Scams I Have Known

[s/v Beth]

How about thread drift- is that a peeve too? :-)

[Johnathon123]

There was a guy around the yacht club in Sydney, he had worked in the office and got the address of owners of yachts on the club register before being fired.

Now at this club it is very difficult for an owner to bring in outside labor as you were expected to use the on site guys, however, the on site guys regularly brought in outside labor to Assist when they got busy. So this guy got an idea to make a fair swag of money.

He set up a fake mechanic business (every boat owner needs a mechanic at some point when you are at a time poor yacht club) and sent out invoices for a few hundred bucks to every boat owner, claiming it was work done at the request of the on site guy. Now it was always a small amount, by boat dollar standards, and the majority of these owners had relationships with the on site team to regularly maintain the engine.

Now I don't know the fine details, but when he was caught, the police claimed he had swindled over $500k from these owners.

How was he caught, an engine he claimed to have serviced had a fault about 3 months later, complaints were made under warranty to the on site guy and everyone out 2 and 2 together.

Probably not something that would affect a cruiser who normally does stuff themselves or perhaps watches boat dollars more than your average racer, but a classic boat swindle nonetheless.

[HopCar]

denverdon, I once had a really ugly cat. I named him Peeve. People would see him and ask "What the heck is that?" I just say, "Oh that's just my pet, Peeve."

[Johnathon123]

Another great one was a Sydney boat builder in the 80's who had the design of choice amongst locals, he was flat out, literally couldn't print the order forms fast enough.

So this guy declared you could have any colour you wanted, as long as it was white and in accordance with ordinary boat building principles back then, you paid a further instalment as the boat went through the 5 stages of construction with the balance due on completion.

So this builder set up 5 boats completed to the 5 stages that triggered a payment and has guys very very very very slowly moving them to completion. In the meantime he brings purchaser A down and shows him the hull at stage one, takes payment, then Purchaser B gets shown the same hull at stage one and builder takes payment, 2 weeks later the process is repeated with stage 2 with the different hull whilst new purchasers are shown the original hull at stage one thus allowing the builder to take payment.

Ultimately a cluster of 80 odd purchasers (almost all of them had paid to stage 5) met at the end to fight over the 5 partially completed hulls and the 6 fully completed boats (had to finish some to keep the game rolling) as the business is liquidated, the builder is carted off to jail for 5 years (out in 8 months) and the money, nobody knows.

[denverd0n]

Originally Posted by HopCar

denverdon, I once had a really ugly cat. I named him Peeve. People would see him and ask "What the heck is that?" I just say, "Oh that's just my pet, Peeve."

Okay, now that there is funny, I don't care who ya are.

[Nikolina]

Watch out for the guy that tells you if I like your health insurance you can keep your health insurance! If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor!

[WebWench]

This one is common and most of you already know about it but people still get taken in.

You see a boat, trailer or boat parts on Craig's list or online and you con hardly believe the good price, often the pictures are wonderful as well. You email the seller and are ecstatic to see it is still available. You then get the email that explain the "circumstances" evidently the seller has some kind o story about how they are not currently in the country and a relative or friend is having to handle the deal and will personnaly deliver the item to you....but you need to wire transfer the funds or sometimes even send a check very quickly.......don't plan on ever seeing the item.

The other is the reverse.....you are selling the item and someone contacts you anxious to buy but they insist on their own "delivery company" so they will send you a check for the item, the delivery and some extra for your trouble....but they need you to immediately cash the check aand then wire the delivery companies money to them. About a week later the bank will back charge you for a check drawn on a nonexistent bank....you will owe the entire amount of the check plus bounced check fees...

And then there is the reply to your Craig's list ad that says they have interest in your boat listed but you have not responded to their request for more info so the Craig's list blind contact info is probably not working....please reply to their gmail address instead.....expect no sale but lots and lots of sleazy spam to your email address.

[ontherocks83]

Originally Posted by Nikolina

Watch out for the guy that tells you if I like your health insurance you can keep your health insurance! If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor!

I heard about this one recently. From what I gather it is much bigger and more complex then any previous scam imagined. Rumors have it that it will put the social security scam to shame, they even have a really great website to help sell the lie. We need to get the word out to everyone in America to be careful and .........oh wait I forgot it's way too late for that.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by ontherocks83

I heard about this one recently. From what I gather it is much bigger and more complex then any previous scam imagined. Rumors have it that it will put the social security scam to shame, they even have a really great website to help sell the lie. We need to get the word out to everyone in America to be careful and .........oh wait I forgot it's way too late for that.

Then theres the scam perpetrated by small groups, to claim you don't have a valid passport and you have to produce your birth certificate and waste countless hours defending yourself. Then there the "take away our guns " scam where shady groups claim that ordinary people will be left defenceless.

Then theres a huge scam , where certain elements from above try an convince ordinary people , that despite countless disasters., that in fact theres no climate change and to quote one of their leaders " sniff sniff, I can't smell no pollution".

Be very careful of these scam artists, increasingly however people are aware of there tricks, Every 4 years , "opinion polls" seem to show that they are being ignored and rendered impotent. Hopefully are a few further polls, they might just go away altogether. Funnily most of them seem to like tea and making merriment , so if you see some nutters in party hats carrying tea bags, well treat them with suspicion and derision

dave

[denverd0n]

So we've pretty much descended to mindless political rants at this point, right?