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Are "con artists" actually rather common?


the13bats

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just one of those nights so a pondering post,

seems more and more friends are telling stories of getting cheated, ripped off hosed, i have to wonder im i just hearing more tales or are more con artists popping up, i will share a few stories so you get what im talking about and please share your stories and opinions, curious do these "con artists" fit in a category of mental illness like anti social,  which seems a bit kind of a label.

here goes,

my buddy jim takes his 60s muscle car to a shop for some restoration work the shop owner says about a month or 6 weeks,

that stretches out to months, jim goes to check on his car and sees missing original parts and when questioning the shop owner is told the parts werent there when jim brought the car in, jim had photographs of the car at the shop with parts in place, so in a lot of heat cussing etc the owner replaces the parts and jim has is untouched, unfixed, molested car towed home.

john has a long time buddy offer to do some handyman work on one of his house, in trade for john doing some online service for jack, john gets right on it and does his part, jack doesnt do any work on johns house but rather damages it further, when asked when he will get on it and fix it jack tells john he has no idea when that he has to put paying jobs first, john is hopeful fulfills his end of it but months slip by and john has to finished the house work himself jack blames john saying he didnt give him a chance to make good.

tom gives his buddy a free old beater car because his buddies car is about to die, his buddy joey as a thanks for toms kindness promises to give tom a yard fountain he makes, but it needs finishing, weeks pass, tom asks about the fountain but its not ready and joey has no idea when it will be, weeks go to months then to years, no fountain, so feeling let down and cheated he cuts ties with joey who blames tom for being too much in a hurry.

charlie buys a cotton candy machine from sam who says its ready to go he is an expert on the machines and trust him, charlie does so and when he goes to use the machine its not good to go, sam argues it is cussing and threatening charlie, who gets opinions from actual expects all say it needs rebuilding sam doesnt accept this and cusses and threatens charlie who cuts his losses and moves on.

in these examples take it that its not a both sides of story idea but the way i told them is how it happened and no  these are not personal just artistic versions of friends stories with names changed like on dragnet  lol,

so anybody else see a rise in this type thing or have it happen to them or a friend, and why does it seem a common thread is the con artists always try to play the victim and blame who they hosed?

 

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I don't think this is a new thing, people have always offered to trade service for service when actual cash is tight. Trouble is, they start off with good intentions at the time of the deal but then life gets in the way. Your first example is different, of course, the garage guy is a crook plain and simple.

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3 hours ago, the13bats said:

that stretches out to months, jim goes to check on his car and sees missing original parts and when questioning the shop owner is told the parts werent there when jim brought the car in, jim had photographs of the car at the shop with parts in place, so in a lot of heat cussing etc the owner replaces the parts and jim has is untouched, unfixed, molested car towed home.

Technically, and legally speaking, that isn't a con-job, it was outright theft. He should have, at the very least, reported the shop owner to the Better Business Bureau.

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17 minutes ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

Technically, and legally speaking, that isn't a con-job, it was outright theft. He should have, at the very least, reported the shop owner to the Better Business Bureau.

jim is a very laid back fellow and at that point just wanted his car back after a months job became close to a year,

i have been there, a guy said the work on my car would take 2 weeks tops, after 9 months of lame excuses and being nasty to me for um...wanting my car back, his last excuse was he wasnt done with it and didnt feel like moving the cars blocking it in, ( i had paid the bill in full )

i said i will be there with osha and the sheriff, and that got my damaged, unfinished car back.

 

ouija,

i have to disagree good intentions then excuses about life in the way doesnt make it right and not a hose job,

i used to own a small specialty car forum a long time member posted sad news he had terminal cancer and was liquidating his stuff,

he sold stuff cheap and of course people jumped on the bargains and helping him,

after the last payment not one item was delivered lots of people cheated, now i have no idea if the guy was sick and passed it was a scam or what but if it is a situation like that you dont cheat people you make arrangements in case you cant come thru.

i posted this mostly curious was it just me or are ripoffs growing.

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46 minutes ago, the13bats said:

ouija,

i have to disagree good intentions then excuses about life in the way doesnt make it right and not a hose job,

i used to own a small specialty car forum a long time member posted sad news he had terminal cancer and was liquidating his stuff,

he sold stuff cheap and of course people jumped on the bargains and helping him,

after the last payment not one item was delivered lots of people cheated, now i have no idea if the guy was sick and passed it was a scam or what but if it is a situation like that you dont cheat people you make arrangements in case you cant come thru.

i posted this mostly curious was it just me or are ripoffs growing.

Perhaps a gentleman's word is no longer his bond? Perhaps promises don't mean anything any more? Perhaps fewer people have a conscience these days?

I buy a lot of stuff on ebay and a couple of times I have been shocked at what people describe as 'new'. I've received several garments that were absolutely filthy ..... like they've been pulled out of a bin!

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7 minutes ago, ouija ouija said:

Perhaps a gentleman's word is no longer his bond? Perhaps promises don't mean anything any more? Perhaps fewer people have a conscience these days?

I buy a lot of stuff on ebay and a couple of times I have been shocked at what people describe as 'new'. I've received several garments that were absolutely filthy ..... like they've been pulled out of a bin!

I think it's a trust issue. If I can't do it myself, I'll get someone I trust to help me. In my eyes trust is sacred. Yeah, you read that right.:lol:

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On 4/28/2019 at 1:55 AM, the13bats said:

just one of those nights so a pondering post,

seems more and more friends are telling stories of getting cheated, ripped off hosed, i have to wonder im i just hearing more tales or are more con artists popping up, i will share a few stories so you get what im talking about and please share your stories and opinions, curious do these "con artists" fit in a category of mental illness like anti social,  which seems a bit kind of a label.

here goes,

my buddy jim takes his 60s muscle car to a shop for some restoration work the shop owner says about a month or 6 weeks,

that stretches out to months, jim goes to check on his car and sees missing original parts and when questioning the shop owner is told the parts werent there when jim brought the car in, jim had photographs of the car at the shop with parts in place, so in a lot of heat cussing etc the owner replaces the parts and jim has is untouched, unfixed, molested car towed home.

john has a long time buddy offer to do some handyman work on one of his house, in trade for john doing some online service for jack, john gets right on it and does his part, jack doesnt do any work on johns house but rather damages it further, when asked when he will get on it and fix it jack tells john he has no idea when that he has to put paying jobs first, john is hopeful fulfills his end of it but months slip by and john has to finished the house work himself jack blames john saying he didnt give him a chance to make good.

tom gives his buddy a free old beater car because his buddies car is about to die, his buddy joey as a thanks for toms kindness promises to give tom a yard fountain he makes, but it needs finishing, weeks pass, tom asks about the fountain but its not ready and joey has no idea when it will be, weeks go to months then to years, no fountain, so feeling let down and cheated he cuts ties with joey who blames tom for being too much in a hurry.

charlie buys a cotton candy machine from sam who says its ready to go he is an expert on the machines and trust him, charlie does so and when he goes to use the machine its not good to go, sam argues it is cussing and threatening charlie, who gets opinions from actual expects all say it needs rebuilding sam doesnt accept this and cusses and threatens charlie who cuts his losses and moves on.

in these examples take it that its not a both sides of story idea but the way i told them is how it happened and no  these are not personal just artistic versions of friends stories with names changed like on dragnet  lol,

so anybody else see a rise in this type thing or have it happen to them or a friend, and why does it seem a common thread is the con artists always try to play the victim and blame who they hosed?

 

Now days it is good to get everything in writing up front.  There are a lot of people who take advantage however, I think we hear about it more because of the internet.  In the 80's a news magazine television show did an experiment, they took a car across the US from east to west and stopped at auto repair shops along the highways in major cities and small towns.  They replaces a simple part (like the fuel filter) with a faulty part and took it to 3 places in each city or town.  They found that in some areas 2 out of the three would diagnose the issue as something major and not even check the fuel filter.  Sometimes it was all 3 or at least one. The people taking the car in knew the symptoms of a malfunctioning fuel filter and described it properly.  Only one town on the whole trip that all 3 shops checked the fuel filter first and replaced it for a minimal fee was Las Cruces, New Mexico.  That is the only reason I even watched that show.

There was another show where on a cable network in the early 2000's that did the same thing in different towns each week.  They hired home owners to let them disable the heating unit with a loose wire or something simple and then picked 3 repair companies to come in to fix it.  In Plano, Texas, where I lived at the time, they had 3 homes and 3 companies that lied or broke something (there were hidden cameras) to get more money.  All of them found the loose wire but none of them fixed it, instead they claimed it was the motor or something else expensive.  I only watched that episode because it was in Plano.  I can't remember what network it was.

 

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rat, ive been a life long gear head and it would seem from about 75 to 85 that stuff was rabid, like the rip offs in the vacation movie,

aamco transmissions were constantly being exposed as huge cons and guess what are still here thriving,

being vehicle savvy i know bs and the new one that has been rampant for about a decade now is the shop says they must have their tech diagnose your vehicles issue, if course the fee for that isnt cheap but will be applied to the repair which the real crappy ones refuse to give any general fees, like lets say worse scenario you need a nee alternator, sure a good shop has done this countless times even to your make and model a ballpark basic idea isnt an unreasonable request but the real cons will babble every job is different etc and refuse even a basic idea, so run like hell from them,

as far as a diagnosis, lets say they tear your vehicle half apart to tell you the xxxx is bad so you either have to pay their big diagnostic fee which seldom includes putting the car back together or move on to their inflated fee for the repair and they refuse to tell you how much it will cost, its really bad.

 

as far as paperwork and contracts, it really only helps if you have the $$$ to sue, 99% of the time even if yiu win you wont see a penny, the cons know this very well.

 

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There's probably a couple of things going on:

  1. It's the Internet.  People are sharing and over-sharing things in their lives, so you hear about it more often
  2. This kind of "theft by promise" is more common among lower-class working folks, who may have good intentions but tend to over-promise or cut corners and cheat when resources and money run out.
  3. Socially, we've had a "love affair" with the "bad boy" since the 1980's or so, when villains were seen as interesting and the "goodie two-shoes" hero was seen as not very interesting.  This is the fallout from that -- minor infractions aren't seen as career or social status destroying.  As an example, at one time affairs between Hollywood stars were scandalous and the stars were controlled by studios.  An affair could break someone's career.  Now it's simply fodder for tabloids and everyone yawns at it.
  4. The moral here, if there is one, is for you as individuals to start promoting and talking about heroes who behave with honor... and tell friends about it and encourage them to spread the stories.  We become the stories we tell ourselves.  Start countering the negative with good examples.
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12 hours ago, the13bats said:

rat, ive been a life long gear head and it would seem from about 75 to 85 that stuff was rabid, like the rip offs in the vacation movie,

aamco transmissions were constantly being exposed as huge cons and guess what are still here thriving,

being vehicle savvy i know bs and the new one that has been rampant for about a decade now is the shop says they must have their tech diagnose your vehicles issue, if course the fee for that isnt cheap but will be applied to the repair which the real crappy ones refuse to give any general fees, like lets say worse scenario you need a nee alternator, sure a good shop has done this countless times even to your make and model a ballpark basic idea isnt an unreasonable request but the real cons will babble every job is different etc and refuse even a basic idea, so run like hell from them,

as far as a diagnosis, lets say they tear your vehicle half apart to tell you the xxxx is bad so you either have to pay their big diagnostic fee which seldom includes putting the car back together or move on to their inflated fee for the repair and they refuse to tell you how much it will cost, its really bad.

 

as far as paperwork and contracts, it really only helps if you have the $$$ to sue, 99% of the time even if yiu win you wont see a penny, the cons know this very well.

 

Yep.   My daughter experienced that from the dealer she bought a new car from.  She took it in for a recall issue and the dealer said they had to diagnose it and would charge a fee for that.  She left and went to another dealer and asked if there was a diagnosis fee for a recall item.  That dealer now takes care of her car because they said no, and were shocked that the other dealer would charge that. 

I never take my car to a dealer to get fixed as I bought it used and I have had bad experience with dealers repair shops.  I am lucky, I have a brother and nephew who are mechanics and if they can't fix it, they at least check and tell me what actually needs fixing.

My idea with getting stuff in writing is that in the issue of trades, you can go to small claims court and get some thing, even the satisfaction of airing the person's bad attitude and a court order for reparation.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/30/2019 at 3:07 AM, Kenemet said:

This kind of "theft by promise" is more common among lower-class working folks, who may have good intentions but tend to over-promise or cut corners and cheat when resources and money run out.

Hi Kenemet

Yes, I do agree that this happens but I have also seen people financially rape someone for their time and demand corners to be cut then sings a sad song to the guy that they want to clean up the mess. It doesn't matter what sphere of life there are the same personality types in every aspect of human interaction.

On 4/30/2019 at 3:07 AM, Kenemet said:

Socially, we've had a "love affair" with the "bad boy"

Never had a love affair with a bad boy and not all of them wear leather and torn jeans as I do.:lol:

Now, bad girls, that is another story a different story but then again they weren't fixing my car.:whistle:

jmccr8

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