Crooks sell skint fanbois potatoes instead of iPhones
Greater Manchester police are appealing for help after a number of people who thought they were laying hands on a shiny new iPhone ended up with a sack of spuds instead. The conmen approached people in car-parks and on the street to ask them if they fancied buying laptops or iPhones, but actually gave them some totally random …
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Greedy dishonest people....
.... the "victims", I'm glad they've lost their money! Trying to get a bargain at the misery of someone else.
I can't believe anyone, in this day and age, doesn't know that if someone approaches you out of the blue, offering to sell electrical goods, it's guaranteed not to be kosher. It was even in a car park ffs.
Re: Greedy dishonest people....
In my dad's day it used to be Italian leather jackets- this scam has been around for ages in one form or another.
I would ask anyone who may have fallen victim to these two men
To kindly remove themselves from the human gene pool.
Idiots.
I bet
I bet these are the types of people who don't shop online for fear of fraud.
Utter, utter plonkers.
Which bank is he with that allows him to withdraw £1400 from the cash machine???
It never ceases to amaze me
just how incredibly retarded people can be.
It could have been worse
Potatoes are quite useful - imagine if they'd actually got the iPhone?
Re: What was the guy's name?
Yup, 40 billion Nigerian whatever-it-is. So probably about 20p in proper money.
I brought some potatoes off some big dumb guy last week - when I opened the packaging I was shocked to discoverer it actually contained a brand new iPhone!
Reply Icon
I'm surprised. I would have expected an HTC Desiree.
I may be heartless
But if you're dumb enough to buy a pair of used laptops for £1400 which sounds like a good deal you deserve to get a sack of potatoes.
I mean for god sakes, even if it wasn't a con and it were a real laptop its probably stolen or broken or both. I mean seriously are people these days THAT stupid? (don't answer that)
Ere! This isn't a laptop, it's a bag of potatoes!
Quick, call the Peelers!
Don't buy a laptop in a carpark. It can't be that difficult can it?
These are not victims we should feel especially sorry for - they were trying to buy something that most people would reasonably expect to be stolen.
If someone offered you a new iPhone that you knew to be worth £500 for £200 - SURELY - you would realise something were wrong.
Good money for the crooks - do that just once a day...
Sorry, zero sympathy for the marks.
Tripped by their own greed. Sad thing is, when they catch the fraudsters, they will probably get a harsher sentence than if they had hit the guy over the head and taken off with his wallet.
Incidentally, a previous poster commented, quite correctly, that getting your hands on £1,400 in a few minutes is not a cakewalk. Off the top of my head, I could rustle up £600 (£300 on my cash card, £300 on the Mrs). Beyond that, we'd be looking at having to cash in some savings, and my building society has a limit (£300 IIRC) on how much you can cash in without 48 hours warning. Which leads me to believe there are some fundamental facts missing from this story. Still, it makes a good headline, and takes the plebs mind off the real news...
Re: Sorry, zero sympathy for the marks.
Yeah I was wondering about that, You usually have to book more than a £1000 from the bank. In my experience in the last 6 months anyway.
Re: Sorry, zero sympathy for the marks.
I wondered about getting the cash also, then I remembered something...
HSBC do have a platnium account 'withdraw upto £1000 a day from cash machines'
If you also had a credit card linked to it the £2k in maybe 3 mins
Re: Sorry, zero sympathy for the marks.
Which begs the question, how can someone with so much money to hand be so fucking stupid ? I'm not equating riches with intelligence btw, just pointing out that the richer the guy is, the less need he would have of a knocked-off laptop.
Mind you, when I worked in a small car repair firm, the people with the most expensive cars invariably argued over the bill, whilst people who could hardly afford the coat on their back usually paid without question. When I pointed this out to the owner, he just said "that's hopw they got rich".
Re: "that's how they got rich".
Very true I've found. I've found myself working for a number of millionaires over the years and the great majority (with the odd exception) were the most mean spirited miserly arseholes I've ever come across.
Re: Sorry, zero sympathy for the marks.
[QUOTE="Mr_Pitiful"] I wondered about getting the cash also, then I remembered something...
HSBC do have a platnium account 'withdraw upto £1000 a day from cash machines'
If you also had a credit card linked to it the £2k in maybe 3 mins[/QUOTE]
shhhh! he was undercover... the bills are marked ;)
Want to see some puppies?
They're over there in my windowless, unmarked van, yeah, that one with the rust and the handwritten number plate.
If you ever doubt my comments about have fking stupid the English are, you can always refer back to this article!
Each and everyone deserved what they got, especially the ifannys.
If you disagree, send £1 to PO BOX6656 Freepost 6656
Greed
There's one born every minute and it seems the "one" is invariably greedy. More money than sense, obviously. No sympathy at all from this particular quarter.
A potato instead of a computer?
Are they sure? It could be the mobile version of GLaDOS. The give-away will be if any of them try to kill them and/or offer cake.
(The one with the weighted companion cube in the pocket)
the good news is
. . . that over here are a bunch of very experienced people from all over the world who give their time for free to try to help victims: http://www.scamwarners.com/
Please do read a few stories there and you guys might not be so harsh on the victims (and often their families as well) that we deal with every day
Having said that I agree it's an old con - once upon a time when I was young & foolish I used to follow them around the service area car parks that they infest spoiling their pitch until they left - in those days it was quilts or watches.
Best advice when buying stuff from someone you don't know is to ask take their picture :)
Posted AC for once because of what I do.
Approaches on petrol station forecourts.
We've all been there. Some "geezer" approaches you asking if you wan to buy a watch/phone as you walk into the garage. You instantly sense something is wrong, feel very uneasy and decline.
The worst place for this on my travels is the garages on the A3 outside Guildford. Been approached there many times by people trying to flog stuff.
The other was a woman at Warwick services who needed £20 to take her sick mother to hospital. She had "the cancer" apparently and the more I questioned the more overbearing the woman became. Told the woman that why didn't she seek help in the shop from the staff? She started making excuses and backed off.
When I asked in the shop the staff said this was happening quite often and the police might turn up when they felt like it.
As I left the woman started on her next "victim". I guess if you hang around long enough someone will fall for the story and hand over 20 quid.
Re: Approaches on petrol station forecourts.
But, erm, don't we have ambulances for people with an urgent need to attend hospital?
Re: Approaches on petrol station forecourts.
It wasn't serious enough for that, apparently. The phrase "the cancer" will live with me forever though. The moment that left her mouth the entire thing turned into a scene from The League Of Gentleman.
Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
While I have sympathy for people who are conned through no fault of their own other than being a bit naive. For these people I have not a single jot of sympathy. Anyone who gets approached by some random stranger offering to sell them something on the cheap is bound to know it's either a con or it's stolen goods, either way they should have known better and have only themselves to blame.
Anecdotal story about a dodgy buy on the street
[mindless ramble]
Oddly enough when I was younger a bloke in car spotted me coming out of a shop and called me over to offer me a watch for £20. I bartered him down to £15 (even though I had £30 in my wallet).
This was about 15yrs ago, I still have the watch and with the odd bit of maintenance by a jewellers over the years is still going strong, it is a very unique design and have never seen one since.
On reflection is was a very stupid move but I was lucky enough to come out on top with that deal, something that would never happen nowadays though.
[/mindless ramble]
Re: Anecdotal story about a dodgy buy on the street
Haa haa,
I did the same mindless thing years ago as a wet-behind-the-ears student.
Walking along the street, a guy pulled up in a car and offered me a watch for £40. Showed it to me in a case, and he had a whole back seat full of them. I said as a passing remark I'd take it for £20 and he said OK then. Put it in a box and gave it to me. It's died now, but worked for about 10 years.
It wasn't a Claude Valentino or something like that was it?
Re: Anecdotal story about a dodgy buy on the street
in the Canaries, they don't even bother to pretend that the Rolexes are genuine. They pile them high and sell them cheap. If anyone thinks they're buying the real thing they're idiots, and if anyone from Rolex thinks they are losing money because of it, they're also idiots.
I bought one so my decent watch didn't get ruined by sand or saltwater. It was branded Rolexe (sic).
Obvious solution
Don't buy anything from anyone driving a Vauxhall...
...erm, no, wait... scrub that, just realised I also drive one...
Re: Obvious solution
Good advice in general.
Never buy anything from someone who owns a Vauxhall, including a car ;)
Though in fairness, old Vectras are still fairly plentiful and can be picked up for peanuts, and seem to have a fairly high attrition rate compared to the likes of the contemporary Mondeo (when did you last see a 90s mk1/2?).
I've heard they've actually had laptops, camcorders, cameras boxed; show you them out of the box, put the box into a bag. But when the mark opens the box later, it is a potato / water bottle - either they do a trick and switch the box they're putting into the bag, or they switch the bag.
"...asked if he wanted to buy two laptops for £1,400. He reckoned that was a good deal"
Really? Guess he shops in PC World.
Anyway, so the point of this story is there's two guys running around with massive amounts of hard cash on them, they're criminals, and you've given us a decent description of them? Anyone fancy joining me in a jaunt to Manchester?...
Re: Guess he shops in PC World.
I heard the con artists gave him poor technical information but bullied him into taking covercare, then wouldn't exchage it because the potato was chipped....
The initial spud was a return/refurb'd potato that they tried to palm off on him.
When he opened the spud, in PC World fashion half of it was taken up by trials of anti-virus pesticides.
Then a week later he finds out the price of his spud was artificially inflated so that the crims can claim to have a sale at the original price.
You can't con an honest man...
So these victims are not worth police time IMHO.
Of course you can
I think you've been watching a little too much Hustle.
I'm willing to bet the 1400 was a type and should have read 400.
Regardless, the old saying out a sucker born every minute is still very true today.
Banks and Cash Withdrawals
My Barclays Premier Account allows £750 daily withdrawals.
So that plus a credit card, or perhaps a Personal and Joint account like that would get you £1500 in 2 simple transactions. It's not that much money.
Re: Banks and Cash Withdrawals
"Not that much money"?!
That would pay my grocery bills for at least six months.
The comment has been made often enough already, but just what sort of person has that much cash to hand for an un-premeditated transaction. I can only assume that the cash handed over was also dishonestly aquired.
Re: Banks and Cash Withdrawals
Not that much money????
A statement like that puts me in mind of the type of person who goes on these Escape to the Homes under the Hammer in the Country programmes and you can only get a mortgage for £750k for a "modest" dwelling.
I've never owned a car worth more than £1400, £1500 would be a considerable whack to lose.
But then I don't have a 'Premier' account to tell people on an internet forum.
Money from cashpoints
If you ask your bank to increase the limit of how much you can withdraw on your card they will change the limit.
Well Lloyds did for me as going into the bank to withdraw more than £200 was pi$$ing me off I can now withdraw "More™"
As for the stroy - no sympathy for anyone who buys stolen goods and getting fooled by one of the oldest tricks in the book
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