Common Scams happpening in India, list the ones you may know

[vigilante]

A colleague got a call from a man saying he was eligible for a new card, which would give a whopping 20% cashback - all he needed was to give the OTP code which came on his phone, for verification. He refused, and cut the phone.

Any suggestions on how to proceed? Would like to get the guys behind bars.

I too got a similar call supposedly from ICICI for a card which will directly give 20% discount on any transactions. Then the lady said that I will need to share the OTP which I receive and that would be the passcode for the courier guy for delivering this card. I refused to share the OTP and then she called her manager or some guy who again tried to convince me, but I blatantly refused. Then he hung up saying it's your loss you don't want to go for such an offer. They said they were based in Noida and their accent corroborated that.
This happened last week and I had forgotten about it but reading this post again reminded me how easy it is to fall for such scams if you are not alert.
Although banks continuously remind us not to share such details on phone, I am sure many people still fall for that.

 

[rahulbmg]

@raksrules
you said it. i am super satisfied with amway products. and i dint compel you guys to use them.. And its the people who make the whole thing a scam.

 

[Vince]

There's this "medicine" scam, I totally forgot about.
NONI
This is being touted as a miracle cure for everything from arthritis to cancer.
They have shrewdly lured Pharmacists in tier-2 and 3 cities/towns with conferences and crap, so when people go directly to pharmacists, this is being offered.
One uncle of mine bought a shelf full of this stuff. I do not know for his health or for investment purposes (Now THATS a first, hoarding medicine as an investment)

 

[sharktale1212]

There's this "medicine" scam, I totally forgot about.
NONI
This is being touted as a miracle cure for everything from arthritis to cancer.
They have shrewdly lured Pharmacists in tier-2 and 3 cities/towns with conferences and crap, so when people go directly to pharmacists, this is being offered.
One uncle of mine bought a shelf full of this stuff. I do not know for his health or for investment purposes (Now THATS a first, hoarding medicine as an investment)

Investment part reminds me of scam that was running 3-4 yrs ago in Hyderabad. People were being sold a gold coin above market rates in name it being antique, then they were encouraged to hoard it. "It will sell for 100k USD after 10 yrs or something". Many people fell for that scam.
But obviously, medicine as an investment takes the cake

 

[vivek.krishnan]

Generally, any business model that needs you to invite others is a ponzi scheme if you have to pay to be invited.

There is a email scam from Save The Deals - pay 50 INR for 6 tickets. The fine print? 1680 per year for getting access. And it wont ask for OTP/VbV password.

 

[djmykey]

i agree with you .. its over priced.. but if you use it the way they direct you to use its a big money saver in the long run.. and they also give discounts for those who have accounts with them...

Could you kindly explain how u justify a product being over priced because its a money saver in the long run ??

 

[Criminal]

^^ most of their products are in concentrated form... so they last longer.

on the similar lines, if their products are too good then they save you from hassles in the long run. e.g., their toothpaste is quite efficient in getting rid of "plague", which eventually saves money on dentist visits later in life.

 

[dennis_nail]

^^ most of their products are in concentrated form... so they last longer.

By concentrated, do you mean you are expected to use tiny quantity of their products per usage? Like toothpaste amount that barely covers 10% of your brush, instead of 50%?

 

[Criminal]

^^ concentrated as in where one needs to dilute the stuff with water.

 

[rahulbmg]

@dennis_nail Exactly... You only need to take 10% of it compared to other toothpaste... You can feel the difference in the first brushing itself... and most of all .. It dosent have that high mint flavour...

 

[blkrb0t]

This is another bullshit reason; concentrated my ass. Standard trick taught to all the herd who follow their scam business model.

Go through this part of the comment thread: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Amway/AUS/commen15.htm

[This is a common response made by Amway distributors to the CR articles, and it only demonstrates the ignorance of those who make it. CR did indeed take the concentration factor into account when appropriate. For example, as I plainly state in my my summary of the CR articles:


“For this test, CU first assigned each product a "usage factor"-- basically an index of the products strength or concentration--and then used that to determine the real cost of using the product to obtain effective results. Despite the protests of Amway distributors who claim that CU ignored the concentration factor of their product in testing, CU did quite the opposite and specifically tested the products for concentration before using them in the actual cleaning tests. Products were then listed in order of increasing real cost. Dish Drops were listed dead last, and again the Amway product was singled out as being a particularly poor value.”]

There are references there if you want to dig deeper.

 

[raksrules]

Is there any "confessions" of any (sc)amway member anywhere who got stuck in the "business" but then left everything to come out and cut his losses ?
I want to know what all they do to brainwash people to such an extent.

I still cringe at the thought of my experience in USA where my colleague would listen to Amway "motivational" CD in his car. I mean like WTF.
And when there were multiple people in car, he would put on the radio or some movie songs.
That amway CD is horrendous and is like super brainwashing. Dimaag ka Dahi.

 

[mrmash]

This thread is almost hijacked by Amway it seems. Lets take the Amway stuff and make a new post out of it.

 

[booo]

^^ most of their products are in concentrated form... so they last longer.

Thats pure bull shit... how do I know? my sister became a member once... yeah! I know... I used to take 30 min classes to her when ever she came to my mom/me talking about amway... like talking endlessly about ponzi schemes and how some countries have criminal charges on amway etc...

so yeah... someone claims them to be concentrated shit. its actually bullshit.

 

[Vince]

The thing is these ponzi schemes make use of smooth talkers, and take advantage of people's resistance to be proven wrong.

 

[Criminal]

Thats pure bull shit... how do I know? my sister became a member once... yeah! I know... .
so yeah... someone claims them to be concentrated shit. its actually bullshit.

lol... i don't know. i've never seen an Amway product in real life.

those Amway members told me that those bottles are costly because they are huge and in concentrated form. and i got to know about a cure for plague on this thread

 

[avi]

Oh man, I still remember being bullied by these guys, when I was in college.

 

[Mr.J]

Did you guys read my post about diamonds in this thread? Now let us talk about gold.

Gold is our largest import compared to other countries, except maybe China. Only a very small, almost negligible, amount of it is actually used in industries. Rest of it goes into retail for people like us to buy. Gold is a valuable an safe investment. No doubt about it. But if you are going to buy gold today for better returns tomorrow, you are in trouble. First of all, we Indians don't sell gold until it is necessary. Often, it is our last option. That makes it a dead investment as it has no liquidity. As for returns, there is no indication that gold prices are going to rise any higher.

Let me tell you why gold prices got high in first place. We all know global economy was in a bad state between 2007-2009. Markets all around the world were on a downward slope. In that time investors invested in one thing that guaranteed return on their investment, gold. This led to rise in gold prices all around the world. Sometime later, the markets recovered and investors took their investment out of gold and back into economy. The gold prices came down.

Yes, they didn't go higher. They came down. All around the world. Except in India.

Take a look.

At almost the same time, our gold import also increased.

Source: http://www.equitymaster.com/5minWra...story=1&title=How-much-gold-does-India-import

Now, when we import something, we have to convert our currency in USD and vice-versa for exports. This exchange determines our currency rate. In a oversimplified term, more imports means rise in price of USD.

As the chart shows, the spike in import caused by gold frenzy meant our exchange rate declined fast and we had to pay more for import of necessary commodities such as crude oil. This led to hike in prices of petrol, diesel, gas and subsequently everything.

In other words we, Indian citizens, are also reason why inflation grew rapidly in past 5 or so years.

Now even though gold prices are on lower level, USD is on higher level. This is why gold prices have remained on higher level.

However, there is nothing which says they will go higher or remain so for longer period.

So yeah, don't listen to people who are saying investment in gold is better. It isn't.

 

[Vince]

Mr.J granted investment in equities is what drives industries and the economy.
But when gold has been the standard since it was valued some 5-6000 years ago, I find it tough to give up on it.

 

[avi]

"Today the world's gold stock is about 170,000 metric tons. If all of this gold were melded together, it would form a cube of about 68 feet per side. (Picture it fitting comfortably within a baseball infield.) At $1,750 per ounce -- gold's price as I write this -- its value would be $9.6 trillion. Call this cube pile A."

"Let's now create a pile B costing an equal amount. For that, we could buy all U.S. cropland (400 million acres with output of about $200 billion annually), plus 16 Exxon Mobils (the world's most profitable company, one earning more than $40 billion annually). After these purchases, we would have about $1 trillion left over for walking-aroundmoney (no sense feeling strapped after this buying binge). Can you imagine an investor with $9.6 trillion selecting pile A over pile B?"

"A century from now the 400 million acres of farmlandwill have produced staggering amounts of corn, wheat, cotton, and other crops -- and will continue to produce that valuable bounty, whatever thecurrency may be. Exxon Mobil will probably have delivered trillions of dollars in dividends to its owners and will also hold assets worth many more trillions (and, remember, you get 16 Exxons). The 170,000 tons of gold will be unchanged in size and still incapable of producing anything. You can fondle the cube, but it will not respond."

Warren Buffett