… and as the article fails to mention… what about the bloody TREES!? Imagine scammers cutting down a century-old, beautiful tree just to make a few hundred dollars. What a scummy, short-term, selfish thing to do. GRRRR.
Stories like this make me consider that humans deserve to go extinct. Maybe raccoons and corvids will do a better job of caring for this planet.
If they actually cut them down, could you invoke TREE LAW? Wrongfully cutting down trees can lead to massive fines in the US, since they are so hard to replace.
Especially since you could pull this scam with a whole lot of other businesses that wold not result in cutting down trees.
Your mistake is thinking that scammers care about those things.
Maybe the point is to also reduce the selling price and buy the house with trees cut down for cheaper?
Raccoons and corvids? What, in the 30 minutes after they defeated the crabs, but before they evolved into crabs themselves?
Once everything evolves into crabs, we’ll be doing a lot better on this planet.
That’s apparently our benevolent creator’s plan.
slowly lifts Old Bay from under the bar
… In a news story about swaths of people getting scammed, finding it, stopping it, helping others and news notifying everyone possible… Humanity deserves extinction because of some scammers probably in India?
Doomers are fucking stupid.
Personally, I was expecting to read about some tree law here.
Those guys are amateurs. Try being the Uk government—compulsorily purchase private land for new rail line, hand lucrative contracts to your mates to clear mature oaks (which they get to keep, worth £5k each), accidentally clear more than is needed, then cancel the rail line.
Or Sheffield council and Amey cutting down healthy trees because they thought it would generate more profit in the street maintenance contract.
I doubt I’ve ever seen a farce as big as the east leg of HS2.
It’s linking London and Leeds. No, it’s linking London and a tram stop 10 miles outside Nottingham. No, it’s linking London to the ruins of the last coal power station in Britain, and a bus stop to East Midlands Airport for some reason, even though London has like 4 fucking airports anyway and they all go to the same shithole cheap Euro dumps that EMA flies to. Ah you know what fuck it, you’re not getting HS2 at all.
Shīt, that hurts me even reading this 😭
One of the worst bits is a lot of the delays and budget problems came because of eco protectors like Swampy blocking construction. So frustrating such an important project to get heavy goods off the roads are attacked by people who should support it - now it could be decades before the British public will trust another major rail infrastructure project.
So, blame eco protectors for the govt inability to prepare and finish a project while conveying its importance to the public?
I’m not blaming swampy for all the problems but if you actually look at the events that unfolded it was a significant part of the issues, people have been very clear about the importance of it and all the documents were there for anyone to view - I’m just saying that the fact eco protesters targeted it is a serious failing of the eco protesters and once again attention hungry idiots doing harm to the thing they pretend to care about.
Why should anyone take us seriously when we try and argue for eco things if we’re attacking the very things we need?
Well, yeah, attention and power make people go mad
Fucking hell where did this happen?
Well, I used a bit of poetic licence but there’s a case near me in the midlands in which the land owner has been forced to go to the high court (at his own expense) to get any chance of compensation. The tactics being used by hs2 and the Secretary of State are to frighten people into non-action. That is the leg of hs2 that is still (currently) going ahead.
But I’d eat my manky dog-walking hat if it’s the only example in the country.
This story makes me excited for the day we might someday have a tree-law or perhaps even bird-law sublemmy of our own.
Someday perhaps.
Tree law is a thing, there are big lawsuits in the states over trees.
The Japanese government recently arrested members of a big auto dealership for allegedly killings a few trees in front of their buildings.
Tree law was one of the few subreddits that I would actually read everytime I saw a post pop up in my feed. Something so satisfying about a good case of tree law.
You know what could speed this up, is if lemmings were willing to go do some tree crime.
Then we could speed run getting the tree-law sublemmy. In fact I know a good starting template for tree crime…
Or a scam-law…
Bird law in this country is not governed by reason.
In this case, if the perp playing this game is caught, he can be sued for the cost of not only the wood of the tree, but the cost to replace it with the biggest tree possible (including grinding out the old stump, the equipment needed to dig the new hole for the new tree’s rootball, and transportation and planting of the tree itself). To get a large tree costs $1-2,000, never mind the outsized equipment necessary to move and plant it. So this can get quite expensive quite quickly.
Source: used to work in the industry, and had a friend who was a consultant on several cases like this, albeit it was generally malicious neighbors going after trees that weren’t on their property, because they ‘hated the leaves in the fall’ or ‘the tree was blocking their view’.
The scam in question, from the article:
McKcraken said he never requested a tree removal service and didn’t want any trees at his Forest Hills house — which he’s trying to sell — removed.
“They’re trying to target vacant houses because the owners won’t know,” he said. “So that they can post themselves as the owner, and the owners won’t be home to stop it and won’t be home to notice it if the tree services do show up.”
The Wilson County Sheriff’s Office said the scheme begins with a scammer calling or emailing a tree service company for a quote on how much it would be to cut down trees. After receiving an estimated amount, they send the company a faulty check for more than needed.
Before the company realizes the checks are null and void, the scammer asks the company to pay back the difference.
“They send you a check for $1,500, and they want you to send $500 back to them,” Adam Barbee with Arbor Sense said. “And then that way, they take $500, and you try to go cash the check, and the check is no good.”
“They send you a check for $1,500, and they want you to send $500 back to them,” Adam Barbee with Arbor Sense said. “And then that way, they take $500, and you try to go cash the check, and the check is no good.”
If someone sends me a check for $500 more than they should have, I would just have them send me another and void the incorrect one. Checks that don’t match invoices make for sloppy books.
And oddly the only way to buy weed on plastic around here (legally) is for you to use a debit card, which they round up to the next $5 and give you back the change (which most usually ends up in the budtenders tip jar anyway).
It’s because the way the law is written, it’s actually processed as an ATM transaction.
Obviously this is a legal loophole, but there are legitimate reasons to extract more than necessary.
Man, I had to look that up. That’s wild.
It’s kinda silly but it’s really equally silly to use the stores ATM (or a neighbors) just to give them cash. Having cash, for me, though, is a weird thing. I’m pretty well disciplined with spending on credit cards, but the idea of having “finite money” with me is challenging. What is too much money to carry regularly? What is too little to get through the day, barring any unexpected expenses.
At least my bank reimburses ATM fees, including those from the dispensaries.
Makes you wonder why so many are willing to just send some money back.
Usually they camp it in language where they are only able to cut one check (company policy of one check per PO, for example), but they need to pay two people, you and another facilitator such as a transport service. The extra money is to pay for the transport service, which is actually also the scammer.
Though in this case, the scammer is pretending to be a single person. But even if it was a company, the proper response is, “Well, I’ve already voided the check. Sort that shit out with your manager. We’ll do the work when the check clears.” That last line because the overpaying scam should be obvious these days. Sucks if you’re desperate for some work but that’s the kind of feeling these pieces of shit are targeting.
Okay, that makes a lot more sense. I guess it just seems ridiculous because I don’t see myself trusting a check from anyone nowadays.
Good idea.
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That is like, actually one of the oldest scams in the book. I’m impressed.
Yeah, this is textbook check fraud. The specific scam is called the fake check scam (who could have guessed?) It’s extremely common in online marketplaces too. Lots of “oh I’m sending a check to pay for your (very expensive) item and for the movers. If you could give $500 to the movers that’d be great.” Now you’ve handed the scammer $500 and they’ve stolen the item you had for sale.
For instance, let’s say you’re selling a motorcycle on Facebook marketplace. You’ll get contacted by someone offering your asking price. You accept. They overpay by like $500, and tell you that the excess is for the movers who show up to collect the bike. So you pay the dude $500 to take the bike. Then their payment bounces/gets reversed, and you’re out the payment you gave to the mover (really just the scammer, or the scammer’s friend,) and they stole your bike without paying for it.
I’m guessing they’ve pivoted to cutting trees because the online marketplaces wised up and started warning sellers about the potential scam.
That’s a pretty interesting scam.
People have been doing similar scam on used car sellers for years.
Example being I post a car for sale. Scammer offers to buy. Scammer brings check higher than the agreed price. Tells me I can deposit the whole check, just give them difference back in cash. Scammer leaves with that cash and the car. Few days later bank tells me the check was no good.
Used to hear about that often enough Craigslist even sent out warnings to sellers.
I dunno, if you cut someone’s tree down, you’re responsible–even if you thought you had permission.
And the tree’s owner can sue you for comically large amounts of money. Ye olde r/bestoflegaladvice actually had to ban tree law posts for much the same reason that r/nocontext had to ban content from r/crusaderkings.
Yeah I was thinking about tree law lol lol
TREEE LAWWW!!
What a bizarrely specific scam. Shouldn’t take too long until everyone in that line of work in a particular area catches up on it.
Overpayment and asking for cash back is one of the most common scams, it’s hardly specific. You can replace tree felling with just about anything. They’re just the latest victims.
Yeah, and not to diminish or demean any victims, but waiting for any check to clear before reimbursement is a solution, or requesting a new check and ripping / voiding the old one on receiving the new check in the correct amount.
And if someone gets mad at you for that, they’re either scamming you or they’re not being accountable for their mistake.
The scam is old AF, it’s just new targets. If you’ve tried to sell a car in the last 20 years, you’ve dealt with someone trying to pull it. Or rent a room or house, there’s a reason Airbnb is popular with owners, even for long term situations.
This sounds like the shittest scam ever and one that is very easy to avoid.
