Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

[theengel]

I knew this old man who had a brain tumor. He had come across one of those snake oil cures and had bought into it. I don't know what kind of 'medication' he was taking, but after he took it for a week, he was instructed to prick his finger and put some dabs of blood on a piece of paper they gave him. Then, he had to FAX that paper to them, and they would tell him whether or not the medication had worked. Yeah, that was the test. Fax a picture of his blood.

He kept telling me, "I'm completely cured now. I have no cancer at all in my system. The medical community doesn't want this out."

Just hearing him talk made me want to either cry or find the bastards who scammed him and insert some home made brain tumors.

I would have pursued that, but I already knew that his doctors had said there was nothing that could be done for him anyway; so if he felt somewhat hopeful or happy, there was no harm in it. He died a few months later.

Anyone else have some good stories concerning scams related to printers?

[emujo2]

Re: Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

Only the usual toner pirates..this still works in bigger corporations..Years ago we did have a customer with a Canon CLC that was counterfeiting, and one of our collage campuses got hit with a virus that ran paper out of every networked MFP. Emujo

[theengel]

Re: Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

I remember seeing a 'Cops' episode (or some show like that) where the officers asked the crook some questions while he laid his hand on a copier tray. They would press the copier button and the copy of his hand would come out, but on the opposite side of the paper, it would say "TRUE." Then when they asked him if he was involved in the robbery, the paper came out saying "FALSE." He fell for it and confessed to everything.

[CraigW]

Re: Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

Only toner scammers.....working on a machine one day, and the girl came back to write down the model # of the machine. I told her the toner was included in contract with us...... She then hung up on them.

[Lagonda]

Re: Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

Does HP with their after sales attitude of "We've got your money now f*** off and stop bothering us" count as a scam?

[blackcat4866]

Re: Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

Years back Mrs. blackcat asked me to make up a fictional manufacturer and model number. The toner pirates never seemed to have that type of toner on-hand. =^..^=

[vincent64]

Re: Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

Like the Binford BT 6100

[vincent64]

Re: Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

Was working on a Sharp one day, heard the lady in the office say "just a moment, my copier guy is here, I'll let you talk to him", she asked me to talk to this person asking about her machine, I picked up the phone, said "hello" and there was no one there...toner scam

[blackcat4866]

Re: Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

Was working on a Sharp one day, heard the lady in the office say "just a moment, my copier guy is here, I'll let you talk to him", she asked me to talk to this person asking about her machine, I picked up the phone, said "hello" and there was no one there...toner scam

Same thing. I understand that the seller just asks " ... to confirm the regular order of toner. I'll just need to confirm that model number. And your name is?" One such unwary customer approved two boxes of toner (each box containing 12). I'm thinking if the seller isn't too greedy, most of the scammed recipients just pay the bill and be done with it. This seller got too greedy and ended up in court. =^..^=

[JimHegs]

Re: Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

Years ago I was in a customer's office when they realized they were hit by a toner pirate, they showed me an invoice from a place called "Your Copier Company", so I guess when they called and said, "We're calling from your copier company" they weren't lying. I seem to remember $750 for one box (2 bottles) of analog Mita toner.

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

Some of the "scams shams" come from legitimate companies and local gov't.
I'll post the legal shams separate from the illegal scams

Some illegal scams:

o Russian Crypto locker virus aka ransome ware. (via SMB access)
scam profit : 1x $2000, 1 x $4000

o Online Gold Scam (here say facts)
scam profit : 1 x $10000, 1 x $30000, 1 x $unknown (too embarassed to say)

o Online Stock exchange buy-ware (here say facts)
I believe the scam works by knowing all separate "specialise software" users next transactions and the parent software buys/sells ahead of it's own individual software traders.
scam profit : 1 x $5000 (credit drained over months) 1 x $unknown(too embarrassed)

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

Legal shams :

o Legitimate Prepaid Mobile Phone sham. (Comes with a free pizza):

Example: Customer 'A' purchases $30 prepaid phone credit for a month of voice and data usage. Customer 'A' sends 100 SMS messages per month for a total of $1.00 charge. That leaves $29.00 of pre-paid phone credit still available at the end of the month. Access to all promised extra services an available phone credit is totally removed by the phone company at the end of each month. Credit rollover althought now allowed, Customer 'A' is prohibited from rolling over his previous credit by purchasing "only $1" of credit from the phone company. To allow full previous month credit rollover, Customer 'A' must again purchase a full block of $30 phone credit to be able to use his mobile phone for the current month.

At the end of a 12 month pre-paid period customer 'A' has been effectively robbed of approximately $350 in paid for services. After 10 years customer 'A' has paid ~$3500 for undelivered phone services. Multiplied customer 'A' by 10,000 customers, would approximate to $3.5m per year in undelivered phone services. Not to mention undelivered voice and SMS services to customers who's pre-paid phone credit has lapsed and is not paid upto date. (I feel for elderly pensioners here.)

The phone company will fail to deliver SMS/MMS messages to any lasped pre-paid phone number after a set period. The phone company will also debit the account of the customer who paid and sent the data to the lapsed pre-paid phone number. Charging customers for any type of undelivered services is illegal. Undelivered paid for phone services is equivalent to a postman throwing snail-mail in the rubbish bin because he couldn't find the customers mail box. Customers who fail to purchase a "full $30/month" pre-paid phone plan will have their pre-paid service debited at an additional higher rate, thereby forcing another pre-paid credit purchase before end of the month. Which effectively enforces "the minimum $30/month" profit rate from every customer. The sale of pre-paid phone credit without the phone company delivering the paid for service is illegal larceny. A customer should be able to pre-purchase phone credit and use that credit over "any time period", and that credit should not be zero out at the end of each month for corporate profit. These phone companies are charging those same customers for a paper bill verses electronic bill accounting, along with extra hidden charges for paying by cash verses EFT.

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

Legal shams local gov't...

o Pay Before Time Sham (aka Poor Tax)
It is fast becoming common practice for local govt's to use the "pay before time" incentive on bills and payments. Anyone that has received a housing rates or vehicle registration bill would have read the incentive to pay before the end of the billing period to recieve a discount on the given bill. The problem exists when the customers cannot pay the given bill by the end of the accounting period.

Example:
Customer 'A' an upper middle income citizen will pay thier account on time every time and receive the discount on offer. Customer 'Z' a lower income citizen will be unable to pay their account on time and will be slugged with the extra amount.

Some simple profit math:
Customer 'Z' (higher amount)
minus
Customer 'A' (lower amount)
--------------------------------------
= Poor Tax paid by Customer 'Z'.
--------------------------------------
Customer 'Z' thereby funded/subsidised Customer 'A' for the privilege of being wealthier than himself. It is my understanding that a "poor tax" (or morally subsidising the rich) is illegal in most democratic countries. Taking from the poor and giving to the rich, the above has no other interpretation.

The above legitimate sham, if left without proper law, can esculate to private sectors who can compound charge over and above the discount rate on offer. Those unscrupulous businesses can move the goal post on any billing/repayment schedule.





Aside.
A financial world governed by sole customer automated EFT debiting/billing, would be a world filled with corporate temptation and profit before people services. Machines are created in this world to serve people, not people born into this world to serve machines. If every business demaned automated EFT as the only payment method; every person would be enslaved to a corporate machine devoid first of financial, then any physical choice.

[ZOOTECH]

Re: Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

WOW - Neo, who is your provider now, and who should we avoid?

[Lagonda]

Re: Scams involving printers/copiers/fax

And I never did get my free pizza