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

Pat said:
I paid him Rs. 2000 and he says "200 aur" and I just bluffed confidently "meter reset nahi kiya tha maine dekha" and then the guy asks the first guy and then profusely apologizes saying he din't know and blah blah. I was wondering how the meter stopped at Rs. 1700.
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Did you get your 300/- back? Or did you just pay 2000/- for 1700/- bucks worth of fuel......
With the number of incidents I have read here, it seems these buggers are getting bolder by the day.
 
Where does all this happen. Never seen anything like this in my life. At least not at Petrol bunks in Chandigarh or Delhi. They fill in the value, set the meter to zero and let the machine do it's job. No interference whatsoever.
 
gauravH said:
Yes, with this logic it's not a scam.
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They why would you write all the below...! :)

gauravH said:
Scam is when someone plays with your emotions to let you part with your money. They gain your confidence and make decisions on your behalf.
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That is what the ULIP agents used to do. Showing their tie-up with banks to garner more confidence.

gauravH said:
One can get easily conned/scammed by that stranded-family-in-an-unfamiliar-place, because of our innate desire to help others. When we give money to such people, we are not expecting it back... it's sort of charity and it makes us feel happy/proud (or whatever). But when it comes to investments, we expect our money back with some profits. Now who is supposed to do the due diligence here? Buyer/investor or the agent? And they even read out the disclosure text for you one the TV. So, you had been warned!
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People do not go and read the full text of investments and the type of returns they will get. Agents tell them: maturity period, and how much they get at the end of the term. Even the policy projection looks fine. I never saw a full disclousre being read on the TV, or by the agent.

gauravH said:
Relatives take advantage of our 'emotions' and try to sell us "stuff we don't need." That's a scam as we are not made aware of the company's real business model. But when it comes to investments/ULIPs etc we have all the necessary documents with us to make a wise decision. And if anything goes wrong, we can always quit midway by paying some penalty or booking some loss. None of the other scam businesses offer such options (Tupperware, Amway, Stranded family, bogus NGOs etc)
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I can bet you most of the people who were sold to by agents, did not read the documents. And Agents suppress facts. Pulling out mid-way: they penalty is quite high, ie; a loss. I know many people who went through this.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
 
Vince said:
c) LIC. LIC. LIC.
To me, its a scam. To sell MFs, one has to give an MF exam and have a certificate. For financial advise, there are certified planners.
But for insurance, oh ho ho, every tom-d-harry can sell it. People who can't explain the bonus calculations. Who don't tell you about the expense fees (i had a policy that was charging 1.5% of the total units per quarter).
Did you know that sometimes the agent makes about 40% of the first premium amount as a commission?
With the internet, theres no excuse to be dumb and lose money by being ill-informed.
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I did not get this.
Is the agent's commission charged from the customer?
Will we be charged less if his commission is smaller?

I thought it was given by the company from their profit.
 
hotshot05 said:
I did not get this.
Is the agent's commission charged from the customer?
Will we be charged less if his commission is smaller?

I thought it was given by the company from their profit.
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Getting commission from company is different. For ULIP kinda products, for 1st year, around 40% commission/cut is given from the customer itself.
But AFAIK, now IRDA has put cap on this commission.
 
hotshot05 said:
I did not get this.
Is the agent's commission charged from the customer?
Will we be charged less if his commission is smaller?

I thought it was given by the company from their profit.
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For LIC, 35% of first premium goes to the agent. And 7.5% for next 2 and 5% subsequent years.
 
I refer moneycontrol/valueresearchonline for comparing MF returns. As a principal, I never take ULIP/guaranteed insurance products. I had only taken term and pure health insurance. I only invest in Equities when I had done full research about the company. I think we have a separate investment thread.
 
Pat said:
Da ****. Something like this happened to me last week in Lonavala. I saved myself though.

This is how it panned out. I asked a guy to do a full-tank on my car. Another guy comes in and starts filling. Stops at Rs. 500. I said "Maine full bola bhaiya". The guy shouts at the first guy and says "Bolna tha na full bola hai, chalo reset karo". Meanwhile the first guy asks me "which card blah blah" (now I know he was trying to distract me).
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This is the most common practice i guess.
If its a 2 wheeler you ask him to fill 200 rupees of petrol, he fills 150 worth of petrol and owner worker comes and distracts you buy Engine oil which is 50 rupees less than other brands.
I knew he was cheating and asked the guy who was filling to move his head from the meter, he starts telling me i told him to fill 15o rupees.
I almost lost my temper and went a head to beat that guy black and blue and suddenly co-worker stopped me.

Then usually that typically hyderabadi accent works out here.. " B*** k* naataka, chotte baccho ke pass karro".
Seriously abusing works! ;)
 
CMC Limited training scam. Swindle 1-2 lacs for some roadside training course, pay them minimum allowed salary. Pay permanent employees with that scam money
 
mrmash said:
Did you get your 300/- back? Or did you just pay 2000/- for 1700/- bucks worth of fuel......
With the number of incidents I have read here, it seems these buggers are getting bolder by the day.
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Yep, I got 300 back. Din't even realise they tried to pull a scam on me until I read this thread yesterday. Good idea for a thread OP.
 
Good thread,useful to know.Some of my experiences including shared from friends,some of which is not really scam by definition.
  • Pre-paid Taxi: In Mumbai Airport,fake pre-paid taxis charging 3x usual charges on a sheet with a government logo and signature of collector.Don't know if they still exist.
  • Fake medicines with claims: Use this to grow your hair or be like more muscular than Arnold
  • 3G speed which is actually 2G or slower!
  • USA: 1) I was in walmart and a 'lost' North Indian guy was asking how does iPhone work,what's the price etc!After few mins, straight to point: What's your social security number? 2) After asking him to **** off,which he did.Next came an Indian woman asking 'Don't you want to be rich?'.She went to about some kind of MLM offering lot of money.During this her partner an Indian guy too joined. They didn't understand why I didn't want easy money. FEW mins later they got a call and went off in a car 3) Put something for sale in eBay or craigslist and you get emails asking some questions and offering same or even more money if you can ship to Nigeria.Followed by a fake paypal mail saying, funding received and will be released after shipment reached payer.I had some Indian guys too asking to ship to India with fake paypal emails.Some even bid ad win in eBay and sent you fake paypal mail.eBay still takes the percent share commission for selling even when it's a scam. Happened thrice to me. 4) Buy something from eBay and seller sends a stone or un sealed packet claiming it was lost on way.eBay accepts their tracking number and you loose your payment.
  • Europe: 1) m15x laptop cheaper by ~1000$. The guys even send you fake ID cards to convince they are real. 2) Except in Germany I have seen post people coming without any parcel and put the paper saying you were not home Buggers! 3) Mainly in Germany,If you sell a vehicle an agent sends a paper saying he has buyers ready to buy it ,you have to sign and send back the attached paper to him,which in actually a contract saying only he can buy it for a price he thinks is right.
  • SEA: Especially in countries with Chinese presence, you get a call saying you won a lucky draw and some million dollars are waiting for you.But alas, the lawyer and bank has to paid,so please pay 200$,which if you pay comes with a request for more money for customs etc. A friend received a postal letter from Chile informing him of winning Chile national lottery for 5million dollar which needs 300$ to be transferred to his account. In UK you will get jobs from gumstreet asking you to transfer some money you receive in your account to another,of which you get 10%. Which is actually Scammers asking victims to pay you and you sending to scammer. Helps them not to be traced,incriminating you.Police does nothing in this case.
  • A cute gal in Eastern Europe(Usually Russia/Ukraine or Philippines) sending a mail and picture saying you are cute. Then it goes with back and forth mail and she indicates falling in love with you.But she has no money to visit you. She's dying to meet you so please give her some money to visit. This is usually followed by mother in hospital and money had to spent.She still has not enough,please send more and so on.
Beware of variations of these.
 
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Another one - insurance agents.

MO: Mostly the agents fill up the form on the customer's behalf. Instead of one time payment which the customer intends, the agent fill up the form for recurring tenure. The agent even provide his mobile number instead of the customer's. The customer unaware of the policy conditions, even misses due reminders, and ended up defaulters.

Tip: ReadYourDocumentCarefullyBeforeInvesting (one of the longest word in English language :p)
 
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