It's too bad we have to be suspicious about so much nowadays.  Scam through the United States Post Office, electronically through our e-mail and texts, and phone calls.  If you don't keep your guard up all the time, you might get burned.  You get it privately and you get it at work. Every time you turn around someone's trying to pull a fast one.

Here is one of the scams that I've experienced.

Since I do a lot of the purchasing for my employer, phone calls from salespeople are often passed to me. Our receptionist is pretty savvy and tries to determine if it is a salesperson, but sometimes they manage to get past her.  Salespeople are getting more and more clever, which likely means they are getting more and more desperate.

The latest ploy is to tell the receptionist they need to talk to me about one of our orders.  This has successfully worked to get them past the first line of defense several times in the past few months.

Once I'm on the phone, they explain that the price of the toner that we usually order has gone up in price but they can send me one more cartridge at the old price. TODAY only.

I ask for which copier is this? Our Canon.  As it turns out, we don't have a Canon copier, so I'm immediately alerted that someone is on a phishing expedition.  I make them aware that we do not have a Canon copier…

My next step is to ask them the name of their company and I do a quick search in my Accounts Payable software.  I can see that we have never paid this company anything, so that's their second strike.

Sometimes they will ask me about another brand of copier, but by now I am planning to get off the phone with them as soon as I possibly can.

I can see how this scam could work in a larger company.  Canon copiers are very popular and chances are good that a company has one somewhere in the building.  They may even have several.  It's probably common to order online or place an order through a company, so it wouldn't be unheard of to get a phone call about a messed up order.

Obviously these salesmen and saleswomen are getting lucky at least a majority of the time, or they would discontinue the use of this tactic.

I wonder what would happen without pushy salespeople?  Do you think the world would collapse?

You might be interested in my other posts about scams:

Phishing Email from Bank of America

IRS Stimulus Payment Email Scam

Make Money at Home Using Google – It's a Scam!

One of my Coworkers Got Scammed Online

What scams have you come across recently?  Share in the comments so we can all stay safe out there. 🙂