Re: [OT] Fraudster shows up at someone's door and refuses to leave without money

On Sat, 12 Apr 2025 12:42:20 -0700, anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net>
wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

On 2025-04-11 7:20 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

This is one of the weirder crime stories I've heard in a while.
 
https://kitchener.citynews.ca/2025/04/11/fraudster-enters-guelph-home-refuses-to-leave-kitchen-until-paid/
 
What were these people THINKING? Why on earth would they fork over $4500
to some guy who insisted he was owed money? There's nothing in the story
that implies he used force or the threat of force to get the money but
it appears the homeowners knew his demands were bogus.
 
I can only assume they were incredibly stupid, incredibly gullible or

 
Old and scared
 

Good point. Old people often get taken in. I remember when I was doing
tech support and one of my callers told me that she'd fallen for the
grandson-in-jail-needing-bail-money scam.
 
Of course it's not just old people getting fooled. My brother got
scammed several times and never seemed to learn from it. I don't know
how many gift cards he bought for women he'd met online who begged him
for money....

 

that he had some kind of blackmail that he could apply against them. But
the fact that they'd called the police afterwards, suggest that they
know they were being scammed and had no fear of what the police might
find out about them if they responded to their call.
 
As usual, the crime reporting in this area is abysmal and gives
virtually no information that would make this make sense, including the
answers to obvious questions.

 
I like the part where he took a check
 
 

 
I hope they had the sense to call the police and the bank the minute he
left so that they could be forewarned and could arrest him when he tried
to cash the cheque. Then again, if they had, the story would have been
about his arrest. Even a signature that didn't match the signature card
might have been enough to defeat him. Mind you, I don't know if there is
anything resembling an attempt to match signatures any more; I suspect
that's gone the way of the dodo and the banks just ignore signatures
entirely. I don't know if my signature has ever matched the my signature
card since it's completely inconsistent but I've never had a cheque
refused because of it.

>
My arthritis has altered my signature so badly that I have trouble at banks
all the time. So they definitely still look at signatures.

Probably a good thing I have not needed to go to a bank in ages. My
handwriting (without arthritis) has always been variable. To the point
where I just kind of laugh at it because it often doesn't even
resemble what I know my signature should look like. Maybe because I
get so little practice at it now that my bad handwriting is just
getting worse.