what you’ve done and what is taking it too far.
True Life: I Was Dating a Man With a Secret…
The truth is people lie. While most of us tell little white lies, there are people in this world who specialize in lying about any and everything. Really, some of them are more than liars, they’re con-artists. We took to our Facebook and Twitter pages to find out some of the lies our followers have heard during their dating journeys. Turns out some of these men they dated, were hiding some pretty big, unacceptable secrets. Check it out.
Anonymous: The man I was dating for 4 years, got his ex-girlfriend pregnant flew down to Vegas and married her at the Bellagio and I found out almost a year later from a private investigator.
Sharon: Not sure yet???But I got that gut feelin’
How to Avoid These Credit Report Scams
A credit score is a scary number for some people. Con artists use that fear to trick you into taking part in their scams. Once you fall into the trap, they either con you into giving them money or into giving them the information they need to steal your identity and make a big ‘ol mess with your money. The best defense against a scam is knowledge. Once you know what to watch out for, you can recognize these common credit report scams on sight.
Paying for A Credit Report
Each year, you can get a free credit report from each of the three credit reporting bureaus–TransUnion, Experian and Equifax. Many companies claim to give you those free credit reports but require you to sign up for a service or pay a membership fee. These offers are misleading. The only places you can receive your official annual free credit report is through each of the previously listed agencies or through the government’s annualfreecreditreport.com website. Anything that tells you otherwise is a scam.
Hiring Someone to Fix Your Credit
There are advertisements for “credit fixers” everywhere. Sometimes they claim to erase your credit mistakes or raise your credit score a certain amount of points. When these offers don’t steal your money outright, they perform simple credit score corrections that anyone can do for free. For example, you can look at your credit report yourself, locate entries that are there mistakenly, and contact the agencies to have them removed. You can do this on your own without hiring a company.
Submitting to a Credit Report for a Craigslist Job
Craigslist has replaced many newspaper employment classifies and has become the go-to search site for many jobseekers. However, it’s also a hotbed for scams. A common one works like this: A scammer places a fake job ad on the site. When you respond to it, he sends you an email saying the job requires a credit check and points you to a credit check website. In this scenario, the scam is to either capture your information in a fake site or to sign you up for a service the scammer receives a percentage of. While it’s possible that certain jobs require credit checks, it’s usually not necessary until the final stages of the hiring process, along with the drug test and background check.
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Houston Men Make Millions Stealing Houses
(Houston Chronicle) — Wendy Johnson had stopped to check on her deceased parents’ empty two-bedroom house when she spotted the absurd: A “For Sale” sign on the lawn. Johnson, sole heir of her parents’ former home of 50 years, hadn’t authorized any sale. The next time she visited, the locks had been changed. And a stranger claimed the house was his. He’d paid for it and had the legal papers to prove it. But the deed turned out to be a forgery, the handiwork of a daring group of rogue businessmen and con artists who claimed ownership of more than 70 vacant houses and lots across Houston and allegedly made millions by reselling them to unwitting buyers, a Houston Chronicle analysis of pending civil and criminal lawsuits shows. For at least six years, players in a massive swindle boldly entered the Harris County Civil Courthouse with fake deeds bearing the freshly minted signatures of long dead men, faked notaries’ seals and other blatantly false claims to seize and sell others’ property. The consequences of the widespread deed fraud — carried out between 2002 and 2008 — continue to affect hundreds of people in some of the city’s humblest neighborhoods. Much of the mess remains unresolved.
Watch Out for Cons When Paying Debt
(Bankrate) — That angry voice on the phone insists you owe a debt you’ve never paid. But you don’t recognize the debt or the collector. Before you apologize or promise to pay, consider another scenario: It’s not your debt at all. It could be a con — a ruse by a clever scammer. Or it could be a case of “tagging,” in which a collector chases you for a debt that belongs to someone else. Both scenarios pose problems for consumers, advocates and regulators. ”It’s increasingly becoming more common,” says Nadine Samter, an attorney with the Federal Trade Commission. Much of it is unintentional: debt buyers who haven’t done their due diligence, she says. But some of it is phishing, she says. Con men “get an account number and just try and get money.”
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