Beware These Scams!

I wouls also include those places where you buy "paper" certificates for gold and silver. They keep it in avalut for you charging you security fees and you can nef=ver take posession of the physical asset. If you don't hold it in your hand you have nothing and then you still might have something with a tungestun core.

reply to post by fnpmitchreturns


Haha yea if you are going to invest in something like that it's best to have the tangible object itself rather than just a certificate saying you own it.

Originally posted by NotApplicable
reply to post by bowtomonkey

 

Thank you for opening my eyes more on the subject matter. Do you think the episode was meant to be interpretted in only one way? I was only sharing my perspective on the episode.

Do you think since there are so many bad companies offering such low buy back values, people just assume its the best they are going to get and just sell it?

The low buy back values are low because they are selling product that looks expensive hoping to get the highest margin they can. They don't want it back. If they put 100% mark-up they still wont to pay 50%, there are taxes and other costs involved. 100% mark-up is a low mark-up compared with clothes and food etc.

There are some shops that will pay you the full price, minus restocking fee if you buy another product of the same value. These companies are planning to sell your item again. This isn't going to be the case in the cheaper end stores because the product isn't made to last. It's not made to last because well made goods costs more and they are invariably trying to sell their product for less than the wholesale price of the competitors goods.

Example
A. High quality, cost price $2000 (sell $3000) 1ct diamonds, 5 grams - will buy back, less $300 restocking fee
B. Low quality, cost price $1100 (sell $1990) 1ct diamonds, 5 grams - no buy back, you might get 30%

The above is not necessarily a workable situation. With staff costs and High St rental prices, I think that example A. will go broke. Don't ever suspect that you can beat the system, as you will play into example B, hands, and pay less for much less.

It's a cost for service. It is also a cost for a product that was made with love, however people are expecting free love, lol. It's a damning indictment on the level of stupidity in our society - where in fact "A poor man can't afford cheap articles".

To answer your question re: South Park
I think they chose jewellery as the most annoying of infomercial products and this particular episode wasn't thought through, so the statement they made was not what they intended at the start. That would be my guess. It ended up, well this is how capitalism works, despite making out the product and sales are totally shambolic.

I cringe at those shows because the sales people just make it up as they go. I can't but look at the goods as their melt down value, because the product is shoddy. I could recover about 1/2 the purchase price. (Often the cheap stuff from China - coming from the wholesaler, matches the purchase price for the materials alone, here in Australia). In essence, it's possible to buy jewellery 'on sale', which has no mark-up, that can be melted down and reused with no loss from the purchase price. There is no other product like that, as far as I know.

Originally posted by NotApplicable
reply to post by fnpmitchreturns

 

Haha yea if you are going to invest in something like that it's best to have the tangible object itself rather than just a certificate saying you own it.

Both are good investment tools. More people should get hold of the physical product, as very few do and there is peace of mind, in case there is a run on and the physical product doesn't exist etc. There are associated costs with buying gold bullion eg. Physical platinum is much more expensive than gold because of the heat needed to refine it.

I have a small bit of advice:

SAVE YOUR RECEIPTS.

Prices are continuing to climb but companies still continue to make their shoddy crap in China.
Half the stuff I buy breaks within weeks. I am on my 3rd Sony DVD player in 3 months. No, I am not throwing it to the floor or stuffing tortillas into it. Just using it like a normal DVD player. But after a few weeks it stops playing. The one I recently replaced was a Sony DVD player my ex bought me a good 14 years ago. So why can't they make one that lasts even a tenth of that?
So I pack it up, take it back to Target and thunk it on the counter with my receipt and say "here you go". So long as they insist on selling cheap s**t for exploitive prices, I refuse to feel bad.

reply to post by bastet11


That is very wise of you, and sound advice. I've had a few things break on me that I only had for a short time for no real reason and couldn't take it back because I threw away the only thing that proved I bought it

u forgot college

In times of austerity like these (apologies for using the "A" word!) there will always be people trying to make a fast buck from people down on their luck.
However, more than ever, the old adage "If it seems too good to be true the it IS too good to be true" rings truer than any other time I can think of.

I'd like to believe that ATSers are a bit more savvy when it comes to buying and selling on the Internet but a here's a few tips to help you out.
If you're browsing a website you've not used before type its name into Google or whichever search engine you use and just type "review" next to it. Don't just go on the first review you read, trawl through several to get a better idea of what people think of the site. Be wary though as a lot of these sites will post fake reviews to get around this.
Again, type the site's name in and type "Whois" next to it. This will bring up a few site which will give you the demographics of the site i.e. where the site is registered (apologies to our far eastern friends but I tend to steer clear of Chinese registered sites), when the site was registered (if it's registered just before a holiday period then that sets off alarm bells in my mind).
Read the text on the site properly. Is the grammar, spelling and punctuation correct or does it look like it's been converted by a translation engine? If it's the latter, look somewhere else.
Check the contact details. Most legitimate sites provide a telephone number and/or a personalised email address. Most dodgy sites won't provide a phone number and their email is a generic one like gmail, hotmail etc.
Don't be fooled by the fact that the website has a padlock on the address bar. All this means is that the website is secure from a data entry point of view, it doesn't mean the website itself is legitimate.
Only use sites that you know you can trust. Either by personal experience or by peer recommendation.

I realise that this post has gone off thread a little but repeating this information can only help and if it prevents even one ATSer from being scammed then that makes me a happy man.

I have a Samsung something or other from Telus. It's pay as you go...and I only use it for emergencies, I haven't paid a bill yet and I've had it for other 2 months. As opposed to the BB Bold I used to have, which was over 90 dollars a month no matter what I did.

I think people would really be surprised of the prevalence of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (or simply having the traits but not the full-blown disorder). The reason is that if something is very common, people lose sight of it. Like you said, people obsess over the tiny details of a mini-computer or "NotDumbExpensive Phone" and willing fork over so much extra money for texting and phone minutes and justify the expenses for what amounts to gimmicks, often times, and luxury services. Cell phone companies make a killing on texting plans because they don't even cost the company money; it's already sending packets of data every second or so just to keep you connected to the network.

Anytime you do business with any business, you're usually being "scammed" / overcharged. That is the whole essence of profiting. It's taking in or asking for more than you're giving someone else. Who thinks to complain about it except for businesspeople? They don't care. They're guilty of it too. Consumers are too stupid to realize how screwed up it is. Businesses may also realize it's being done to them by the banks (where's THEY get the money from?), so they feel free to do the same to their customers. It doesn't matter if it's Wal-Mart or the local mom and pop -- they're all overcharging. It's just to a larger degree with one.

When does it end? When do we go back to giving people what they are worth and having fair trades? How could anyone stand to work at most places, knowing their labor is always worth more than they're getting paid? You have to be your own boss to make decent money. Anything else will be passing on a percent upward, and for what...? Early bird gets the worm?

Life is really like a monopoly game we enter at the last minute. The game is already over. You're lucky if you're born on one of the winning players sides.

reply to post by Pardon?

If you're browsing a website you've not used before type its name into Google or whichever search engine you use and just type "review" next to it. Don't just go on the first review you read, trawl through several to get a better idea of what people think of the site. Be wary though as a lot of these sites will post fake reviews to get around this.

The same people giving themselves good reviews will also be giving their competitors bad reviews.

There are paid scammers that have 100's of tools they use to destroy the competition. I know because I've had to deal with these types. In some instances, the site with a bad review is the only honest one out there; too busy to play these games. I would take reviews with a grain of salt.

If you buy on the internet you take a risk, so buyer beware. The safe guards kind of work, but I think that most of the time people go into it with gusto because they think they are making a killing. What really happens is they bought something that may or may not represent good value just so they can say they outsmarted the "enemy".

The problem as I see it (addressed above) is that they believe the seller is a kind of enemy, when in the past they bought much less things with better peace of mind. If there was a problem it was fixed with a friendly smile.

There is true value in this and it's not something you want to lose.

Originally posted by bowtomonkey
reply to post by Pardon?

 

If you're browsing a website you've not used before type its name into Google or whichever search engine you use and just type "review" next to it. Don't just go on the first review you read, trawl through several to get a better idea of what people think of the site. Be wary though as a lot of these sites will post fake reviews to get around this.

The same people giving themselves good reviews will also be giving their competitors bad reviews.

There are paid scammers that have 100's of tools they use to destroy the competition. I know because I've had to deal with these types. In some instances, the site with a bad review is the only honest one out there; too busy to play these games. I would take reviews with a grain of salt.

If you buy on the internet you take a risk, so buyer beware. The safe guards kind of work, but I think that most of the time people go into it with gusto because they think they are making a killing. What really happens is they bought something that may or may not represent good value just so they can say they outsmarted the "enemy".

The problem as I see it (addressed above) is that they believe the seller is a kind of enemy, when in the past they bought much less things with better peace of mind. If there was a problem it was fixed with a friendly smile.

There is true value in this and it's not something you want to lose.

I completely agree with you.
Reading reviews on their own can prove dangerous which is why I posted a few other tips to be used alongside each other.

When you buy stuff like computers, cell phones, heaters, tv's, multimedia devices, cars, bikes, tools, machinery etc. do a research. You can end up paying thousands of dollars for things that will break up after a month or have major design flaws.

Long over are times when some brand or line of products is known to be quality or even best buy.

One reason people buy Apple crap is not because they're good but because one knows they will work, especially if its a gift for someone. I've seen a lot of Toshiba, MSI, Asus and Dell laptops and many of them either had major design flaws, simply did not work or are guaranteed to break up after two years due to a very serious heating problem.

Are you maybe an XBox owner? Then you know what a scam is, Microsoft sells products that fail by design.

This makes me think of my hippie friends, now listen to this. They meet a guy says his auntie works for the government in the department that approves pell grants and all. So all he needs is their bank account numbers and he will have 3500 per person deposited directly into it. His fee is only 500 payable after the money is there sounds great right, so they smoke some weed take all of their money out and then have this guy do this the money goes in everything looks cool they pay him. Well after about a week they find out he really screwed them on the account and they owe lots of money, after about three weeks the feds show up and are going to file charges on them, wheres the free money all gone and i would hate to be them. Oh and the guy is nowhere to be found burner phone lol.

I don't understand how some of these are "scams". A scam suggests something that is probably a crime or just truly nefarious.

For instance, "Cash4Gold", how is it a scam that people send in their jewelery and just accept whatever amount comes back in the mail? Go to a pawn shop, haggle, sell it to someone. Honestly, if you do "Cash4Gold" you shouldn't be able to complain. Sorry to come off as "callous".. but come on, really.

Originally posted by Silcone Synapse

For telemarketers,my favorites are:

Pretend to be deaf,mental or both.
Or try to chat them up.
In deaf mental character of course.

Good info OP, thanks for sharing.
Retail scammers are a real pet peeve of mine after being burnt a couple of times, so I am very aware of my rights & obligations these days. Amazing, at how sharing I work in Consumer Law, & start giving a spiel on current legislation will see most back down quickly & with apologies. (LoL-all bluff!!)

LoL Silcone Synapse,telemarketers, I look forward to hearing from. When they ask if the 'homeowner' is there, I oblige & put my 4yo on the phone, telling her a nice man wants to hear all about her day at kinda today. Lol, in her excitement at a phone call, there lots of stuttering, awkward pauses while she thinks of the right words, & telling him to 'hang on' while she checks her facts with me. Shes had them bailed up a good 20 minutes before yelling "Mum I cant hear them anymore"