Blasted Scooter

One of the first posts I ever wrote on this blog was about my scooter... then I told you about the time someone tried to steal it... and now I'm writing to tell you we sold it.  (sad face)  Sold it, gave it away, were ripped off, I'm not really sure how to word it.  After someone tried to steal the scooter, we were bummed, and not exactly in the mood to pay for the repairs (and of course some how the damage didn't fall under insurance).  But when summer rolled around we decided to go ahead, do minor repairs, and then get rid of it.  The minor repairs were necessary to sell it, but those repairs turned out to cost €95.  In order to actually get the scooter running properly they wanted and additional €240.  There was no way we were going to pay that just to sell it, we left the scooter at the shop for a couple weeks while we debated what to do.  My husband was ready to give up, he said we should just give the scooter to the shop (they resell 2nd hand scooters) and call it even.  We'd make nothing and lose nothing.  This was hard to accept (we paid a lot for the scooter) so I went in search for an alternative.  I came across what I thought was a great website/service, ikwilvanmijnscooteraf.nl  (Wow, was I wrong!)

This company helps you sell your scooters to dealers/garages instead of privately, they promised us €150 for the old beat-up scooter.  It wasn't much, but it would cover our costs and we'd make a little profit.  We picked up our scooter from the shop and anxiously awaited for the appointment the middleman had arranged.  Unfortunately, everything after that went wrong.  Turned out we didn't have part of the registration we needed, which costs us an extra €35 and on top of that it was really difficult to get a hold of the buyer (Garage Schneider from Schiedam).  According to the contract with the middleman we had to make an appointment within 2 days with the buyer and we were also required to follow through with the sale, a breach of contract would cost us €300.  Of course I started growing nervous when it was difficult to make the appointment, I didn't want to break the contract.  Eventually the documents were in order and the garage was on its way to pay cash for the scooter.  But when they finally turned up, they claimed the scooter was in worse condition than the middleman had described and they were only willing to give me €50 instead of €150.  This left us with no option, if we decided not to sell it would be a breach of contract, so basically they ripped us off.  Both companies only profited, it inevitably costs us €80.  We would have been better off just calling it even with the first shop.  Of course I filed a complaint at ikwilvanmijnscooteraf.nl they put us in a horrible situation, and you know what, they never even bothered to respond to the complaint!  I would never recommend either company to anyone, they willingly set us up and didn't follow through with their promises.  I was sick to my stomach by the end of it, but at least the scooter is out of the way and we no longer have to pay insurance on something we're not even using.

XP Defender Scam

The scammers are at it again, this time they hit up my mother in The States.  She was in need of a virus protector so went online to find something suitable for her computer.  She found a product called, XP Defender.  It seemed very legitimate, that's obviously how they rope people in.  She was willing to pay the $90 to protect her computer but had no idea she was walking into a trap.  By the time she realized what was going on, they had had her credit card information and charged her the money.  It took her almost a day of phone calls to various companies in order to get the issue sorted out.  What a hassle and a scare!  She also mentioned a company called Key Progressive Protection.  I couldn't find much information about them but there are plenty of warnings online about XP Defender.  So if you happen to be looking for a virus protector for your computer be sure to steer clear of these companies!  Hope this post along with the one about the Ammyy Scam help keep others out of a bad spot.

Stupid Scammers

Back in November I was almost scammed, I made sure to write a post about it to help other people avoid the same situation.  It was called the Ammyy.com Scam.  Just because they know how to run a scam doesn't make them intelligent, the stupid scammers actually called me again today!!!  My caller i.d. registered a 0000000 number which I automatically found strange, but as soon as the woman started speaking I knew who it was.  She started out with her spiel about calling on behalf of Microsoft and that they were receiving errors from my computer.  I burst out laughing and said, "I know what this is, this is the Ammyy Scam, you've already called me, I'm not falling for this."  The woman hung up before I could say more, oh well, probably best.  Who knows, maybe you'll get the call this week!   

Ammyy.com Scam

I was almost scammed today!!! Over the past few days I've been receiving calls from a strange telephone number : 0501  It's not a Dutch number, or even an American one; I kept letting the call go to the answering machine but they would never leave a message.  Finally out of curiosity I picked up, it was a woman with a thick accent telling me she worked for Microsoft and that they had been receiving error messages from my computer and she would like to help me.  At first it didn't seem so far fetched, sure I get random pop-ups and to be honest I don't know the last time I cleaned up my computer so I went along with it.  She had me type in all sorts of commands, prompting different screens to pop up.  All the while I found the call quite strange, I had never heard of Microsoft contacting customers warning of a possible computer crash.  Everything she explained seemed to correlate with my computer, she even had quite detailed information.  She had me check the "event viewer", and via the "run" command we went through things like "prefetch" and "cmd".  She even went as far as telling me my "clsid", it was all quite convincing yet I still had a bad feeling.  For those that know me, know I am a little on the paranoid side; it just wasn't sitting right.  Then she said she was going to connect me to a colleague of hers that they would help me clean up the errors and allow my computer to run faster and not crash.  (She acted as if my computer was on the brink of crashing).  Then her male colleague took over the call, also with a thick accent, and it wasn't Dutch.  He then asked me to use the "run" command to access a website, this really started ringing alarm bells in my head.  Before following through with the command I pasted the website into Google and I saw it was to remote access my computer.  Basically allowing him to take over control of my computer from wherever in the world it was that they were calling.  No way, just because he says he is Microsoft doesn't mean I am just going to give him control of my computer.  I further Googled the website he had given: www.ammyy.com

Ammyy.com is a legitimate company that helps people connect their computers, but his intentions were not legitimate.  I scrolled through Google finding endless forums about a scam explaining the exact situation I was in.  Still being on the phone he kept asking me if I had pressed the green button in order to download the product yet.  I then informed him of my findings, that all of the forums were calling it fraud/scam and that he didn't even work for Microsoft.  The man's tone of voice quickly changed, he admitted to being a third party but he wasn't going to give up.  Finally I just told him that if the error issues were true my husband would deal with them and then hung up on the scam artist.  After hanging up I started reading further into the scam, it has all sorts of names and has happened to people world wide.  They often target wives, I guess they think we're easy prey.  I am glad I wasn't naive enough to allow them access to my computer, but I do feel stupid for even allowing someone to rope me in as far as they did.  So this is just a heads up, don't fall for the AMMYY.COM SCAM, hang up the moment a strange person claims to be Microsoft and wants access to your computer.  Don't be foolish and allow them access or pay them any fees like I have read others have done!!!