New Internet Scam November 28, 2008
Posted by The Underground Conservative in Internet, Internet Scams, Rip-Offs, Scams, Uncategorized.comments closed
Be on the watch for a new Internet scam making the rounds. I received this in my e-mail box:
Hello,
There is a chance for you to work with us. We are a company that conduct surveys and evaluate other companies. You get hired to go to other peoples companies and act like customers in order to know how the staffs are handling their services in relation to their customers. You will be given the funds you need to do the job (either purchase things or require services), after which you would write a comment on the staff’s activities and give a detailed record of your experience.
Examples of details you would forward to us are:-
1) How long it took you to get services. and smartness of the attendant 2)Customer service professionalism 3)Sometimes you might be required to upset the attendant, to see how they react to client or customers.
This job does not require too much of such experience. You don’t have to pay any fee to get started. Interested?Reply to this e mail for more information.
Ken Harly
Shoppers Guild Inc
oaklaneint@gmail.com
It didn’t take too hard of a Google search to come up with this item:
Many residents have called the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office about their “mystery shopper” experiences and some are filing scam complaints.
Mystery shoppers are asked to visit local businesses, make a purchase, report on the customer service, and return a percentage of the check the mystery shopper received as payment. The mystery shopper is instructed to send the return monies through Western Union. The transferred money is sent to a Canadian address.
One consumer alerted the Attorney General’s Office that she now owes her financial institution $2,000 because the “mystery shopper” paycheck she deposited into her account was bogus.
Legitimate “mystery shoppers” do exist. They are used to help businesses increase sales and improve customer service and do not scam consumers out of money.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, there are signs consumers may have a “mystery shopper” scam on their hands. These include: 1) Correspondence contains misspellings; 2) Poor grammar throughout the offer; 3) A portion of the fee must be returned.
The office of Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen is:
Wisconsin Department of Justice
P.O. Box 7857
Madison, WI 53707-7857
Internet fraud can also be reported to the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
This is another of those scams when someone sends the victim a check which looks perfectly legitimate. The victim deposits the check into a bank account and draws on it to send real money back to the perpetrator. Once the original check is discovered to be counterfeit, the victim is out all of the real money withdrawn plus the amount of the original check and could face criminal prosecution as well.
Remember: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true.
Here was the scammer’s response to my inquiry:
Hello,
I am glad to hear back from you and also to let you your informations are received and reviewed. I would like to further explain the offer to you so you can have adequate details on your duties and responsibilities on your part as soon as you get started. The job is a part time Job and you can still work your other job but just make sure you keep in touch with us often.
Firstly, A payment in form of checks will be sent to your name and address provided to us to do the assignment for our company(Amount on checks Varies)…You will get this payment in order to deduct your commission($250) for this assignment and also have access to the $100+ which you will use at the company you are evaluating but you have to go right away to your bank to have the check deposited and when cleared by your bank,You (Usually 1-3days at most)begin your duties.
YOUR DUTIES
1.Walk into any staples stores or Wal-Mart stores around you and buy any item worth of $100 or less and while making the payment you try to evaluate the attendant at the store ,you get back home and write a detailed report of the incident at the store to let us know how he/she attended to you.
2.Walk into any Western union outlets taking the remainder from the check cleared at your bank and send the funds out but that is after you must have deducted your (commission $250 and the item fee $100 and also deduct the transfer charges) used at staple or Wal-Mart store and Western Union….Prior to receiving the check, our company shall keep in touch with you and also e-mail you the western union information to wire the funds to.After this is done,get back home and write a detailed report of the evaluation at the western union outlet too to let us know how he/she also attended to you.
NB:Excellent Evaluations attracts credits.
Respond to confirm you perfectly understand your duties so you can commence immediately.
Kind regards,
Ken Harly
Shoppers Guild Inc
oaklaneint@gmail.com
Ask and ye shall receive. All I wanted was confirmation of my suspicions, and I got them. Just as the scam should operate.
You are so busted.
Bathroom Graffiti November 28, 2008
Posted by The Underground Conservative in Gummint-Run Skoolz, Liberal Idiots, Uncategorized.comments closed
We’d like to take this opportunity to introduce a new feature here: stupidity in our gummint-run skoolz. It’ll run periodically as we find the numerous examples of the inmates running the asylum.
First up, an example of such stupidity eminating from the state of Flori-duh, where some fifth grade boys were caught laughing at lewd graffiti in a boys’ bathroom. Check this out and ask yourself: What’s wrong with this picture?
BAKER — Several students were questioned after Baker School officials discovered pictures of breasts and a penis on the wall of the 5th grade bathroom, according to an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office incident report.
One boy told the principal that several students were in the bathroom laughing at a drawing on the wall. One of the boys gave him a marker and he drew a picture of a woman’s breasts. He said he went back into the bathroom the next day and drew another picture of breasts, according to the report.
Someone had also drawn a picture of a penis on the wall, which caused students to laugh, the report said.
If you guessed the existence of a report by the Sheriff’s Department, you win the prize of a heapin’, helpin’ of turkey leftovers.
Isn’t this the type of incident that used to be handled by the principal? Why call the police if you already know who is involved? It would have been one thing if it were graffiti on the exterior of the building and a police report was needed for an insurance claim.
But this was an incident in a boys’ bathroom. The school already knew who was involved. Sentence the perps to detention or in-school suspension and make them spend time cleaning those bathrooms. Most likely, they’ll emerge with a different perspective.
Worker Trampled To Death November 28, 2008
Posted by The Underground Conservative in Black Friday, Unhinged, Wal-Mart.comments closed
H/T to Michelle Malkin.
Black Friday kills. Literally. Rampaging, out-of-control shoppers trampled an overnight clerk to death at a Long Island Wal-Mart. Also, a pregnant woman was knocked down and injured as well.
A Wal-Mart worker died after being trampled when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island store Friday morning, police and witnesses said.
The 34-year-old worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.
Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.
“He was bum-rushed by 200 people,” said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. “They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too…I literally had to fight people off my back.”
The unidentified victim was rushed to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:03 a.m., police said.
The cause of death was pending.
A 28-year-old pregnant woman was knocked to the floor during the mad rush. She was hospitalized for observation, police said.
Three other shoppers suffered minor injuries, cops said.
Before police shut down the store, eager shoppers streamed past emergency crews as they worked furiously to save the store clerk’s life.
“They were working on him, but you could see he was dead, said Halcyon Alexander, 29. “People were still coming through.”
Only a few stopped.
“They’re savages,” said shopper Kimberly Cribbs, 27. “It’s sad. It’s terrible.”
It might be yet another reason to shop online, as Malkin points out, but it’s more a sad commentary on the “Me first always and forever” attitude we as a society have adopted and display on a regular basis.
Ryan On The Economic Recovery November 28, 2008
Posted by The Underground Conservative in Economics, Paul Ryan, Taxes, Uncategorized.comments closed
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has an op-ed piece in this morning’s Racine Journal Times on economic recovery. Worth the read, especially this part:
With the exception of expanding bureaucracy, politicians don’t create jobs – they can enact policies with incentives for job creation and economic growth. Small businesses, entrepreneurs, and workers across America are the engines of economic growth. Job-creating policies – such as the economic reforms I’ve proposed in my Roadmap for America’s Future – must be focused on empowering those engines of growth, not further expanding the federal government at their expense.
No politician or elected official has ever created one single job. Not one. All they can do is enact policies and pass and sign legislation that either inhibit or encourage job creation.
However, there isn’t Thing One Ryan can do to stop the Democrats in Washington from pursuing the wrong-headed policies which they are championing. Policies which, as Ryan points out, crippled Japan’s economy in the 1990s.
Important lessons on our current crisis can be drawn from Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s, where deeply flawed policy responses lead to a protracted period of stagnation. In the early 1990s, Japan experienced a sharp economic slowdown resulting from the bursting of a real estate and stock market bubble. Sound familiar? In response, Japan’s policy makers pursued an aggressive agenda of fiscal stimulus packages after 1993. Japan’s preference for public spending at the expense of private investment led to record deficits, increasing government debt to 130% of GDP. Following the array of new spending projects, Japan made the critical mistake of raising its consumption tax rate in 1997, proving fatal for Japan’s already stagnant economy. Rather than addressing the significant structural problems in Japan’s financial sector or reducing taxes to spur sustained economic growth, Japan followed a path of increased spending followed by increased taxes. Such a path proved disastrous for Japan …
Of course. But the better, smarter crowd will be in control. You know, the smug, self-righteous. smartest kids in class who believe the only reason wrong-headed policies and economic systems like socialism haven’t worked is because the right people haven’t tried them.
The Role Of The Right In The GOP November 28, 2008
Posted by The Underground Conservative in Conservatives, RINOs, Republican Party, Talk Radio, Uncategorized.comments closed
Writing at Townhall.com, John Hawkins has an answer for the likes of Mort Kondracke, the Fox News Channel commentator, who recently opined the first thing the Republican Party needs to do is to disassociate itself with talk radio, particularly Rush Limbaugh. The second thing, by the way, was go back to being the Go Along Get Along Gang and give the newly empowered Democrats pretty much whatever they want.
Problem is, the Republicans have eschewed all advice from talk radio, from El Rushbo, from Sean Hannity, from Laura Ingraham, etc. They moved to the left, became advocates of big government, federal bailouts, amnesty for illegal aliens, Medicare presecription drugs, a Ted Kennedy plan for the nation’s schools, and look where it got them.
Hawkins has five hard truths for the RINOs to whom Kondracke is speaking and one of those is that GOP candidates cannot win without the conservative media behind them. That includes talk radio, as well as conservative bloggers.
Because the mainstream media is so heavily biased towards the Democratic Party, most independent voters take what they say about Republicans with a grain of salt. However, independents perceive conservative talk radio hosts and their listeners to be on the “GOP’s side.” So, if they hear criticism of the Republican Party from those people, they tend to think it must be true.
One of the other hard truths is that the GOP losses among Hispanics had nothing to do with its perceived opposition to illegal immigration. This lie is championed by the open borders/amnesty crowd. How do we know? The Republicans nominated one of the biggest advocates of shamnesty in John McCain and still dropped seven percentage points among Hispanics. Amnesty for illegal aliens is not as popular among Hispanic voters as the chattering political classes and talking heads think it is.
Another hard truth is that the Republicans do not win by continuing to move to the left. The Big Tent philosphy does not work when one abandons its principles. Ronald Reagan had a Big Tent GOP. He got Democrats and Independents to agree with him. He sold them on what he believed. He didn’t sell out what he believed in a pathetic attempt to pander for votes. It should be: “Welcome to the party; here’s what we believe,” not “Welcome to the party; we’ll change what we believe to accomodate you.”
Read the whole thing.
Life After People November 28, 2008
Posted by The Underground Conservative in Humans, Life, Science Fiction, Uncategorized.comments closed
The History Channel showed a speculative two-hour program about what would happen if people simply disappeared. One day, one week, one year, 10 years, etc.
You can watch it here:
It’s fascinating to see what impact we have on the world around us, tasks that are done on a daily basis that we simply take for granted that would have devastating impact if we were not here to perform them.
