scam

“Wanted to let you know about a scammer who goes by the name Gene”

By Prince Of Petworth

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Photo by PoPville flickr user Thundercheese

Thanks to all who’ve sent emails warning others:

“Wanted to let you know about a scammer who goes by the name Gene who came to my home on Saturday, February 13 with a tale of woe. Turns out he’s been working my whole neighborhood (U Street area, around 10th, 9th, Westminster and French Sts) for a couple of weeks now. Not sure if the police have caught him yet. I have attached a full description of the story from my neighbor below. It’s exactly what happened to me. Please warn readers in case he’s still out there.

“On Feb 5th, a man named Gene knocked and asked to use our phone as he accidentally got locked out while changing his cat litter box. Said he lived at 9xx S St NW. Caught off guard we let him in. He attempted to call several numbers. No one answered. Said he needed to get to Bethesda where he had an extra set of keys at the catering company he worked for. Asked for a metro card. We said we wouldn’t give him our card but we were getting uncomfortable having him in the house so loaned him $20 to get him to leave. He left. I checked the last number he called and it’s for Purple Tie by Ridgewells which is an events company so we thought he may be legit. We were leaving the country on 2/6 for vacation so I sent a note to my neighbor who was in Italy at the time. While we were on vacation my neighbor responded that the person house sitting for him said the same guy came by but while asking to use the phone, his (Gene) cell phone was in his pocket went off so he left. We just returned last night 2/14 and while walking the dog today, another neighbor warned me about him. Said the same guy named Gene tried the same thing to another neighbor two days ago so he’s still working this neighborhood. He’s white, thin, late 50’s. Looks like Jim Cramer on Mad Money, the financial show. This guy scammed us out of $20 and don’t want it to happen to anyone else. I don’t think he’s violent but we felt best to give him cash to get him out of the house.”

and

“My apologies for not sending this earlier, but we had the same guy come to our house over the weekend. Luckily, I’d already read about his scam on the ShawNeighborhood listserve, so I took a picture of him and told him I knew his scam and was calling the cops. (I didn’t actually do so, as he hadn’t done anything illegal to that point, but I wanted to scare him away.) His picture, although he seems to use the same name every time, which makes it pretty easy to identify him.

New Scam Alert: “cash to buy deodorant”

By Prince Of Petworth

scam
Photo by PoPville flickr user nevermindtheend

“Dear PoPville,

A man in a tie just stopped me on the Columbia Heights metro platform, flashed a “resume” at me, claimed he had an interview at Giant and asked for cash to buy deodorant. I offered to take him to CVS and buy it for him and he kept refusing and insisting on cash, then he told me to get on the train to work when I refused to go to the ATM for him. He then kept walking up and down the platform trying to scam more people and got real angry when I followed him and called him out on it.

Just a warning to others.”

Heads Up – Phone Scam Alert – “there’s an arrest warrant out for you”

By Prince Of Petworth

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Photo by PoPville flickr user number7cloud

From this morning’s rant/revel:

“Heads up – I just got a phone call from a recording saying that there’s an arrest warrant out for me in Texas and to call this attorney. I’ve been in Dallas for work, so I called the DC police (because your natural reaction is OMG!) and it’s a total scam. Should have known because it was a recording, it never said where in TX and it never said the warrant was for. It rang in as 911, which I grabbed because I’ve never seen that number come up and didn’t know what was going on. Luckily, they’ve got nothing but my number. Unluckily, there’s no way to track these calls or to know who’s doing them.

The DCPD said they’ve gotten a ton of complaints about them so be careful out there folks.”

“Can someone please explain this scam on Craigslist”

By Prince Of Petworth

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Photo by PoPville flickr user angela n.

“Dear PoPville,

I have been trying to help a friend find an apartment and have been monitoring Craigslist for her.

To several ads that either she or I have responded to, we have gotten the identical response –

Hello,

I hope everything is good. I’m glad to tell you that the apartment is still available. We thought we had the place leased to a couple that we gave a tour to today, but now it seems that they changed their mind, so we need to rent it as soon as possible. You were the second one to show interest about it.

I bet you will want to do a walkthrough of the property, but my husband doesn’t want me to advertise the address as a measure of safety. Last time we did that without being diligent, the empty property was broken into and vandalized. We don’t want that to happen again! You will be responsible for cable, internet, and phone, if you decide to have these services. Just to confirm, we DO allow pets at this property. The rental term is one year, but can be switched into a half year lease if preferred. We require one month notice before moving out, as a courtesy.

If you want us to schedule you for a tour, then please visit the link below and get your free score. We recommend this site because all of our tenants used it and never had any problems. All you need to do is fill out the form and you get your score We are not concerned with any negative marks, it’s more of a formality to have it on file, to make sure there are no previous property related issues. You can get it for free at CLICK HERE

Remember, we only need to see the page about the rental history. That’s all we need to see at the showing. We’ll also waive your security deposit if we see that your rating is above 560+.

Once you let me know that you have your credit history ready, then I’ll personally schedule a showing of the place. I know that you’ll love it!

Thank you!

Sometimes the response is signed by Anne Woods, sometimes by Catherine Long. The first time this response came back, my friend did what was requested and then never heard back again. What is it that these people do with this information? . . . . And, what can be done to stop this kind of scam from going on? Notifying Craigslist would not seem to do much as the ads themselves are written so differently in terms of language that it would be hard to tell a valid one from a legitimate one.”

Gotta be using the information gathered for identity theft, right?

“Metro warns public about fare card scams”

By Prince Of Petworth

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Photo by PoPville flickr user m01229

From WMATA:

“Metro today cautioned riders not to buy discounted (plastic) SmarTrip cards from individuals or non-official sellers, as the cards may not work on buses or faregates in rail stations.

Metro is concerned that its customers may lose money by falling victim to discount fare card scams. The transit authority routinely deactivates SmarTrip cards that are purchased fraudulently and then sold to the public for less than the fare value on the cards.

The Metro Transit Police Department investigates potentially fraudulent sales of SmarTrip cards, including monitoring activity on online auction sites.

“Riders should be aware that any SmarTrip card purchased from an unauthorized individual or website may be subject to deactivation and the loss of any value on the card,” said Metro Transit Police Chief Ron Pavlik.

SmarTrip cards are available for sale at thousands of locations around the region, including dispensers at all Metrorail stations, at Metro Sales Offices, and through licensed vendors including CVS, Giant, Safeway, and Walmart. Any card purchased from an individual or unlicensed source is considered invalid and may be flagged for deactivation.”

“scammers posing as third- party energy suppliers are sending fake utility bills via email”

By Prince Of Petworth

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Photo by PoPville flickr user JosephLeonardo

From a press release:

“Pepco is warning its customers that scammers posing as third- party energy suppliers are sending fake utility bills via email to some utility customers around the country. The email asks that customers click on a link contained within the email. It is suspected that, by clicking the link, the customer’s computer could become infected with a virus or malware.

Pepco asks customers to only pay their utility bill by visiting pepco.com or by sending the hard copy of the remittance portion of the invoice through the mail. Customers should not open any email asking that payment be made on their utility bill unless sent by Pepco or by the customers’ respective third party energy supplier. (more…)

Scam Alert – Woman Going Door to Door Looking for Donations for a “Deceased Neighbor”

By Prince Of Petworth

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Photo by PoPville flickr user Nikoo’s Photos

“Dear PoPville,

I happened to read about this scam on Frozen Tropics the other day. Then tonight this woman showed up at my house in Brookland (2900 block of 10th St NE). So she’s certainly not sticking to the H St. area. Same description (She is an African American women, probably in her forties or fifties. She is around 5′ to 5′ 3″. She had her hair braided and pulled back into a ponytail. She wasn’t wearing glasses or any makeup) and a similar story, but this time it was someone who had lived on my block, but had been killed at the Family Dollar. Since I had just read the FT post, I simply told her no, but I wanted to send word your way since she’s apparently not isolated to the H St area anymore and may be headed elsewhere in the city.”

Another Warning for Joggers – Scammer Alert

By Prince Of Petworth

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Photo by PoPville flickr user philliefan99

“Dear PoPville,

I’m sure this is another one that’s been around for years, but just thought I would pass it along for any runners in the area so they could keep alert. I was leaving the food truck corral by Farragut Square around 1PM headed across K St when I saw an altercation between two men, one a runner and the other just a seemingly average pedestrian (although further inspection revealed some pretty dated, ratty clothing). Since I had actually seen them run into each other it was obvious the pedestrian jumped out in front of the runner, then accused him of running into him, causing him to drop and break his watch.

The runner was pretty fit and probably quite familiar with his route and surroundings and therefore very assertive that the other guy had jumped in front of him, so he eventually left with a “F you man”. I can only assume the goal was to coerce money out of the guy for the broken watch, unless he just really likes to fight strangers. I won’t bother getting into the race and description of the scammer, since really it could have been anyone, but thought folks might like to know about yet another thing to look out for in the city.”

Alleged Military Scammer Spotted Again on Metro

By Prince Of Petworth


Alleged Scammer on left with black shirt and duffel

“Dear PoP,

I remembered seeing  this post from a couple of months ago, and I wanted to say that I got a picture of at least one of the scammers running this operation. There was a post from somebody named Jessica asking for pictures of the guy. He’s the guy dressed in black carrying the bag. He asked for $60 for a bus ticket back to Quantico, and one woman gave him the full amount, and then a man in the background gave him at least $40, if not more than that.

This was on the Red Line towards Shady Grove between Union Station and Judiciary Square. He started chatting up the woman just after I got on at Union Station and she had already given him the money by the time the metro pulled into Judiciary Square, so he was fast. His story moved the man next to her so much that he gave him the additional cash. I was sitting farther away, but the elements of the story were that he was away from base, he had been mugged or pickpocketed (could not hear which), and he needed $60 to get back. He got off the train at Judiciary Square saying something about needing to catch the train back the other direction, but I think he may have seen me take the picture. Immediately after the scammer got off the train, there was another man who was wearing his uniform who realized what just happened and told the woman that she shouldn’t have given him the money, because if he was actually in the military the scammer would have gone to the fellow military guy first thing.”

Dear PoP – Possible Metro Panhandling Scams

By Prince Of Petworth


Photo by PoPville flickr user ianseanlivingston

“Dear PoP,

Have you heard about the guy or guys on the metro asking for money with a real novel approach? I’ve heard this several times now and it just hit me this weekend. Can’t remember if it’s one guy or several. The story goes that a guy is up in DC on leave from the military and he’s had his wallet stolen and needs to get back to the marine corps base in lejeune. The guy I saw this weekend had the hair cut and a military bag. He looked the part. After a friend and I got this story we talked and figured out we had both heard this.

Anyways, novel approach to panhandling. It kind of irks me that this guy tugs on the support the troops sentiment. Lots of people fall for it because the kids is so sincere and I hate to see him get away with it. I much rather see the guys with the sign “Ninjas killed my family. Need money for karate lessons.”

Sounds very similar to the door to door scams we hear about from time to time.

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