I was reading on a former apelike board about some scam that was running through a major online cigar retailer when I decided I needed to tell a few horror stories about people charging stuff to me.

Thanks for the warning on this. I have never ordered anything from XXXXXXXX cigar and probably never will. I have heard too many horror stories about them to ever want to use them. There are so many ways of people being able to scam your money now that you pretty much have to check every account for unusual activity. I have a couple of other examples of scams that have happened to me.

1. Cramming. A year ago I noticed that my AT&T landline bill was higher than usual. There was a 30 dollar charge on my phone bill for an internet service. I called the phone company asking about these charges. I had never heard of this outfit and called AT&T. The AT&T rep told me that this company was cramming a charge onto my account without authorization. I asked AT&T to stop this charge and said that they could not, that I would have to call the offending company and get them to remove the charges. After a couple of calls I was able to talk to someone from this company and they did stop the charges. I asked them why they used my account and they gave me the name of my wife.

2. Magazine subscriptions. My wife is sort of a sucker when it comes to fast talking people on the phone. One company in Ohio talked my wife into getting a 5 year magazine subscription plan. She would get 5 subscriptions to a variety of magazines that she could change as she wanted. After a year or so the magazines stopped coming. We didn't notice right away since my wife has another magazine subscription service provider also supplying us with magazines. We finally were able to contact the offending company and asked to stop the service since they were not keeping up their end of the bargain. They told us they would but only if we stayed with them another year. We will see if they keep their word. Hah! The other company, however, has been quite dependable and we have never had a problem with them.

3. Work from home. My stepdaughter, who was unemployed at the time, was offered a 'secret shopper job'. All she had to do was cash a check and Western Union someone this money to test a companies customer service. Sound familiar?? Yep, major scam. The $2100 check was fraudulent and the bank told my stepdaughter that if she did not repay the amount immediately they would prosecute her for fraud. We had to bail her out, the bank told my stepdaughter that they would never do business with her, and I am out 2100 bucks.

Okay, now that I have probably bored you guys to tears I will shut up.
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