I spent a lot of time at my previous IT job dealing with scammers. There was the classic “This is ____ from ____ Repair. Could you tell me again the brand and model of your office printer?” Or copier. Then 1 or 2 ridiculously overpriced toner cartridges would show up a few days later. One guy was so brazen, he showed up to fix our color printer. I caught him loading it into his SUV after an alert that the printer left the network. Turns out he was reselling them for a quarter of their value, and he made over $100,000 before getting caught. Another guy posed as a technician from the Division of Information Technology on campus and was stealing laptops or their parts from the building. He had a photo ID (but not a campus ID) on a lanyard on his neck, so people left him alone to do his thing. My biggest problem was that the dept was largely staffed by young grad students who came from good homes and were predisposed to blindly trust people. It didn’t help that campus maintenance workers and inspectors would show up unannounced with no greater credential than their word and an ID, at which nobody looked all too closely.
nosirrom over 10 years ago
They should tell those guys to stop cloning around.
Godfreydaniel over 10 years ago
@nosirromDitto!
Toonerific over 10 years ago
But don’t worry, they’re only carbon copies.
Boots at the Boar Premium Member over 10 years ago
I spent a lot of time at my previous IT job dealing with scammers. There was the classic “This is ____ from ____ Repair. Could you tell me again the brand and model of your office printer?” Or copier. Then 1 or 2 ridiculously overpriced toner cartridges would show up a few days later. One guy was so brazen, he showed up to fix our color printer. I caught him loading it into his SUV after an alert that the printer left the network. Turns out he was reselling them for a quarter of their value, and he made over $100,000 before getting caught. Another guy posed as a technician from the Division of Information Technology on campus and was stealing laptops or their parts from the building. He had a photo ID (but not a campus ID) on a lanyard on his neck, so people left him alone to do his thing. My biggest problem was that the dept was largely staffed by young grad students who came from good homes and were predisposed to blindly trust people. It didn’t help that campus maintenance workers and inspectors would show up unannounced with no greater credential than their word and an ID, at which nobody looked all too closely.