Real Stories On How to Handle and Defeat Scams:  A Look Back Five Years Ago to the Present Day Scams

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Hard to believe this was a LinkedIn Post on, How to Handle Scams, just over five years ago.  Although these scammer are getting less direct and more cowardly, this report still holds true facts.  Back then, online Digital Business was just coming of age.

This year I had to revisit this article because I was almost victimized by two elaborate scams.   The 1st consisted of a would be LinkedIn recruiter who me almost hooked me into one of his scams.  He and a company from Belgium wanted me to contact some of their client companies to maintain their relationship and work out payment arrangements during the shut down.  I would be paid $5K per month and 5% on everything I collected.  

I went along with this as the website from Belgium looked legit as did the company I was assigned to from Canada.  The invoice was for over $69K.  Toward the end of the 1st month I was contacted by this scams Canada arm.  The contact had emailed that he had just lost his wife.  He indicated that he would make things right.  He sent a check over night for over $99K to clear all invoices.  I then called the Belgium side, I received email instructions to deposit this check into my account and when it cleared, I was then to pay Belgium.   

In the article I wrote for LinkedIN, those scams were more direct.  The scams today seem to be multi-layered.  If an opportunity seems to good to be true, scams are like that nowadays.

I love my bank.  I met with my bank manager who was just as suspicious as I was so we placed the check in a new account with a $0 balance.  This way if the check had something to empty a balance on it, there would be nothing to empty.  Turns out, we were right.

Sure enough, the check for over $99K bounced.  Looking back, this set of scams pretty elaborate.  Like I said, I love my bank people.

Before the crisis, a guy claiming to be stationed on an oil rig had scams going with folks I had in my network on LinkedIN.  I played along as his scams would not affect me as I knew when he would make the fatal error.  He wrote about his home town in England and how he couldn't call as security would not allow it.  He said he did hire a lawyer who would transfer his life saving into my possession.  

The lawyer wanted $5 to transfer that money.  When I asked the scams Oil Rig Guy, he said no problem, just pay to $5K so the lawyer could send the package direct to me.  They were both quite upset as I told them both to go play in traffic.  There are plenty of scumbags out there in the World.  If it sounds to good to be true, it is. 

Please tell your story in the comments.  You might just help others from being victimized by scams. 

Here is the direct link to the LinkedIn article:

This video was edited for a News Wire article you can access here: http://newswire.net/newsroom/pr/00077062-top-seo-dc-reputation-management.html