Five Big Scams - The Podcast

"SteveLehto" (stevelehto) 07/06/2017 at 08:00 • Filed to: None

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In 25 years of practicing law I’ve seen a lot of scams. Here are the five largest scams I am familiar with. And I’m measuring by how many victims there were.

They include:

The Employee Discount Scam - unsuspecting buyers loaded up with worthless extras.

Used Electronics Sold as New - by the big box retailer.

Auto Parts High/Low - where the estimate used the expensive parts but the customer was given the cheap parts.

No Permits Pulled - when the customer was charged for a plumbing permit when they bought their water heater.

Assumptive Selling Credit Life/Disability - to people who didn’t want it, didn’t need it and weren’t even aware they had bought it.

I know I’ve seen more but these were the top five when I made my list. The audio:

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And the video:

Top pic is a Jeep I saw by the side of the road. Yes, David Tracy has been notified.

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Dave the car guy , still here > SteveLehto 07/06/2017 at 08:30

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I lost a body shop customer over about 20 yrs ago for one of those but with a twist. Like your parts high/low but also an insurance scam where they buy parts from a dealer and then have a receipt in hand for new parts. They hit insurance for the higher priced repair and instead of new parts the owner get used and/or repaired parts instead of the guys replacing it. They would return the new parts shortly after the order arrived and tell us they lost the job. They always returned the sheet metal. I stopped by once or twice and found cars that they said weren’t being fixed that were in the middle of body panels being pulled out. I started hitting the shop where we suspected this was going on with large return fees just to get them to go away.

garagemonkee > SteveLehto 07/06/2017 at 08:31

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My insurance company is CONSTANTLY pushing me to buy life insurance. Why? I’m single, with no dependents and enough assets to cover a cremation.

My X-type is too a real Jaguar > garagemonkee 07/06/2017 at 08:43

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Same here when I refinanced my house the bank wanted me to take choke and croak insurance one the house. I’m single and can’t leave the house to the dog. My job gives me life insurance if $100,000 that’ll cover everything but the house.

LongbowMkII > garagemonkee 07/06/2017 at 08:49

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A sale is a sale.

Frenchlicker > garagemonkee 07/06/2017 at 08:59

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Normally you’re the type they wouldn’t want to push too hard. Kind of a one attempt and done approach. You have absolutely no reason to want it so their is very little chance of turning a no into a yes on another day. The only way it would be worthwhile for you is if you have a large amount of debt and don’t want to take a chance of it being passed onto family. Even at that you would probably any term and that doesn’t pay as well as universal.

nerd_racing > Dave the car guy , still here 07/06/2017 at 09:07

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I pretty much caught a body shop doing this to me when my old Mazda 2 got hit and needed the back bumper replaced. The insurance payout was for a new bumper and a couple splash shields and a new rock chip guard. I asked them for my old bumper back before I dropped it off so I could use it for a mold to make a lower lip, before I dropped it off. They said sure thing. The car was unmistake-able green. Well when I got the call to pick it up I said make sure the old bumper is ready to go with it too, as promised. The guy on the phone sounded like he was asked to solve Pi to a terminating decimal. I get there and they said it was company policy not to give back used parts, so I said why did they say they would? and then I asked to see the old bumper, and noticed my old rock chip guard was all scuffed up and was just screwed back on. Plus the edge where the crack was in the bumper was not pliable at all like the other side. Eventually they just said take the car or they were going to charge me for the rental out of pocket. I never went back there, it left a sour taste in my mouth. They just repaired the bumper and pocked the extra money. If I wanted that done I could have done that myself. On top of that, they didn’t even put the tail light bulbs in the proper sockets and my tail lights were messed up. I got a fix it ticket on the way home.

WilliamsSW > garagemonkee 07/06/2017 at 09:10

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They all do it, but you’re exactly right - WTF do you need it for? Nothing!

For Sweden > SteveLehto 07/06/2017 at 11:04

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Also

selling used Jeeps to innocent unsuspecting people

David Tracy > SteveLehto 07/06/2017 at 12:00

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Seriously, I need this Jeep.

SteveLehto > David Tracy 07/06/2017 at 12:20

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It would be about a 9-hour roadtrip for you but I can give you directions. No guarantees that the property owner won’t just shoot you for knocking on the door though.

jimz > SteveLehto 07/06/2017 at 14:41

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yeah, the Palm Pilot story reminded me of something similar. back when building your own gaming PC was a lot more popular, there were a rash of incidents where people would go to a particular retailer (I won’t mention any names, but it’s initials are “Best Buy,”) plunk down several hundred dollars for $_HOT_NEW_GRAPHICS_CARD, get home and open it only to find some dusty, old, obsolete card inside. apparently some people of questionable ethics would buy $_HOT_NEW_GRAPHICS_CARD, then stick their old one back in the box and “return” it. Then- like your situation- unnamed retailer would re-shrink-wrap it and toss it back on the shelf. There were at least a few people bitten by this who would go back to said unnamed retailer and complain, only to be accused of trying to pull a scam.

it got bad enough where the graphics card manufacturers all started putting “windows” in the packaging so that the serial number and barcode labels on the card itself were visible w/o opening the box, and IIRC they had to scan both barcodes at time of sale and if it was returned.

Clown Shoe Pilot > nerd_racing 07/06/2017 at 20:29

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Did you notify your insurance company? Those guys have NO sense of humor about that sort of thing.

Clown Shoe Pilot > jimz 07/06/2017 at 20:37

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Back when Computer City was in business and the internet existed but not really much outside of universities, the fun move was to pull very expensive software off the shelf, make images of all the floppies, copy down the serial numbers/activation keys and then re-shrink wrap it and sell it. Since nobody was activating over the internet, all the guys that worked at the store got a free copy of whatever software. The only guys that got screwed on the deal were guys that’s were roommates and had their computers networked because some software DID check the LAN for duplicate serials

nerd_racing > Clown Shoe Pilot 07/10/2017 at 06:59

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didn’t think of it. I should have.

Wil Haginen > SteveLehto 07/26/2017 at 14:02

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Not sure if I’ve ever told this story before:
I was in the market for a very particular car. It had to have, among other things, a manual transmission and silver exterior. Silver was a very popular color option for this model of a car, and manuals (especially in 2010s) were particularly rare in America. Long story short, I haggled and went back and forth and the dealership agreed to a price and placed an order on it for me. I paid them $5,000 downpayment and was given a delivery date of 3 weeks hence.

A week before the delivery of my vehicle, I got an interesting phone call:
Me: “Hello?”
Sales: “Hi, this is Sales from Dealership. Regarding your order, it turns out your particular combination is very high in demand right now. My manager is forcing me to put on a $2,000 market demand adjustment.”
Me: “I understand. Please cancel my order and refund the downpayment.”
Sales: “Hold on, let me talk to my manager.”

10 minutes later:
Sales: “Hello Mr. Wil! My manager said that since we have already entered into a purchase agreement, we can waive the market adjustment fee.”
Me: “Not interested, thank you, please refund my downpayment.”
Sales: “One moment, let me talk to my manager.”

10 minutes later:
Manager: “Mr. Wil! I wanted to personally call you and apologize, there was a mix-up in the paperwork. We would never have actually adjusted the price!”
Me: “I’m not interested. Just refund the money, or I’ll be speaking with a lawyer.”
Manager: “What can we do to keep your business?”

And that’s how I managed to get another $1500 off the agreed price on my car.