Korean Job Discussion Forums

[DaeguKid]

I dont know if this thread will last but I will give it a go.
One of my best buddies is a criminal lawyer, and he tells me that all jail is is a place where criminals meet, come up with ideas and wait to get out and put the plan into action. He says he has many repeat clients to vouch for this....
Anyhow, everyone has heard of a scam or two in their day (or even pulled one ). So I want to know what is a scam that has shocked or impressed you.

For me, I went to highschool with this real dirt bag. Very untrustworthy and so was the crew he hung out with. One time he went to Canadian Tire (an enormous hardware store chain located in everywhere Canada) and bought a cordless air compressor drill. He bought it to get tires off cars faster as he we was stealing them in the middle of the night, just to give you and idea of how sheety this guy is.

Anyhow, he bought it, took it home, took it out of the box, went out to his garden in the backyard, grabbed a rock that weighed about the same size and put it in the box. Took it back to Canadian Tire and refunded it. The clerk didnt bother checking the box and just gave him his money. Ballsy if you ask me!

Another one was this dude I once saw on Oprah years ago. He goes out and buys a $2000 suit and gets the receipt. Then he goes to the thrift shop and buys 4 more cheap ass suits. He leaves the nice suit at home and leaves a cheap one in the trunk or back seat.

From there he goes to the grocery store, does some shopping, but specifically buys some bleach. Takes the shopping and puts it in beside his "expensive" suit in his car. When he gets to the car he takes a case cutter and and slightly cuts the bleach. Goes for a drive, goes back to the grocery store and shows the manager that his new suit, with reciept in hand, was ruined because some stockboy wasn't careful cutting the bleach case and hence ruined his suit. Cha-ching...refund please, $2,000.
Though this guy did get caught, i guess he was doing it for months on end.

Anyhow, I hope this doesn't get pulled, because i am always amused by reading stuff like this...
Cheers
DK

[swetepete]

Heard a similar one with Rolexes; buy a real one, cash, and then take a good fake back (with the certificate of authenticity from the original) and get your money returned. Then you have a real Rolex (minus the certificate) for free. I guess if you had a good enough copy, it might work. Sounds pretty sketchy to me, but the fellow who told me about it swore up and down it worked twice for him, in the same town even.

But, he was a dirtbag and a scammer, so his swearing-up-and-down was kind of irrelevant.

I suspect there is indeed a great deal of plotting and scheming in jail, but even more than that, it's a place where cons get to hear impressive stories that they later will swear really happened, and really worked.

[Bibbitybop]

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=309&sid=719139

[God bless fark.com]

New Gift Card Scam Uncovered

As Utah shoppers fill the aisles for holiday gifts, an Eyewitness News Investigation uncovers a brand new gift card scam-- one you need to see before you make your next purchase.

Millions of Americans dread holiday shopping. Enter the gift card.

Tonight's Eyewitness News Investigation uncovers why thieves love the cards as much as you do. We go undercover to show you how the bad guys are cashing in on the gift cards you put under the tree.

"I love gift cards, love them. They're the perfect gift."

Debbie: "Does it make life a lot easier?"

Shopper: "Oh, way easier."

"I think from day one, I go for gift cards because it's easy."

So easy to buy, we'll spend more than 24 billion dollars on gift cards this holiday season. But we found, crooks have figured out how to steal those purchases right out from under you.

"Have you heard of the latest gift card scam?"

"No, I haven't."

Jane Driggs/ Utah Better Business Bureau: "Consumers are trying to use gift cards and they're finding out there's no money on them."

So, imagine buying a 50 dollar gift card to send to grandma this year. If crooks have their way, by the time she goes to spend it, the card will have no money on it.

It's a scam Better Business Bureaus across the country are hearing about. We go undercover to show you exactly what the bad guys are up to. Seems they're stalking the same stores as you. But instead of buying their own gift cards, they're writing down account numbers from the ones you'll be buying.

"Anybody could get that number."

Once they have that number, it's easy to go online and figure out when the card's been activated and for how much. So the thieves log on to shop on your dime. We were able to do it ourselves.

To show you how it works, I buy an actual gift card. Before I cash it in, my producer uses the number to buy something for herself.

Debbie: "By the time somebody goes to spend it, it's all spent."

Shopper: "Really."

Holiday shoppers were glad to hear our warning.

There are a couple of things you can do to protect yourself from this gift card scam.

Some cards come with an extra security code or PIN number that's hidden under a protective coating. That's the kind of card you want to buy.

Then, always examine each card to make sure that code is still hidden. If the coating's been scratched off, buy a different card.

We found some advice to get the most out of gift cards, including buying from sources you know and trust. Avoid online auction sites. The cards could be fake.

Check purchase exceptions- does it include all items? in-store or online only? And, treat gift cards like cash. If lost or stolen, report it immediately.

We have a lot more advice, including a partial list of which stores use that extra coating. Just check the "Smart Gift Card Giving" page on the link above.

[maya.the.bee]

I wonder about the Rolex one. I worked at a store that sold Tags, Omegas, and such. The "timepiece" sales people knew their merchandise. They wouldn't take pieces back w/o a thorough inspection, especially a ten grand sale.

How about a book scam? I once went out with a guy that would buy books from dollar stores and bring them to Barnes & Nobles. He couldn't "return" them for $ but they'd give him a card with store credit.

[joeyjoejoe]

a buddy of mine printed up some barcodes on sticky paper and stuck them over the top of the regular barcodes of similar products.

get a blank dvd for the price of a blank cd
get a bick box of imported chocolates for the price of a small box
etc.

[VanIslander]

As a journalist I've heard of plenty I couldn't put in the newspaper. One I thought particularly interesting:

The town garbage dump operator was given a $10,000 contract to bury the written-off remaining inventory from a government liquor store fire. In front of several important witnesses, hundreds of bottles of hard liquor, beer, wine, champagne and the like were covered over with dirt. What no one noticed was that the bottles weren't dumped into the holes in a crash bang sort of way but instead "hand tossed" under the guise of temporary motor failure. As long as they were covered up in the heart of a new trash pile at the busy dump then all was well. But within minutes of the witnesses leaving - to go to a luncheon across town at the dump operator's invite - several men, women and children of the dump operator's family and close friends unearthed the alcohol with shovels (dump closed for the afternoon - union labour given time off) and then refilled the huge holes and even moved a trash pile over to cover it, as would've happened if operations hadn't shut down so soon for the day.

Two month's later the garbage dump operator's son got married and it was an open bar unlike any in the town's history. Even the government officials who'd been hoodwinked were invited. "Nothing's too good for my son," the proud father said. "We went all out." to which someone anonymously quipped from one of the many tables "And no rock left unturned eh?" A long silence was followed by a couple of laughs then a roar of laughter.

Everybody loosened their lips after that. Off the record. Not a word ever hit the local newspaper. Some out-of-town official is said to have showed up six months later wanting to inspect the site but the local official suddenly had amnesia of sorts as neither he nor the police nor the dump operator could recall exactly where in the large dump was the site. Nothing more came of it after that.

But I did publish a story about two women who put on fake uniforms and posed as hotel staff to get close enough to touch the Grey Cup (oldest cup in oldest sport league, Canadian football) at the post-championship game celebration, ending up partying with the players, getting free t-shirts, picks with the players, drinks, late night hooping and hollering with the winners.

And there were way too many examples of conflict of interest where buddies put public funds into the pockets of buddies.

But you gotta love capers.

[VanIslander]

There's a now large private company (one of several under a particular federal program) contracted and paid by the Canadian government to provide loans to small businesses under an agreement which makes it profitable for them to double dip and recall the loans prematurely and seize the assets in cases of nonpayment. In fact, the rates of default and seizure are calculated and ADJUSTED to ensure a tidy return, even targetting firms without means of immediate repayment, a strategy contrary to law and contract, but hard to prosecute. These profits are supposed to be incidental and marginal yet the company simply rolls the revenue generated from seizures into future loans, their own salaries, office and perks, etcetera. Wish I could have had a reliable second source and more complete paper trail to back up that story. We are talking about untold millions of dollars.

[Benicio]

Was selling something on the Internet here in Korea- motorcycle.
Had a guy say he was out of the country, but would be arriving soon.
He was very interested in buying my bike.
The story is pretty elaborate, but it ended up with him "having an associate" send me US Postal Service money orders for a good $3,000 US more than the selling price. He wanted me to wire him the difference so he could pay for his flight ticket to Korea.
I smelled a rat!
Checked out the money orders and they were fakes. I told the guy to go f*** himself. He was trying to act like it was all a big misunderstanding.
The US Postal Service website has a page explaining this sort of scam. They know about it, but it's out of US territory, so they can't really do anything about it.

A buddy of mine works the feds back home and he says they constantly get calls on things like this. He just tells everyone "if it sounds too good to be true, it is!".
He says you wouldn't believe how many people get suckered into these Internet scams and lose a lot of money. One guy, who was relatively wealthy, called their office and was rip-roaring mad because he had lost about a million US in a scam. He wanted them to get it back for him. After they stopped laughing, they told him that there was nothing they could do. The guy couldn't figure out how he was going to tell his wife about it.

Be careful if you are selling anything on the net. These scammers troll sites like that.

[Benicio]

A real good one happened at the restaurant I worked at all through university.
One day, our manager got a formal business letter stating that this guy has lunch meetings at our restaurant. He likes the food, but lately the service has gone downhill. Also, the food could be improved some. He sounded all professional and said stuff like he liked the restaurant and recommends it to other businesspeople, but hoped the quality would improve.
The owner and managers were very unhappy about this situation and held a big meeting with the entire staff. They were very upset and ranted about how we could not let the reputation of the restaurant be ruined- how we had to do better than this and keep it a classy place or we shouldn't be working there.
The very next day, there was an article in the local paper about this story. Well, several of the restaurant owners in the area knew each other and one of them started talking about a letter they received. The other owners piped in that they had received similar letters.
Sure enough, they compared them and they were identical. They all had the same return address- a P.O. Box.
It seems that somebody thought of this scam to try and get free meals out of all these restaurants as that is the automatic response to customers who are unhappy with their restaurant experience.
Trouble is, they tried in too small a town where too many people know each other.
I made copies of the article and passed it around at work. Our boss issued a sheepish apology to everyone and said "keep up the good work!".

I have to give these guys some style points, though.

[Benicio]

When I was a kid, this jerkoff Larry was in charge of counting up the collection plates in church.
He got caught skimming from the take. This was not a kid. This was an adult.
Stealing from a church collection- sheesh!

[Benicio]

This guy, Mike, used to live here in Busan. He was famously known as "Mad Mike". There are posts about him the "freakiest waygook contest" thread.

Anyway, he got a fake press pass on Khosan Road in Bangkok. He used it to get into so many events for free. I saw him get into the press area for the Jane's Addiction/Chili Peppers show in Seoul.

He boasted about all the shows he got backstage with in the States with stuff like this. The stupid thing was that he was never really interested in meeting the bands. He just wanted to get backstage and eat their food. He said that's how he always got busted and kicked out- when they saw him scarfing down all the food and asked him who the f*** he was.
He said about his classic story- he was a starving artist back in the States. What kind of artist? I've got no freakin' clue, but not surprised about the starving part because he had no discernible talent. Anyway, Mr. Bungle(ex-Faith No More) was playing a show, so he scrounges up a messed up french horn from somewhere and goes to the backdoor. He says he's playing with band and shows the horn, so they let him in. He checks it out and heads right to the table of food. He's stuffing his face when Mike Patton comes over to inquire as to who the he11 he is. He says he's the french horn player and Patton has his a$$ thrown out.
I guess old habits die hard because he was trying to get backstage at the Jane's/Chili's show because he was really interested in what kind of food they had back there.
Farkin' idiot!

[DaeguKid]

Im glad this thread didnt get bumped because im pissing myself laughing. The booze one is hilarious..."no expense for my sons wedding!" too much. And the dude who got back stage just to eat some free food...WTF?! You could hang with the Chilli's and you would rather check out the buffet! Wow some people and the rush they go for. I hope more people keep these coming cause im having a laugh...
Cheers
DK

[swetepete]

Oh, I know--Scientology! Best Scam EVER!!!

[SuperFly]

I met a guy like "Mike" in school in Tampa, it was early 90's and his name was ....Mike. I heard from a friend that Mike, whose major was English, would survive by eating Alpo dog food...right out of the can. Said he looked in Mike's fridge one time and there were 2 opened cans of Alpo in there, and Mike didn't have a dog. Mike was a huge alchoholic and would scam his friends and enablers into buying him beer. The walls in his apartment were covered with his poetry. I only met him once at a party, he actually looked normal, but once he had a few beers in him...well, he loved Bukowski.

[huffdaddy]

http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/escams.htm