How to Spot a Radio Scam |
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Duffin
Junior Executive Joined: 24 May 2009 Location: Cincinnati OH Status: Offline Points: 203 |
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Posted: 20 Nov 2009 at 8:22pm |
I made this discovery awhile ago and now you can use it too! We all know these radio scams for credit debt counseling and products you'll never use. Have you ever heard one that sounded like something you might want, like those Acai Berry Weight Loss pills? Well, here's how you can tell how big of a scam it is. Once I tell you, you'll notice all the time.
Count the number of times the phone number is said in the commercial. It's as easy as that. Generally, legitimate commercials will say their phone number at the beginning or middle and then at the end. Scam commercials will often repeat their phone number three, four, sometimes five times at the end. The more times the number is repeated, the more illegitimate the company is. So, the next time you hear a commercial for an obviously scammy company, count the number of times they say their number at the end and you'll begin to notice a pattern. |
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TWCFan
Commercial Hater Joined: 11 May 2008 Location: California Status: Offline Points: 953 |
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Thank you. I might have posted a similar thread some time ago. It's about time someone posts about the radio scams.
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Ad Endless Nauseum
Junior Executive Joined: 11 Oct 2008 Location: San Diego Status: Offline Points: 1044 |
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Maybe it's no coincidence that the ads I find the most annoying are the ones like your examples, where they can't stop repeating the number. We have a "law" center here on the Left Coast, that call themselves the Feldman Law Center. They specialize in mortgage law. They seem to be legit, but they POUND their toll free number and URL into the listener so much that they very much fall into your scam category.
On a side note, IMHO, our republic would be much better served if we limited the national total of practicing lawyers to no more than one per one hundred thousand of the population of each census. Right now, it is about one in three hundred! If we legally got rid of a few, maybe we would be bombarded by fewer bad ads as well. And fewer idiotic disclaimers. (Caution: coffee is hot!) |
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"Si vis pacem, para bellum"
Defense de fumer et de cracher A message brought to you by this station and the Ad Council. |
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RichardCranium
Commercial Hater Joined: 20 Sep 2009 Location: Detroit Status: Offline Points: 1466 |
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??? Uh, limit the number of lawyers?
Yeah, because look how well that works for health care (the AMA limits the number of student admitted to medical school, thus limiting the number of doctors in our country).
What about the legitimate people who need legal help? I would venture a guess that there are more than one or two out of every hundred thousand.
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Thor
Revolutionary Joined: 16 Apr 2008 Location: Rockaway, NJ Status: Online Points: 63905 |
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Plus, the fewer the lawyers, the less competition exists. The less competition, the higher the cost and the lower the quality.
With the ability nowadays to research anything and everything, it's easier to lessen the chance that you'd get scammed.
I listen to a financial radio talk show sometimes. It amazes me the number of people who still call in and say "I got a check from a Nigerian bank, and they say that if I deposit ..." Where have these people been the last decade or two?
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RichardCranium
Commercial Hater Joined: 20 Sep 2009 Location: Detroit Status: Offline Points: 1466 |
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I love that Nigerian scam! I don't know if they have changed how they run it, but it used to be you just sent them your address, they sent you a check for a few thousand dollars, you were supposed to cash it and then send them a money order in that amount to release the rest of it. My buddy Bill would do that and get the checks, but never try to deposit them because he knew it was a con. He has almost a million dollars in checks on the wall in his bar, in increments of between $5000 and $50,000. Hilarious.
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Thor
Revolutionary Joined: 16 Apr 2008 Location: Rockaway, NJ Status: Online Points: 63905 |
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A few years ago, I got an actual piece of mail that informed me I won the European lottery for $823,000. It was very official-looking, with all sorts of names and phone numbers. It was even stamped and signed. Of course, they needed my bank account info, too.
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TheDude22
Commercial Hater Joined: 13 Jul 2009 Location: San Jose, Cal. Status: Offline Points: 789 |
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Another hint is on TV ads, you can spot one that makes no sense. For example, that FinallyFast ad has a Mac getting a BSOD. That was the flaw that spotted it's scamines.
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Me hate Grammar Nazis.
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Ad Endless Nauseum
Junior Executive Joined: 11 Oct 2008 Location: San Diego Status: Offline Points: 1044 |
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Actually, you can get a BSOD on a Mac, if you are running Windows using one of the compatibility programs available for this purpose, on an Intel Mac. When it happens, you just kill the window with Windows, and the BSOD goes away, and your Mac is fine. The only loss is whatever you were doing in a Windows window that you did not save when the BSOD happened.
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"Si vis pacem, para bellum"
Defense de fumer et de cracher A message brought to you by this station and the Ad Council. |
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PrinceJ
Junior Executive Joined: 26 Jun 2008 Location: Hauppauge Status: Offline Points: 123 |
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Another way that you can tell if a radio commercial is a scam is if they have to qualify the word "free". If something is free, a free trial, no explaination is needed they will send you free product. What does "risk free" mean? A return policy perhaps, which isn't much of an offer when you think about it. Free Credit Report.com has so many strings attached you are better off paying for the Credit Report.
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"Even an old fart was once a breath of fresh air"
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Jnmcda0
Junior Executive Joined: 21 Apr 2008 Location: Kentucky Status: Offline Points: 204 |
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I've tried to sell stuff on Craigslist and had Nigerians try to con me. They claimed to be from Wisconsin, but the address they wanted me to send the stuff to was in Nigeria. lol I played along with them for awhile. They sent me a fake PayPal notification and then I used our UPS Worldship program at work to generate a tracking number (it doesn't get billed until a package is actually picked up). They emailed me after a few days and asked why the package hadn't been picked up (the tracking number showed the billing information had been received but the package hadn't been picked up). I said I dropped it off at the UPS Store two days ago and I wasn't sure what happened. After about a week, I finally let on that I knew he was trying to scam me all along.
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RichardCranium
Commercial Hater Joined: 20 Sep 2009 Location: Detroit Status: Offline Points: 1466 |
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Unfortunately a lot of people are too greedy or stupid to catch a scam like this, and wind up losing out. At least you had fun with it! That sounds fun. The only thing that would have made it better would have been to send them a message saying "The CIA is holding any parcel to your destination and investigating faulty paypal notifications sent out by you, I have been advised to not deal with you and have been subpeoned for possible testimony." LOL!
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mst3k4evr
Honor Roll Joined: 17 Apr 2008 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 374 |
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Does saying the web address for the company over and over again count? I was listening to a commercial the other night for some product where they said the web address three times in a row at the end.
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Christine
Honor Roll Joined: 16 Apr 2008 Location: NYC Status: Offline Points: 1094 |
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they said the web address three times in a row at the end
Repeating something three times isn't a scam; it's a bona-fide marketing tactic, I'm afraid. Those infamous "Head-On" commercials being the perfect example. "Repeat something three times, and people will remember," something like that.
JNM, why would you let them off so easy, like they were friends just messing with you?! By all means, if you ever get involved with a scam again, don't be so NICE about it! They deserve to get taken, or at the very least, deeply inconvenienced.
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