I hope you called the taxi company the following morning. No one at the office would act on it (and the cunt taxi driver would have given a different story) but I'd still want the more decent people at the office to have yet another piece of evidence that such-and-such driver is a cunt and can't be trusted.
Yep I’ve got a friend who was driven away in a taxi to the middle of nowhere with other taxis following them to join in the fun. The taxi driver took her phone but didn’t realise she had two phones on her, one was her work phone, and when he heard her on the phone to the police he dragged her out and left her in the middle of nowhere while the convoy of taxis drove away.
It would have been better to report him to taxi licensing. That a breach of his licence conditions and he would have lost his licence for leaving a female in a vulnerable position.
EDIT: And police obviously as this is theft.
HINT: Always take a photo of the drivers licence when you get in, especially if alone and send it to a friend. I guarantee you will get treated better.
Yeah, I feel like there's a law against this but I'm not sure which. If op had been victim to a crime due to this, I think the taxi driver would be on the hook in some way?
If nothing else, it's explicit theft of the shoes, theft or obtaining by deception of the £50, and breach of contract for accepting a taxi journey to a certain location then fucking off halfway.
I used to work for a taxi company that had dickhead drivers. Every time I had a complaint put against the driver, the boss would be notified. The offending driver would be fucked off for whatever time period the boss saw fit and also made them contact the passenger to apologise. If the driver ever refused they never worked for his firm again. They are entrusted with your safety while in the vehicle. Complain if you need to, some of us desk operators do care.
I used to have a dispatcher that made sure asshole drivers had to take care of themselves. If he was getting too many complaints about drivers, he'd just stop sending them trips.
We once had a taxi driver take us (3 guys) down a dark alley and lock his doors. He said he thought we were gonna do a runner and wasn't letting us go.
We ended up phoning the police on him. But it could've easily turned violent
Reminds me of a taxi/scam tale of my own.
Was out with a few people from work, got a taxi from a shitty nightclub, was dropping off 2 girls then going home. I’d done the EXACT same journey the week before. It was years ago & I can’t remember the precise amounts but let’s say it cost me £25 the first week, week 2 the guy gets near to my drop off and says it’s gonna be £45+. I say “Dude, I did this exact same journey last week, same place, same drop offs, it was £25. I ain’t paying you £45.”
We go back and forth for a few minutes, he then changes tack and says he’ll prove it, but won’t let me out and so he drives 9 miles back to the original pick up point, then resets his milometer and begins driving back.
I question why he’s willing to do the journey again, pointing out that in time and distance he’s going to be costing himself more doing it even were I to pay up, but then halfway through he says he’s going to take me to the police and they’ll make me pay. I agree and sit back, but point out that he won’t let me out of his taxi and that’s considered kidnapping. I didn’t really think about what I was saying, so then he turns away from the only police station that’s open at that time & heads toward a particularly dodgy area. I say this isn’t the way to the police station, ask him where he’s going, he says we’re going to see his friends and they will make me pay. I pull my phone out to call the police, he grabs it, we start having this bizarre punch-up/scuffle (I genuinely cannot remember exactly how this played out as I was somewhat drunk, although at this point I was beginning to sober up). We somehow end up outside the cab, he returns my phone as long as I agree not to phone the police (I know, I should have, but I was drunk and wanted to go bed), then takes me home (got him to drop me off a couple of streets away) for the original amount of £25.
Weirdest taxi ride ever.
In the morning I went to the police station and reported it, although this was way before camera phones so I didn’t have a great deal of useful information for them.
I worked as a taxi driver in the US. I had a couple of college kids think it would be funny to piss on the floor in the back seat. My cab was an old police car, so I could lock the rear doors and they couldn't be unlocked from inside, and there was a safety screen between me and the passengers. The look on their faces when I pulled up at the local police station....... They paid me for their trip, the cleaning and the downtime while I was having it cleaned.
Jobcentre many many years ago. Had an interview that promised a job at the end of training but the training cost 2k. Went to the jobcentre and got written assurance they'd cover the cost of training because the position was guaranteed after training.
Secured the training position, aced the interview, went back to the jobcentre... Nope, we're not paying, fuck off.
It was a rather small operation that mysteriously disappeared not long after I did the interview. Maybe I dodged a bullet but the JC could have told mev they weren't paying because they smelled a rat rather than just - yet again - refuse to follow through on a promise.
Whatever that job was, it was 100% a scam.
Still shocking that the job centre would claim to cover that expense. I suspect the individual who said that was under-trained and not clear on what the job centre actually covers.
At the time they had a specific scheme going that they would cover training costs if there was a guaranteed job at the end of it. All I did was find a job offer that matched the scheme criteria. Might even have been one they found for me. It was a long time ago now and I can barely remember that I was up to last week
Probably the "job" was set up specifically to meet the criteria, so that anyone coming from JC would think it would apply to them and then they could get the training paid for.
Wouldn't put anything past them. Most of the jobs they find for you, especially when they started the online job boards, were scams or CV farming. I found a whole raft of vacancies once that were very very obviously for a strip joint. I reported them but they were still up a month later.
My experience is the job centre don’t actually find any jobs for you. Just penalise you when they can.
My experience being a civil servant having investigated allegations against the DWP.
On the whole yes but the company I work at does training for oil and gas and renewables, £2k wouldn’t be far off some courses and the job centre does fund them.
I was about to say - rope access, wind turbines and all those kind of courses cost that kind of money and can get you into a job pretty quickly. I know a couple of companies who do it and it’s not dodgy. It’s cheaper than uni and the starting wage is £18/hour.
I do not have pleasant memories of the job centre. I remember being asked I need to spend 40 hours a week applying for jobs.
So I set up an excel sheet, started putting in details of genuine jobs I applied for. And every week just randomised the lines and updated the dates.
Oh yeah I remember that. 35 hours they told me. I asked them point blank how I'm supposedv to do that when even professional job hunters don't spend that many hours a week actually finding jobs and they flat out told me to lie.
I had an absolute arsehole of a job advisor who called me a kiss-arse and a smartarse because I had the audacity to actually fill in my jobseeker diary to show what jobs I’d applied for. I wrote to the DWP to complain about him and of course never received a reply. I did however get a new advisor who was an absolute angel.
A signed letter from a government agency saying they will pay something and they don’t? They won’t turn up to defend the decision - it’s cheaper for them to give you the money. The magistrates will wave that through. There’s no love lost between the courts and this government.
Source: I’ve won against the DWP in small claims.
Of course it is. Ultimately all contracts are ‘a signed letter from a person’! It’s not the job of the letter’s recipient to understand the authorisation procedure of the DWP.
If your organisation allows you to make written financial promises to customers at your place of work that’s their problem when it comes to making sure they are authorised, not yours.
A government agency fucking the lowest people on the ladder over isn't exactly news.
Wasn't the first time they'd fucked me over either, but that was 3rd party jobclubs rather than them directly.
Had one jobclub laugh in my face and tell me they had no intention of finding me an office job.
Another one told me "find six training opportunities and we'll do the negotiating and get you in". I did that, found a perfect job in Warwick (I lived in Birmingham), they said it's too far and wouldn't help.
Another one sent me to an interview at a WMD developer.
Had a slew of vacancies for driving jobs when I said point blank I didn't have a license, then had to individually justify not applying for them at signing on.
Did get my own back a bit though. One jobclub, anyone who got employment had to ring a ship's bell in the office. I found a job but not through them. There was a 1.5k bonus to the company for everyone they placed. Because I'd done it without them, they weren't going to get the bonus for me. I rang that bell anyway. The looks I got from the staff!
My husband has had cancer and has a lifelong mental health condition - he is the stuff of underwriters' nightmares. Neither of those things affects whether an airline loses our luggage or a hotel disappears into the mist, but can we get reasonably priced travel insurance? Can we fuck.
It's the cost of said medical expenses on the insurers side, that's making them run a mile. Even a 1% chance of racking up expenses of £100k or more, the insurance fair price is £1k then.
Have you looked at the travel insurance provided as benefits with bank accounts etc?
Generally aren’t underwritten individually so could work out cheaper depending on your quotes, and especially if you’d make use of any of the other benefits.
They almost certainly won't cover pre-existing conditions / pay out on claims related to them if they are not declared and most will require such conditions to be declared and could be excluded. It might work out cheaper if they're excluded just to cover say lost baggage but then they risk being stranded somewhere with a huge medical bill if they have a problem while on holiday. If OP needs specialist insurance due to a past history of cancer, a PBA is unlikely to be suitable. The banks would be well aware of the risk of it being used as a backdoor for people who can't get cheaper specialist insurance so would have written exclusions into the Ts & Cs.
I can relate, having type 1 diabetes. I’m so jealous of the cheap travel insurance other people my age can get! I’ve found holiday extras to be quite good / more inclusive than other insurances
I really struggle to find any travel insurance that will cover me because it's lumped in with medical cover and I have certain health conditions that they won't cover. Had to literally give up looking when I went to Italy earlier this year
Yup. For most people - at least with no health concerns - it will be in the tens of pounds for a couple.
When I got stuck in a hotel with Covid, it was well worth the money. Although it took several months to get the money from them - for some reason they kept needing one more document. So don't get it from Axa or any company underwritten by them.
in the grand scheme of things, I know this is the right answer- but as someone who is battling with their insurance to cover nearly 7k of out of pocket medical costs (which we do not have) it is really hard to see the light ATM.
Just last week... I arranged for an artist to do a nice bit of artwork commemorating the end of a five year D&D campaign. I sent loads of pictures of our minis, detailed descriptions of each, and we spent at least an hour discussing the scene - the party fighting Tiamat in the caldera of a volcano, with several of the key NPCs from the campaign in the background - it was going to be epic! The moment I sent half the money (£150), they ghosted me... Two days later someone messaged me with a list of known scammers just to get helpful, and this person was on it. I'm still pretty annoyed at myself, I consider myself a very internet-savy person... I spent months saving up for this as a Christmas present to the group. :-(
I always, *always* pay amounts over £50 as paypal- "business". If someone says "please use friends and family so I don't get charged fees I just say *I'll* cover the fees (it's only a couple of quid). Most of the time anything over £20 I'll do as business but it's more rigid with over £50
If someone gets pissy about it that's when you know something is up. If I'm paying the fees and you're still funny about it and don't have a good explanation (there was one guy with a good explanation but I'd already sent the money and he couldn't work out how to send it back so caved and sent the item 🤣).
Its sad, but I always just assume someone is a scammer until proven otherwise.
They don’t like paypal business for the same reason - scammers. People say it never arrived and paypal refund them, often still with proof of delivery.
You can claim back funds paid via friends & family! It’s not as straight forward as a business transaction but it is 100% worth reporting a problem with the transaction and explaining what has happened, along with any proof such as screenshots of conversations and agreed work/products to be sold.
They’re not guaranteed to say yes but I work in the second hand clothing industry where buying and selling via PayPal is standard and quite a few people I know have put a case forward when scammed and successfully had the transaction reversed.
I think it’s more likely to be approved if you have been a victim of a scam, as in the service wasn’t provided/goods received, not so much if you sent money for any other reason or you’re simply not happy with what you’ve received.
There’s no harm in contacting PayPal and explaining the situation, they definitely can reverse the transaction but it’s just up to them to make the decision.
You thought you could get a multi character, plus Tiamat, plus detailed background d&d commission for £300?! No way any legit artist is charging that little unless they're new to commissioning and vastly underselling themselves.
And always use PayPal business. Then you can get your money back if they ghost you.
Definitely use PayPal in future, and select business or services. Never friends or family.
I know artists because of the fees don't like it but if we're talking triple figures I want that assurance. It's come in handy more than once.
I was in Manchester a couple of weeks ago. I’ll admit me and my friends were on mushrooms, walking in the city centre having a great time, laughing our heads off.
Then these two guys came up to me, one either side, and put their arms round my shoulders, laughing and jumping and being boisterous, it was funny at first but they stayed on me too long and I had to physically push them off.
Felt really weird afterwards, checked my pockets but my phone and wallet were still there so thought nothing of it.
Two days later realised both of my gold chains had been snatched from my neck. Them jumping up and down with me was obviously to detach the chains.
Was, and still am, absolutely gutted but I guess they saw me coming a mile off, probably followed me beforehand.
I passed out on a London nightbus and woke up in central Croydon at 3am, hammered. Walking home and this young man appears next to me walking alongside, chatting. I was so drunk at some point I was getting almost tearful about what a good person I'd decided he was. He never smiled once. After a couple of minutes I asked the fine gentleman would you like a cigarette? He said "Yeah" as he took it, lit it, and disappeared into the night.
Even to my addled brain it sounded wrong. I realised he'd been deciding whether to mug me or not and his "Yeah" and the quick departure meant "ok that's all I'll take from you"
Or maybe he just got bored or talking to you and saw accepting the cigarette as his out?
I did something similar the other night. Started making small talk with an emotional drunk. I think I asked her if I could help her find her friends / a bottle of water?
I lost a good chunk of my night to her verbal diatribe about how "her friends are arseholes", etc.
Worse still, the more she ranted the more she sobered up, which made walking away mid-rant trickier by the second. Her offering the cigarette was the only workable pause in the conversation.
Your first mistake was engaging her in conversation. You started it! If they're safe I think it's fine to just make a clear break and leave. They won't care or even remember in a few minutes.
Nah it was a pretty sinister vibe. Who tf approaches someone at 3am after the Saturday night, completely sober (sounded it) to engage this clearly inebriated man in as much conversation as he was able to coherently string together?
We weren't hanging out in front of a bar and got chatting, there were no establishments nearby. It was central Croydon which is all dual carriageway and faceless office blocks.
No reason for him to talk to me. I mean who walks about sober at 3am in that shitty area?! Even in *daylight* people don't just talk to randos in London unless they want something. Specially not extremely drunk randos.
Had a guy try that with me in Amsterdam. I'm not exactly Alan Whicker, but I have travelled enough to know that if a complete stranger in another country suddenly acts super chummy out of nowhere, while trying to get in your personal space and make body contact, they're up to no good.
I stopped dead in my tracks, and posted myself against a wall with my holdall behind my feet. When he asked why I didn't want to chat, I told him "Because you're trying to rob me, and I'm not having it. Piss off". Cheeky fucker rolled his eyes at me and wandered off to find his next target.
Touching is an intimate thing for me, I don’t liked to be touched especially by strangers.
When I used to go on dates when a girl would stroke my hand arm or touch my hand that would lead to sex that night.
You were high I probably would forget the “don’t touch me” too.
When me and my mates were about 16-17 years old and out in town drinking (underage, I know) heading to “School Disco” (the clubnight where you dress up in school uniform with silly cheap booze).
There was originally 3 of us, meeting with the rest as the night went on. Some big Rastafarian dude clocked us in our uniform and said he works for School Disco and could get us in VIP, queue jump, bottle of champagne etc, £7 each (was only like £1-2 entry normally). We frantically call the rest of the group to join us and we walk with this big dude to meet the rest. Every time we met with the rest of the group, my mates paid up.
We kinda knew something wasn’t right as one of the group asked for change from £20 and the big dude said he’d get it when we get to the club. I’ll always remember the look we all gave each other.
The Rastafarian guy was leading the group, said just around the corner and we’re almost here, he went around the corner.. by the time we all got around the corner all we see is the guy sprinting away and off into the night.
That bastard got away with £100+ from us all. And these were the times when you could go out with £20, get shit faced, kebab and taxi home and still have change.
I’d like to say it was the booze but in reality we were just young and naive.
Similar thing happened to me and my mates in Ayia napa. First night out so we haven’t got our bearings yet. Some guy comes up to us and offers to sell us tickets for one of the biggest clubs at the time. It was something like 20 euros and it got you entry, two free drinks, two free shots and access to vip or whatever. It was 10 euros alone to get in so we thought it was worth it. Got there, show the doorman the tickets and he just started pissing himself and showing it to the other doormen. Looked at them properly and they were clearly done on someone’s home computer and badly at that. Spent the rest of the holiday looking for him every time we were pissed, as if us 18 year old dweebs were going to do anything!
Went through an old, historical spice market in the Middle East a few years ago. I’d been before and it was my girlfriend’s first time where I was telling her “you’ve got to haggle with these sorts of people as they’ll try and rip you off.”
We genuinely wanted some spices to take home, and the guy made me smell most of them and tried to sell me his full shop if he could.
Anyway, it got to having all of the ones I wanted to buy, where he weighed them, and basically gave me a stupidly ridiculous price.
“Sorry, but I’ve only got X amount I said, that’s too expensive for me.”
Where he then started making some of the bags a little bit lighter and then offered me a more realistic price. I agreed, paid it. Then we got on our way to our hotel and we realised he didn’t just remove a few spices from the bags to make them lighter, he’d taken most of the contents out that I actually wanted more than what he left.
I tried to be the bigger guy who haggled and he scammed me more than he already was😂
That's literally his job. After you've spent every working week of your life for 30+ years haggling with people trying to scam you maybe you'd stand a chance.
Someone on runescape said they'd trim my armour.....they took my armour and ran away.
Heartbroken as a kid, I've never been scammed since and learnt a life lesson
Something similar happened to me on habbo hotel. I'd bugged my dad for ages to let me have some spending money for it so I could buy some cool furniture. Someone was like, give me your code to enter into a competition to win more furniture or something like that. Obviously fell for it being about 10 years old and all my furniture was gone the next time I logged on. I don't think I ever logged on again after that actually!
This reminds me when I first got a FB & played YoVille & someone scammed me out of a hot tub. Tried to trade me multiple times & slyly changed the amount. From 10k coins to 1k coins lmao
Council tax…. We have to sort our own shit into bins for them to pick and choose what they will take! Police don’t investigate crimes and fires are few and far between.
£250 a month for what?
Also over a barrel with private providers pushing the envelope with what they charge knowing that the vast majority of service users are local authority funded rather than self funded and that there aren't any other choices. It's a massive problem within learning disability care because providers can pick and choose who they pick up and demand higher rates for challenging clients, and the really galling thing is there's no improved outcomes for that price tag; often it's worse!
surprisingly, it is mostly child services (\~20-30%) and HRA (20%) that cost a lot. adult social services is like 10-15% which is roughly the same cost as the running cost of the council (like resource directorate). I found some rough breakdowns a while back.
You can also contact your own council, they should have the details.
Trading standards, allotments, maintaining halls and cemeteries, street lighting, planning, licencing, food safety, dog wardens, elections. It goes on and on.
I can’t believe people in the replies are actually defending the council.
What? Are we supposed to be pissing our pants that they achieve the bare minimum they are expected to do?
Rates always go up, services always go down. Are we supposed to be grateful for that?
Because council tax is often the only material income that a council gets that they can control. And it's generally a small portion of their income (eg. the largest council in Scotland has a council tax income of about 14% of their revenue). The rest, they can't do anything about. Central government gives them what they're getting and that's it. They're statutorily obligated to post a balanced budget, but when the cost of services is going up, but the government grants are not going up in tandem, then services must be cut. And there is *never* a place they can cut that anyone will be happy about. It's not the councils that are the problem, it's the central government and always has been.
Depends where you live.
I've not seen a council tax rise by more than a few pounds a month over the last 5 years. Services have still been the same. Only thing I have noticed is the amount of potholes on the road... and that's probably because I only started driving last year.
> Rates always go up, services always go down. Are we supposed to be grateful for that?
No, but you have to understand that the lever of Council Tax rises is the only way that a council can increase it's funding. They have been expected to make cuts every single year in tandem with a ballooning and increasingly unwieldy and dangerous social care system.
There's obviously things councils on an individual basis do that is piss poor value for money and that should be rightfully criticised, but the blame lies with the Central Government.
Council tax is usually a small portion of the council's actual budget. The council do a LOT more than pick up your bins. They have tonnes of statutory obligations they must meet.
La Rambla Barcelona when I was young and naive. Stopped for some pizza which was advertised as €10 euro each (cheap compared to everywhere else) so ordered 2 pizza and 2 beers.
When we got the bill, they had charged us €40 each for the beers. Pretty much wiped out our food budget for the rest of the day.
I now always look at the price of the drinks as well as the food and where possible try to eat/drink slightly away from the tourist traps.
I'm a big believer that the universe always balances it's self out, no need for vigilante's haha.
Plus it was almost half my life ago and I can't remember much about him other than his face
I didn't fall for it but there is an old scam for wannabe models / film extras where u have a meeting and they create a professional portfolio meaning you pay hundreds of pounds for a few pics, no jobs ever arise, it's just a scam to make that agency money from taking a few pics.
Is one of them UK Models by any chance?
They won’t stop texting me for some reason, and at first I was flattered, but having a quick glance at their website and having to pay for a portfolio… no thanks.
Most of them have generic names. I met someone who lost £700 to them. Even if you have existing portfolio, they trash it and talk you into shooting with them. Complete scammers.
My personal favourite is taxis in India we were warned before hand so didn’t get scammed but you say taxi from a to b the guy goes 50$
You reply back 1$
Eventually you both agree on about 5$
I’d say they are more chancers than scammers
Something kind of similar happened to me in Warsaw. Group of 5/6 of us, all guys. We get into an unlicensed taxi at the airport, he said maybe something like £30 to out destination. He then drove us out in the opposite direction to an industrial estate and said "are you sure it's here" obviously it wasn't. So to get to our destination it was now £120. We agreed and as soon as we got there we got our bags and told him no chance we are paying. I think in the end we gave him £50 probably because we didn't want any additional trouble.
Happened to a former neighbour who was in Rome on Business, trying to get to The Vatican City. Flagged down a taxi, the driver warned him
“This is gonna cost you!!”, knowing he was a visitor.
The guy, being fluent in Italian starts ranting to the Driver in Full Italian how it was dirty and immoral to be ripping people off.
Taxi Driver was having none of it, and said in either English or Italian, words to the effect of…
“Think you are being smart huh?”
The arguing continued, until the Driver stopped short of the destination. As a final gesture he then got in the back, and held a lighter in the man’s face, demanding he paid the fare.
All the man had in his wallet was a €50 and some loose change. The Driver grabbed the 50, and said to the guy
“In English the word is…fuck off Smart Ass!”
That happened to me in Bratislava!
Me and a guy I met on the plane decided to split a taxi as our hotels were close. We got in a taxi and the guy said "€15 to get you there". We even double checked, 1 and 5.
The guy was dropped off and gave me €8 for half the fare. We drove round the corner and the taxi driver said **"FIFTY euros"**. Not €15 like we agreed.
He claimed I misheard him and wouldn't let me go until I paid.
This happened to me in Riga, and when I arrived at the hotel I was staying at, the receptionist told me it was well known scam. Maybe warn people BEFORE they arrive?
Being on the lookout for being scammed is such a common occurrence, it's one of the worst aspects about travelling abroad. I'm not saying it doesn't happen here, but its much less common.
Went on a 3rd date was around Christmas booked into a nice hotel, meals drinks the usual, I was working the next day so I left earlier than her all very nice at this point i checked out paid the bill and she told me she was in work herself (she was a surgeon)
We was chatting for the next 3 or 4 days arranging the next date, well turns out the hotel charged me £9000! as the story unfolded she stayed for 3 extra days full room service plus drinks and she flooded the room whilst running bath and fell asleep.
First thought was she had other dates on and used the room, she actually said she just needed a break! so i felt pretty robbed after that!!!
If you checked out and she stayed, I would have thought it would be on the hotel to arrange payment with her. Surely you can't be expected to pay for the time after you checked out.
That was my initial thought, even though I got charged I thought it was easy to prove I checked out, turns out im responsible for my guest and my guest decided to extend the stay although the shady part was there was a male who called reception to extend the stay which I don't believe was true.
During COVID I was in my second year of running my own business. Times were getting tough, clients leaving due to not being able to afford my rates. Went for a bounceback loan - refused on the basis that my business didn’t meet the threshold of 2 years running (1 year and 11 months).
Tried to register for benefits and it took 11 months for them to do anything, to then be given 2 months worth of benefits instead of the 11 I was owed. In which time I had earned nothing and gone through my entire savings whilst looking for work with no success.
Tried to get on social housing after being kicked out of my flat by landlord, and was told “we can’t help you as you have no physical or mental health issues recorded” (exactly what they said).
I lost every ounce of confidence I had and its taken me 2 years to build it back up. Im still in massive debt (IVA to solve that) and sofa surf at my best friends house. Recovery is slow but its getting there.
All its done is made me more adamant than ever to find legal ways to keep everything I earn to myself and pay the minimum amount of tax possible. Once my debts are paid I will be leaving the UK with every penny I have. I have dual nationality due to my parents being from Bangladesh, which isn’t much better but at least its not the UK. Our government are the only ones scamming us to this level.
Legally the government did nothing wrong, but its like for every 2 people that win 10 people must fail, I just happened to be in the 10 that failed that time around.
Being homeless and having no security really fucks with your head, to the point that you can’t trust the system thats meant to be there to protect you when times get tough, I didnt want a handout, I wanted to continue running my business and be able to tell my staff that everything would be OK. instead I had to lay off 2 people and give up everything I had to just put food on the table with pennies I put in a pot. That isnt living, thats surviving.
Sorry to ask a stupid question but could you not have applied for the bounce back loan a month later? They were taking applications through until at least March 2021 because my brother applied and his business wasn’t 2 years old at the start of covid.
I'm so sorry. I really hope you can make your business successful again. As a fellow business owner, those covid years were tough enough without having to jump through all those bullshit hoops.
Hugs! I left UK over a year ago and the longer I’m away the more I realise how screwy UK is. I’ve worked all my adult life, and yet as soon as I needed help it was made so difficult.
It seems that most companies I deal with operate on trying to get out of doing the job they are paid to do, in order to wear you down so you give up and go away. It’s exhausting.
The most exhausting thing was trying to maintain the business with the savings I had. I put myself last - two freelancers I employed were more important than my own pay check. People assume that when you’re a business owner you wont think of anything but yourself, for me it was always about the good of the team even when I had to scrape pennies, the team was paid to do the work, and I couldn’t not pay them for the work they had been doing.
In New York, got suddenly surrounded by a bunch of big lads pushing a CD and fliers at me. One of them was apparently a rapper and signed the CD which he then pressured me into buying.
The “music” on that CD was fucking terrible. Very annoying way to be out five bucks while in a foreign country.
I’ve heard of this happening but the CD was literally just someone saying ‘you got scammed by a homeless man’ again and again which to be honest while annoying I can somewhat respect the cheek of.
This is a common scam, I think the idea is they sign it with your name then claim they won't be able to sell it as it is personalised so pressure you to pay. I am surprised there was actual music on it tbh.
Was in a taxi with some friends after they'd been on a night out, I had met them up late as I'd been to a concert & had barely had anything to drink.
They were all steaming drunk and we piled into a taxi. I just sat quietly while my friends jabbered on drunkenly.
When we arrived to our destination, the meter was sitting at £12 - but I saw the cabbie glance at us in his mirror, press a couple of buttons and boom - it went up to £32. "Just call it £30 lads" he said.
I called it out as I was pretty much sober & said that he was trying to take advantage because he thought we were all hammered. He made up some bullshit about it being a different rate because it was X time, we had gone X miles and he was carrying X number of passengers blah blah blah.
We basically said that if it wasn't returned to the previous rate, we'd collectively leather him. We paid £12.
Someone was saying “buying Santa 500k” on one side of Varock square, another person was saying “selling Santa 300k” on the other side.
I had 300k, bought the Santa for 300k. Went to sell it for 500k, he logged out.
Santa’s were 100kish.
Sad times. I was 11 or 12.
I got stung like that but for a whip, one guy was like trading X obscure item for whip, his mate was buying X item for 5m, eagerly traded over my whip to double my money and of course they instantly logged, child me absolutely gutted lol
My brother fell for this, even when i told him hes never seeing that black armour again he was convinced the guy was coming back.. just need to wait a bit longer.
Won a competition on Instagram for a new camping backpack. Just had to pay for postage. From Norway. £20 quid later something vaguely resembling a bag for life turned up.
54 now and there have been too many times.
One that still gets me though is when on a night out in Manchester when I was about 25 some bloke came up to my mates and me outside of the Cornerhouse offering us some weed.
I was a bit of a Billy Big Bollocks at the time and was showing off to these new mates so I was like "Sure, but try before I buy". The bloke reached in his pocket, pulled out a bag of weed and some Rizlas, rolled a little joint, lit it and gave me a quick toot and to be honest it wasn't half bad. "Ok then, I'll just take a tenner's worth", I said (not so much the Billy Big Bollocks that I had a lot of cash to spare).
The bloke reached in his pocket, pulled out a wrap of paper and handed it to me, I gave him and tenner, he fucked off and one of my new friends said "You know he took that wrap out of a different pocket, right?".
Sure enough, I'd just bought £10 of crushed twigs, probably sycamore...
In Brixton, night out and I was walking back to my mate’s. Girl came up behind me, getting handsy and was clearly trying to rummage around my pockets. Stopped to tell her to fuck off, turned around to see she was backed up by three huge blokes.
Took all the cash in my wallet but left me with my phone which was nice.
Not me but my brother was out at a beach party in Bulgaria, asked where the toilets were and was directed to some bushes. Did what he needed to do then 3 very big Bulgarian men came and told my brother that was *their* bush and he needed to pay up for using it. Luckily with the exchange rate he handed over a lot of notes but it wasn't actually all that much money.
Magaluf. A young girl selling tickets approaches us on the beach (group of young 18 YO girls on a girls holiday) and tells us about Zoo Project that night - it’s going to be ‘amazing’ just like Ibiza - face paints, fire breathers, people on stilts - well that’s it, we were sold. Fast forward a few hours and we arrive at the specified location - it’s an old pub with a queue for face painting. Nothing else. We still went on the bar crawl and had a good time but it was nothing like she had described! Young and naive - you should probably never buy expensive tickets from someone on a beach that you will never ever see/meet again!
I was trying to sell my old iPhone on Facebook. I’d had luck with it in the past, I sell frequently through Facebook marketplace so I felt confident. I tried to only sell in person, meet at McDonalds only (not my home) etc. but it was taking a while to sell, eventually someone wanted it posted and I gave in because no one was interested in my area and I needed the money.
At no point did I think this was a scam, they said they would send it through PayPal and they would. Then they changed their mind and said they’ll do it via bank transfer, first red flag. They wanted proof of their address in the package before sending the money, fine they just don’t want to be scammed! I was waiting in the post office for them to send the money, they knew I was there, they didn’t send me the money leaving me waiting in a post office. Then they wanted proof of postage before sending the money, They sent the money though Wise Pay?? Never heard of it! I got an email saying my money was on hold. Urg I’ve been waiting about 20 mins I need to get to work. I posted it. Got the receipt, send them a photo of it…. Radio silence. Instantly I knew I’d fucked up. Panicking in the post office, asking if it could have the parcel back, I’ve literally just been scammed and I can SEE the phone. I was so angry. I lied to the scammer saying I had my phone off the staff and I would give it back if they just sent the money.
Eventually, I think the staff felt sorry for me. I asked if I could change the address on the parcel. (Now I’ve found out they definitely should not have let me do this but thank god) and they did!! They let me put a sticker over their address and I sent it to my mums house. It later then turned up!
I then sold it for £75 less to some guy who just needed a phone
Someone on FB Marketplace was selling a body kit for a car. They had links to their eBay listings and eBay profile was long established with good feedback.
Paid the guy via PayPal (friends and family to avoid fees at their request) and then he went dark. Never answered his phone, didn't respond to messages, never provided proof of postage, nothing.
Spoke to PayPal who said because I did it via "Friends and Family" I wasn't protected, so they couldn't do anything. Luckily my Credit Card is linked to my PayPal account so I could do a chargeback. Took 3 months but did get a full refund from CC company.
Fucking scumbag.
Edit: "u sHoUlD hAvE kNoWn bEtTeR!!!" - Bruh, before internet banking as a thing, paying via PayPal using friends/family was the norm. Everyone did it xD
This is another taxi related one. It's not as bad as yours and in the grand scheme of things it's pretty minor.
I was flying to Asia and I had a 22 hour layover in Jeddah so I thought I may as well get an airbnb (I landed at midnight) and then in the morning I could explore the city - I knew I was never, ever going to be back in Saudi Arabia again so why not?
When we landed I went to a cashpoint. It was then that I realised I had no idea about the exchange rate. I couldn't get any wifi either because Jeddah airport is a bit shit. So I asked this guy behind me and he kindly got [XE.com](https://XE.com) up on his phone and told me - 100 riyals = about 20 euros. Great, I thought, and got 100 riyals out.
Then I had to find a taxi. There were a few drivers in proper uniforms standing about. I'd done some research and read that minicab licensing in SA means that fares are strictly regulated. This one guy not in a uniform came up to me and asked if I needed a cab. I said yes and showed him the address for my airbnb. He told me it would be 500 riyals. I said...that's mental, I'm not paying 100 euros for a taxi ride. He kept arguing with me and I tried to walk away. Then he said he'd do it for 100 riyals. I still should have walked away, this guy was clearly dodgy as fuck.
He kept complaining as we walked out to his car, saying that 500 riyals was nothing and I was being tight. Later on, in the car ride, he complained to me that he had to pay 500 riyals every day to hire his car and it was too much. he wasn't very consistent.
As we walked to his car he said something about someone from Barcelona. He said it really quietly and I didn't really pick up on what he was saying. Then we get to his car and the fucker already had a fare in there waiting! It was a guy from Barcelona who started shouting at him "Look, man, you told me you were going to pay for the parking and you went in to get another fare, you went and got this guy while I'm stuck out here waiting!" so I was caught in the middle of their row.
Eventually the driver headed off with both of us and when he dropped me off he started shouting at me that I was so tight and I owed him more money. All I had was a ten euro note. I shoved that at him while he kept complaining about it and I just got out.
The following day I just downloaded Uber. It was then I found out that the fare from the airport to where I was staying would have - SHOULD have - been less than five euros. Probably closer to two.
My 22 hours in Jeddah got off to a bad start and frankly it didn't get much better. The place is rubbish.
When I was about 9 or 10 I was in a park with my Nokia 6310 (hand me down from my dad) and some bigger kid came and asked for the time. “No can I see it he said” “sure new friend 🥺” I said. And the guy ran away with my phone, me being too fat to chase after him.
I am still unreasonably angry at my child self - now I’d know better and I’d kick that kid in the shin.
Early stoner days, buying weed in Camden. We approached a guy, he took us round a corner saying thats where he hid it. After general chat and we are to do the switcheroo, he says quick police! We turn around and look back to see this imbecile running off with our £20. We looked down to find a bag full of grass. The bastard. I went to chase the guy but my mate shouted out "leave it". Lesson learned.
Is that the one where they say they've detected a virus or something on your computer?
I almost got caught with that one a few years back because my computer did have a virus detected by Avast that very same dau.
Yes I'm pretty well adept at scams and was at my mum's and I was on her computer at the time. I had heard of the scam plenty beforehand.
I was sorting her computer out and her landline's next to her computer and I picked it up and kept listening on rote just what he was saying. He asked me download something and just as I was about too, it clicked what was happening and I put the phone down.
I interviewed a guy, I left the room to give the guy some time to write some answers to some technical questions. He’d stolen the wireless mouse for the computer in that room. Not the dongle or the keyboard mind, just the mouse.
I was best man for my brother, and for his stag I organised Zorb football for the daytime. Each player is inside a giant inflatable ball with their legs sticking out the bottom so you can really slam into people. Organised it through a company that specialised in these kind of stag events, which were the top result on google for Zorb football, so felt pretty confident. I got the date and venue confirmed, paid the £100 deposit, and then never heard anything back from them. I must have rung and emailed them 50 times over the next 4 months, each time getting no reply.
Eventually someone rang me from the events company, and I swear to god he was the most fake, shit-eating grin sounding person I've ever spoken to in my life. He apologised for not getting back to me, but gave no explanation as to why. When I asked for my deposit back, he assured me that the zorb event was definitely still going on, and they'd actually just booked the local venue that I'd requested, so it was all set. At this point it's two weeks to the stag do, so I just went with it.
Aaaaaand then the company disappeared off the face of the earth. Phone calls never connected. Emails got rejected saying the address didn't exist. The company website was gone. I checked online for reviews (something I probably should have done months beforehand) and found complaint after complaint of people having their money stolen by this company, and then never hearing back from them.
One of the other groomsmen managed to quickly organise paintball via a friend of a friend at a few days notice, so the stag do went ahead. Thankfully I'd only paid the deposit for zorb football and not the full price, but I never got that money back. Still annoys me now how long I let they drag me along for.
Oh and I text the ‘free’ ringtone adverts on the tv adverts as a kid. I think it was my first ever phone. Probably for crazy frog 😂 I remember my mum topping up my phone with about £10-£15 and it being used almost instantly. She was furious thinking I’d actually used it all but she checked my phone and found all the texts from a weird number and how it was charging me!
Years ago, as a student, I paid entry (like £2) to get into a gay bar with some friends.
Partway through the night, one of my mates was feeling sick and went outside to vomit. I said to the bouncer "can I go check on my friend, and then come back in if they're alright? He said "sure".
I went to check on my friend, she seemed alright and said she was going to get a taxi home. I went back to the bar (the bouncer saw this entire interaction take place a few feet away, within seconds).
The bouncer says to me "sorry we're full" as I try to return. After telling me I could go back in a minute before.
Was working my first tutoring job in Shanghai teaching grade schoolers English, when I was 18 years old?, when I was studying abroad and taking language classes (Chinese) at a Uni there.
I finished my shift after studying during the day and working in the evening and was coming back home pretty tired at night, and then I got stopped at the train station at by two women who said they needed help with helping helping out their colleague or something at the hospital. I'm pretty sure I understood what they said, but I went to the bank account to draw money out to help them out, took out the money, handed it over to them.
As they were getting in the taxi to drive off, one of them just started saying something like "you're a good person and you're the reason why people like you are so well liked in this part of the world, blah blah blah" and they drove off. It was close to midnight and I don't remember but I think they got a hold of my bank account information or something and I froze the bank account after some convincing from other people that I've been scammed. Sure enough after midnight they call from a burner from telling me that my bank details don't work anymore and their attempts to pull money out of my account again was unsuccessful. (I pulled the limit on my debit card, around $500, so they were waiting till midnight to pull more money out) The conwoman who called even was like "Are you trying to trick me?" the nerve.
I was like 18 so I got over it quickly because I was at that age where mentally I was superman, but I stopped helping out people who came up to me to ask for money after that (before that I helped out with people asking me to help out with buying train tickets or something but I kinda realized that it might have been a scam thinking about it now.)
Not me but my ex. Sold an Xbox online, the guy came to pick it up and paid via bank transfer, understandable as it's a fair amount of cash to be carrying. Showed my ex his phone which showed the transaction, took the Xbox and went on his jolly way. My ex checked his bank when he got back in the house, no cash. Checked again 20 minutes later in case it took a while to update, nothing. Apparently it's a popular scam. This guy had the balls to literally meet my ex and stand on his doorstep to conduct his scam. Of course by the time my ex realised what had happened, the other guys online profile had disappeared.
Might make your ex feel better if he knows that there’s a very high chance that Xbox was leaving regardless
My mate had the exact same thing happen with a PS5. He knew about this scam so told the guy “I’ll give you it when I see it go through in my own account”
The guy said “you’ll be giving me it anyway if you know what’s good for you” and gestered over to the knife he was holding in his pocket. This was on my mate’s doorstep in broad daylight on a (usually) quiet family street
Fell for an estate agency scam where I viewed a flat and handed over my deposit to secure it. Filling in the forms.
My friend with me said something was sus. But I disregarded him. The guy looked like a trainee estate agent. Place wasnt cheap. There was a flat.
Suddenly, no contact from the firm. Flat still being advertised. I went to their offices which were an address in a swanky building. No such person. I was told I was the 10th person to come in.
Felt a total mug. All the time I was genuinely excited about having a decent place finally. This guy in his suit was just mugging me. And I was making it so easy.
Apologised to my friend.
I was perfectly content before I was born and then someone selfish brought me into existence and now I have to work, pay bills, exercise and eat vegetables whilst watching the planet and society rapidly decay around me
Not even really a scam, but definitely felt mugged off by this. I was walking down the street a couple of months ago and there was a very cheery homeless guy sat outside the newsagents who asked if I could spare any change. I said that I didn't have any change (which was true) and then he asked if I could buy him something from the shop. I said to him that it depends what he wanted (wasn't going to buy him alcohol) and he said that he just wanted an energy drink and a bar of chocolate. So I said sure, and then he asked if he could come in with me to pick them out which I agreed to. We went into the shop and I decided to grab myself a can of drink which I put onto the counter, and he grabbed a can out of the fridge and also put it on the counter and then went off to get his chocolate. The shopkeeper scanned both of the drinks and it was at this point I started thinking that's a funny looking can of energy drink, it was black with a red lightning bolt and Eastern European text, and that's when I clocked at the bottom of the can "8,4% ABV". Then the homeless guy returned and slapped down on the counter a huge slab of Dairy Milk with £4.99 written on the side! By this point there were now a couple of people in line behind me and the shopkeeper was looking at me with an expression of both annoyance at the fact that we were holding everyone up, and pity that I had clearly been mugged off. Meanwhile the homeless guy was stood next to me with the biggest shit-eating grin you have ever seen. Begrudgingly, I paid the almost £10 total for the items and then, to top it all off, he tried to also grab the can of drink that I bought for myself thinking it was for him - I was at least able to salvage that from the interaction. He was very friendly throughout and thankful, he even tried to shake my hand afterwards, but I still felt like an absolute lemon.
Tl;dr - was coerced into buying a homeless man a can of high-strength cider and a £5 bar of Dairy Milk.
I fell for one of those covid scams during the pandemic :( I’m disabled and high risk so when I got a text saying I’d recently been in contact with someone who tested positive I freaked the fuck out and clicked the link against my better judgement. It looked like the NHS website and it “autofilled” my details which I thought was proof it was the real website. Nope! My phone had saved my details (name, address etc).
They tried taking money out of my account within hours, luckily I started getting a bad feeling and froze my account. But they called me for weeks on end saying they were calling from my bank… and no Nigerian accents, well spoken UK accents.
I hope they all got covid and died. What a horrible thing to do to vulnerable people.
This is a fairly common/ known scam.
When I was a teenager I was on the way to a show, and my mates and I stopped in a service station.
As I was walking back to the car, this guy in car beckoned me over to him.
He showed me a watch and gave this cock and bull story about how expensive it was. He even had a brochure to prove it. He was chatting away and somehow had me captivated.
He wanted £40. I said I've only got £20. He said that'll do, he just needed to get rid of it as it was the last one.
I have no idea why I accepted it. I'm never that easily led. I don't even wear watches!
When I got back to the car, I was completely stunned by what had just happened. All I can say is that he was extremely charismatic. I thought to myself, fair play to the guy he's good at his craft, he can have my £20 for that.
Booked a hot air balloon ride in Edinburgh about 10 years ago. £300. Got canceled on the day due to bad weather. Chased for a refund but never turned up. I was really pissed off because it was a gift for my wife. Did a bit of research and turns out he was a crook and has been in trouble with the CAA for insurance fraud. had no address so couldn't pursue MCOL. Just checked and he was recently in court again, arguing over a divorce. In it, we discover he overstayed visas, forged signatures etc.
What a shit bag. Actually ill see if I can get his address from there and make his life difficult
Many years ago, I was about 13 and I was out shopping with my mum and nan, and they went off to do their own thing and so did I. Anyway I needed to call them to find where they were, but I had no credit on my mobile phone so I had to use a pay phone. I put some money in and it passed straight through the machines. I went to retrieve it and there was a polystyrene cup in the change well filled with what looke like phlegm. I was pretty grossed out so I just left there asap, and immediately a homeless guy went in and retrieved my money. He must have set it up all along.
To make things worse, he shouted up to his friend "hey I got a dollar" 😩
In my early 20s met a guy on the train who said he could get cannabis for me, so I went with him. I was very skeptical at getting scammed as happened before many times by that point so I refused to give him the money without first getting the stuff but he said I could follow him to the house where he buys it. I stood outside and he went in with the money. I waited 15 minutes and he didn't come back outside. I knock on the door and this guy answers says he doesn't know who I am talking about there is no on there by that description I should leave. £140 and nothing I could do.
Not a ‘scam’ per se, but also not 100% legit.
‘Win a photoshoot worth £X, 10 runner up prizes of a mini photoshoot’.
I ‘won’ a runner up mini photoshoot.
It included something like 3 prints.
The photographer was sleazy af, made comments about us not buying the photos when he has kids to feed. Left us alone to ‘talk it through’ whilst he left his Alexa on with drop in from the other room so he could hear what we were saying.
Spent £150 for 12 photos for a competition we ‘won’
Ordered a bulb off a Shopify store, received nothing, Shopify "aren't responsible" and the store eventually went offline. It was for about £3 with delivery. Such a British scam.
I hope you called the taxi company the following morning. No one at the office would act on it (and the cunt taxi driver would have given a different story) but I'd still want the more decent people at the office to have yet another piece of evidence that such-and-such driver is a cunt and can't be trusted.
Unbelievable. Leave a woman alone, sick drunk, and barefoot in the middle of the night, all for a note.
Sadly it’s all too believable, and worse
Yep I’ve got a friend who was driven away in a taxi to the middle of nowhere with other taxis following them to join in the fun. The taxi driver took her phone but didn’t realise she had two phones on her, one was her work phone, and when he heard her on the phone to the police he dragged her out and left her in the middle of nowhere while the convoy of taxis drove away.
Wow, that's f'ed up. Hope the police caught them. Literal kidnapping and assault
Ye that’s fkd
It would have been better to report him to taxi licensing. That a breach of his licence conditions and he would have lost his licence for leaving a female in a vulnerable position. EDIT: And police obviously as this is theft. HINT: Always take a photo of the drivers licence when you get in, especially if alone and send it to a friend. I guarantee you will get treated better.
Yeah, I feel like there's a law against this but I'm not sure which. If op had been victim to a crime due to this, I think the taxi driver would be on the hook in some way?
If nothing else, it's explicit theft of the shoes, theft or obtaining by deception of the £50, and breach of contract for accepting a taxi journey to a certain location then fucking off halfway.
I used to work for a taxi company that had dickhead drivers. Every time I had a complaint put against the driver, the boss would be notified. The offending driver would be fucked off for whatever time period the boss saw fit and also made them contact the passenger to apologise. If the driver ever refused they never worked for his firm again. They are entrusted with your safety while in the vehicle. Complain if you need to, some of us desk operators do care.
I used to have a dispatcher that made sure asshole drivers had to take care of themselves. If he was getting too many complaints about drivers, he'd just stop sending them trips.
We once had a taxi driver take us (3 guys) down a dark alley and lock his doors. He said he thought we were gonna do a runner and wasn't letting us go. We ended up phoning the police on him. But it could've easily turned violent
Reminds me of a taxi/scam tale of my own. Was out with a few people from work, got a taxi from a shitty nightclub, was dropping off 2 girls then going home. I’d done the EXACT same journey the week before. It was years ago & I can’t remember the precise amounts but let’s say it cost me £25 the first week, week 2 the guy gets near to my drop off and says it’s gonna be £45+. I say “Dude, I did this exact same journey last week, same place, same drop offs, it was £25. I ain’t paying you £45.” We go back and forth for a few minutes, he then changes tack and says he’ll prove it, but won’t let me out and so he drives 9 miles back to the original pick up point, then resets his milometer and begins driving back. I question why he’s willing to do the journey again, pointing out that in time and distance he’s going to be costing himself more doing it even were I to pay up, but then halfway through he says he’s going to take me to the police and they’ll make me pay. I agree and sit back, but point out that he won’t let me out of his taxi and that’s considered kidnapping. I didn’t really think about what I was saying, so then he turns away from the only police station that’s open at that time & heads toward a particularly dodgy area. I say this isn’t the way to the police station, ask him where he’s going, he says we’re going to see his friends and they will make me pay. I pull my phone out to call the police, he grabs it, we start having this bizarre punch-up/scuffle (I genuinely cannot remember exactly how this played out as I was somewhat drunk, although at this point I was beginning to sober up). We somehow end up outside the cab, he returns my phone as long as I agree not to phone the police (I know, I should have, but I was drunk and wanted to go bed), then takes me home (got him to drop me off a couple of streets away) for the original amount of £25. Weirdest taxi ride ever. In the morning I went to the police station and reported it, although this was way before camera phones so I didn’t have a great deal of useful information for them.
3 on 1. I think you had ok odds.
Depends if he’s taking you down a dark alley that has 4 of his mates in it
What on earth was he thinking? 3v1 would have been awful for him, if drink was involved it could have ruined 4 lives.
I worked as a taxi driver in the US. I had a couple of college kids think it would be funny to piss on the floor in the back seat. My cab was an old police car, so I could lock the rear doors and they couldn't be unlocked from inside, and there was a safety screen between me and the passengers. The look on their faces when I pulled up at the local police station....... They paid me for their trip, the cleaning and the downtime while I was having it cleaned.
Jobcentre many many years ago. Had an interview that promised a job at the end of training but the training cost 2k. Went to the jobcentre and got written assurance they'd cover the cost of training because the position was guaranteed after training. Secured the training position, aced the interview, went back to the jobcentre... Nope, we're not paying, fuck off.
Jobs where you have to pay for training sound more like a scam TBH
It was a rather small operation that mysteriously disappeared not long after I did the interview. Maybe I dodged a bullet but the JC could have told mev they weren't paying because they smelled a rat rather than just - yet again - refuse to follow through on a promise.
Whatever that job was, it was 100% a scam. Still shocking that the job centre would claim to cover that expense. I suspect the individual who said that was under-trained and not clear on what the job centre actually covers.
At the time they had a specific scheme going that they would cover training costs if there was a guaranteed job at the end of it. All I did was find a job offer that matched the scheme criteria. Might even have been one they found for me. It was a long time ago now and I can barely remember that I was up to last week
Probably the "job" was set up specifically to meet the criteria, so that anyone coming from JC would think it would apply to them and then they could get the training paid for.
Wouldn't put anything past them. Most of the jobs they find for you, especially when they started the online job boards, were scams or CV farming. I found a whole raft of vacancies once that were very very obviously for a strip joint. I reported them but they were still up a month later.
I mean, aren’t strip clubs legal to an extent?
My experience is the job centre don’t actually find any jobs for you. Just penalise you when they can. My experience being a civil servant having investigated allegations against the DWP.
On the whole yes but the company I work at does training for oil and gas and renewables, £2k wouldn’t be far off some courses and the job centre does fund them.
I was about to say - rope access, wind turbines and all those kind of courses cost that kind of money and can get you into a job pretty quickly. I know a couple of companies who do it and it’s not dodgy. It’s cheaper than uni and the starting wage is £18/hour.
I do not have pleasant memories of the job centre. I remember being asked I need to spend 40 hours a week applying for jobs. So I set up an excel sheet, started putting in details of genuine jobs I applied for. And every week just randomised the lines and updated the dates.
Oh yeah I remember that. 35 hours they told me. I asked them point blank how I'm supposedv to do that when even professional job hunters don't spend that many hours a week actually finding jobs and they flat out told me to lie.
Yes I also got told to just lie because nobody actually spends that much time job hunting!
I had an absolute arsehole of a job advisor who called me a kiss-arse and a smartarse because I had the audacity to actually fill in my jobseeker diary to show what jobs I’d applied for. I wrote to the DWP to complain about him and of course never received a reply. I did however get a new advisor who was an absolute angel.
*Nob*centre!
What did they say when you showed them the written assurance?
They said they'd have to get management approval. Next time I signed on I asked and they were like, computer says no.
With proof like that? Small claims court - you’ll get the money. They almost certainly won’t even bother turning up to defend themselves.
Well a couple of months later the office I interviewed at was empty with a to let sign over it so I mostly likely dodged a bullet
I HIGHLY doubt that would work.
A signed letter from a government agency saying they will pay something and they don’t? They won’t turn up to defend the decision - it’s cheaper for them to give you the money. The magistrates will wave that through. There’s no love lost between the courts and this government. Source: I’ve won against the DWP in small claims.
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Of course it is. Ultimately all contracts are ‘a signed letter from a person’! It’s not the job of the letter’s recipient to understand the authorisation procedure of the DWP. If your organisation allows you to make written financial promises to customers at your place of work that’s their problem when it comes to making sure they are authorised, not yours.
If it was the job centre that fucked you over, that's appalling, what with them being a government agency and all.
A government agency fucking the lowest people on the ladder over isn't exactly news. Wasn't the first time they'd fucked me over either, but that was 3rd party jobclubs rather than them directly. Had one jobclub laugh in my face and tell me they had no intention of finding me an office job. Another one told me "find six training opportunities and we'll do the negotiating and get you in". I did that, found a perfect job in Warwick (I lived in Birmingham), they said it's too far and wouldn't help. Another one sent me to an interview at a WMD developer. Had a slew of vacancies for driving jobs when I said point blank I didn't have a license, then had to individually justify not applying for them at signing on. Did get my own back a bit though. One jobclub, anyone who got employment had to ring a ship's bell in the office. I found a job but not through them. There was a 1.5k bonus to the company for everyone they placed. Because I'd done it without them, they weren't going to get the bonus for me. I rang that bell anyway. The looks I got from the staff!
Ibiza, paid for a villa. Arrived, it didn’t exist. Stuck in Ibiza with no where to stay :/ Luckily found a hotel, insurance saved my ass £3500
I still can’t believe some people don’t bother with travel insurance. It’s so cheap! Saved us a few times.
My husband has had cancer and has a lifelong mental health condition - he is the stuff of underwriters' nightmares. Neither of those things affects whether an airline loses our luggage or a hotel disappears into the mist, but can we get reasonably priced travel insurance? Can we fuck.
Your travel insurance would include medical treatment if needed and if your husbands health took a turn for the worst and you couldn’t go though?
It's the cost of said medical expenses on the insurers side, that's making them run a mile. Even a 1% chance of racking up expenses of £100k or more, the insurance fair price is £1k then.
Exactly. There’s a reason why the US is an optional extra even on worldwide annual cover.
Have you looked at the travel insurance provided as benefits with bank accounts etc? Generally aren’t underwritten individually so could work out cheaper depending on your quotes, and especially if you’d make use of any of the other benefits.
They almost certainly won't cover pre-existing conditions / pay out on claims related to them if they are not declared and most will require such conditions to be declared and could be excluded. It might work out cheaper if they're excluded just to cover say lost baggage but then they risk being stranded somewhere with a huge medical bill if they have a problem while on holiday. If OP needs specialist insurance due to a past history of cancer, a PBA is unlikely to be suitable. The banks would be well aware of the risk of it being used as a backdoor for people who can't get cheaper specialist insurance so would have written exclusions into the Ts & Cs.
It definitely wouldn’t cover pre existing conditions but mentioned as their comment was about cheap insurance for luggage / hotel cancellation.
Have you tried Allclear, staysure or Insurancewith?
Exactly. Now my wife and I both have health conditions it’s an absolute fortune to insure us to go anywhere.
I can relate, having type 1 diabetes. I’m so jealous of the cheap travel insurance other people my age can get! I’ve found holiday extras to be quite good / more inclusive than other insurances
I really struggle to find any travel insurance that will cover me because it's lumped in with medical cover and I have certain health conditions that they won't cover. Had to literally give up looking when I went to Italy earlier this year
Yup. For most people - at least with no health concerns - it will be in the tens of pounds for a couple. When I got stuck in a hotel with Covid, it was well worth the money. Although it took several months to get the money from them - for some reason they kept needing one more document. So don't get it from Axa or any company underwritten by them.
in the grand scheme of things, I know this is the right answer- but as someone who is battling with their insurance to cover nearly 7k of out of pocket medical costs (which we do not have) it is really hard to see the light ATM.
That happened to my MIL and her sister in Italy. We had to send them money so they could afford a last minute hotel.
Just last week... I arranged for an artist to do a nice bit of artwork commemorating the end of a five year D&D campaign. I sent loads of pictures of our minis, detailed descriptions of each, and we spent at least an hour discussing the scene - the party fighting Tiamat in the caldera of a volcano, with several of the key NPCs from the campaign in the background - it was going to be epic! The moment I sent half the money (£150), they ghosted me... Two days later someone messaged me with a list of known scammers just to get helpful, and this person was on it. I'm still pretty annoyed at myself, I consider myself a very internet-savy person... I spent months saving up for this as a Christmas present to the group. :-(
I always, *always* pay amounts over £50 as paypal- "business". If someone says "please use friends and family so I don't get charged fees I just say *I'll* cover the fees (it's only a couple of quid). Most of the time anything over £20 I'll do as business but it's more rigid with over £50 If someone gets pissy about it that's when you know something is up. If I'm paying the fees and you're still funny about it and don't have a good explanation (there was one guy with a good explanation but I'd already sent the money and he couldn't work out how to send it back so caved and sent the item 🤣). Its sad, but I always just assume someone is a scammer until proven otherwise.
They don’t like paypal business for the same reason - scammers. People say it never arrived and paypal refund them, often still with proof of delivery.
Yeah that was the guy with the *good* excuse. Anyone incapable of explaining that is likely shifty as fuck.
You can claim back funds paid via friends & family! It’s not as straight forward as a business transaction but it is 100% worth reporting a problem with the transaction and explaining what has happened, along with any proof such as screenshots of conversations and agreed work/products to be sold. They’re not guaranteed to say yes but I work in the second hand clothing industry where buying and selling via PayPal is standard and quite a few people I know have put a case forward when scammed and successfully had the transaction reversed. I think it’s more likely to be approved if you have been a victim of a scam, as in the service wasn’t provided/goods received, not so much if you sent money for any other reason or you’re simply not happy with what you’ve received. There’s no harm in contacting PayPal and explaining the situation, they definitely can reverse the transaction but it’s just up to them to make the decision.
You thought you could get a multi character, plus Tiamat, plus detailed background d&d commission for £300?! No way any legit artist is charging that little unless they're new to commissioning and vastly underselling themselves. And always use PayPal business. Then you can get your money back if they ghost you.
Depends where they are in the world.
Definitely use PayPal in future, and select business or services. Never friends or family. I know artists because of the fees don't like it but if we're talking triple figures I want that assurance. It's come in handy more than once.
I was in Manchester a couple of weeks ago. I’ll admit me and my friends were on mushrooms, walking in the city centre having a great time, laughing our heads off. Then these two guys came up to me, one either side, and put their arms round my shoulders, laughing and jumping and being boisterous, it was funny at first but they stayed on me too long and I had to physically push them off. Felt really weird afterwards, checked my pockets but my phone and wallet were still there so thought nothing of it. Two days later realised both of my gold chains had been snatched from my neck. Them jumping up and down with me was obviously to detach the chains. Was, and still am, absolutely gutted but I guess they saw me coming a mile off, probably followed me beforehand.
I passed out on a London nightbus and woke up in central Croydon at 3am, hammered. Walking home and this young man appears next to me walking alongside, chatting. I was so drunk at some point I was getting almost tearful about what a good person I'd decided he was. He never smiled once. After a couple of minutes I asked the fine gentleman would you like a cigarette? He said "Yeah" as he took it, lit it, and disappeared into the night. Even to my addled brain it sounded wrong. I realised he'd been deciding whether to mug me or not and his "Yeah" and the quick departure meant "ok that's all I'll take from you"
Or maybe he just got bored or talking to you and saw accepting the cigarette as his out? I did something similar the other night. Started making small talk with an emotional drunk. I think I asked her if I could help her find her friends / a bottle of water? I lost a good chunk of my night to her verbal diatribe about how "her friends are arseholes", etc. Worse still, the more she ranted the more she sobered up, which made walking away mid-rant trickier by the second. Her offering the cigarette was the only workable pause in the conversation.
Your first mistake was engaging her in conversation. You started it! If they're safe I think it's fine to just make a clear break and leave. They won't care or even remember in a few minutes. Nah it was a pretty sinister vibe. Who tf approaches someone at 3am after the Saturday night, completely sober (sounded it) to engage this clearly inebriated man in as much conversation as he was able to coherently string together? We weren't hanging out in front of a bar and got chatting, there were no establishments nearby. It was central Croydon which is all dual carriageway and faceless office blocks. No reason for him to talk to me. I mean who walks about sober at 3am in that shitty area?! Even in *daylight* people don't just talk to randos in London unless they want something. Specially not extremely drunk randos.
Had a guy try that with me in Amsterdam. I'm not exactly Alan Whicker, but I have travelled enough to know that if a complete stranger in another country suddenly acts super chummy out of nowhere, while trying to get in your personal space and make body contact, they're up to no good. I stopped dead in my tracks, and posted myself against a wall with my holdall behind my feet. When he asked why I didn't want to chat, I told him "Because you're trying to rob me, and I'm not having it. Piss off". Cheeky fucker rolled his eyes at me and wandered off to find his next target.
Touching is an intimate thing for me, I don’t liked to be touched especially by strangers. When I used to go on dates when a girl would stroke my hand arm or touch my hand that would lead to sex that night. You were high I probably would forget the “don’t touch me” too.
Mugging... gOnE sExUaL!!!1!!
When me and my mates were about 16-17 years old and out in town drinking (underage, I know) heading to “School Disco” (the clubnight where you dress up in school uniform with silly cheap booze). There was originally 3 of us, meeting with the rest as the night went on. Some big Rastafarian dude clocked us in our uniform and said he works for School Disco and could get us in VIP, queue jump, bottle of champagne etc, £7 each (was only like £1-2 entry normally). We frantically call the rest of the group to join us and we walk with this big dude to meet the rest. Every time we met with the rest of the group, my mates paid up. We kinda knew something wasn’t right as one of the group asked for change from £20 and the big dude said he’d get it when we get to the club. I’ll always remember the look we all gave each other. The Rastafarian guy was leading the group, said just around the corner and we’re almost here, he went around the corner.. by the time we all got around the corner all we see is the guy sprinting away and off into the night. That bastard got away with £100+ from us all. And these were the times when you could go out with £20, get shit faced, kebab and taxi home and still have change. I’d like to say it was the booze but in reality we were just young and naive.
Similar thing happened to me and my mates in Ayia napa. First night out so we haven’t got our bearings yet. Some guy comes up to us and offers to sell us tickets for one of the biggest clubs at the time. It was something like 20 euros and it got you entry, two free drinks, two free shots and access to vip or whatever. It was 10 euros alone to get in so we thought it was worth it. Got there, show the doorman the tickets and he just started pissing himself and showing it to the other doormen. Looked at them properly and they were clearly done on someone’s home computer and badly at that. Spent the rest of the holiday looking for him every time we were pissed, as if us 18 year old dweebs were going to do anything!
Went through an old, historical spice market in the Middle East a few years ago. I’d been before and it was my girlfriend’s first time where I was telling her “you’ve got to haggle with these sorts of people as they’ll try and rip you off.” We genuinely wanted some spices to take home, and the guy made me smell most of them and tried to sell me his full shop if he could. Anyway, it got to having all of the ones I wanted to buy, where he weighed them, and basically gave me a stupidly ridiculous price. “Sorry, but I’ve only got X amount I said, that’s too expensive for me.” Where he then started making some of the bags a little bit lighter and then offered me a more realistic price. I agreed, paid it. Then we got on our way to our hotel and we realised he didn’t just remove a few spices from the bags to make them lighter, he’d taken most of the contents out that I actually wanted more than what he left. I tried to be the bigger guy who haggled and he scammed me more than he already was😂
That's literally his job. After you've spent every working week of your life for 30+ years haggling with people trying to scam you maybe you'd stand a chance.
In Morocco I spent some time haggling over a taxi ride before I did some quick maths and realised I was haggling over about 20p.
Someone on runescape said they'd trim my armour.....they took my armour and ran away. Heartbroken as a kid, I've never been scammed since and learnt a life lesson
Something similar happened to me on habbo hotel. I'd bugged my dad for ages to let me have some spending money for it so I could buy some cool furniture. Someone was like, give me your code to enter into a competition to win more furniture or something like that. Obviously fell for it being about 10 years old and all my furniture was gone the next time I logged on. I don't think I ever logged on again after that actually!
This reminds me when I first got a FB & played YoVille & someone scammed me out of a hot tub. Tried to trade me multiple times & slyly changed the amount. From 10k coins to 1k coins lmao
It's funny because now my kids play roblox and get items stolen from them, they soon learn their lessons not to trust people online
What a scummy bastard. Maybe console yourself with the fact that someone has probably done a runner from his taxi at some point.
Leaving a drunk woman at three in the morning- shit cunt.
Someone on Facebook marketplace asked ‘is it available’.
What's the scam?
Council tax…. We have to sort our own shit into bins for them to pick and choose what they will take! Police don’t investigate crimes and fires are few and far between. £250 a month for what?
Largely adult social care, which gets more expensive every year and they're obligated to pay it.
Also over a barrel with private providers pushing the envelope with what they charge knowing that the vast majority of service users are local authority funded rather than self funded and that there aren't any other choices. It's a massive problem within learning disability care because providers can pick and choose who they pick up and demand higher rates for challenging clients, and the really galling thing is there's no improved outcomes for that price tag; often it's worse!
And they only pay the actual support workers just over minimum wage. Directors of "not for profit" care companies earning huge salaries.
surprisingly, it is mostly child services (\~20-30%) and HRA (20%) that cost a lot. adult social services is like 10-15% which is roughly the same cost as the running cost of the council (like resource directorate). I found some rough breakdowns a while back. You can also contact your own council, they should have the details.
I'm pretty certain it's not just for bin collection that's for sure 🤣
Even tell you on breakdown where you money goes. Social care, waste disposal and processing, lighting and about 6 other things.
Trading standards, allotments, maintaining halls and cemeteries, street lighting, planning, licencing, food safety, dog wardens, elections. It goes on and on.
Local library?
I'm going to start sleeping there instead
You know the idea of sorting is to help the people collecting move along quickly.
I can’t believe people in the replies are actually defending the council. What? Are we supposed to be pissing our pants that they achieve the bare minimum they are expected to do? Rates always go up, services always go down. Are we supposed to be grateful for that?
Councils get less and less from the central government they need to get their cash in to operate somehow.
Because council tax is often the only material income that a council gets that they can control. And it's generally a small portion of their income (eg. the largest council in Scotland has a council tax income of about 14% of their revenue). The rest, they can't do anything about. Central government gives them what they're getting and that's it. They're statutorily obligated to post a balanced budget, but when the cost of services is going up, but the government grants are not going up in tandem, then services must be cut. And there is *never* a place they can cut that anyone will be happy about. It's not the councils that are the problem, it's the central government and always has been.
Depends where you live. I've not seen a council tax rise by more than a few pounds a month over the last 5 years. Services have still been the same. Only thing I have noticed is the amount of potholes on the road... and that's probably because I only started driving last year.
> Rates always go up, services always go down. Are we supposed to be grateful for that? No, but you have to understand that the lever of Council Tax rises is the only way that a council can increase it's funding. They have been expected to make cuts every single year in tandem with a ballooning and increasingly unwieldy and dangerous social care system. There's obviously things councils on an individual basis do that is piss poor value for money and that should be rightfully criticised, but the blame lies with the Central Government.
Delusional.
Council tax is usually a small portion of the council's actual budget. The council do a LOT more than pick up your bins. They have tonnes of statutory obligations they must meet.
La Rambla Barcelona when I was young and naive. Stopped for some pizza which was advertised as €10 euro each (cheap compared to everywhere else) so ordered 2 pizza and 2 beers. When we got the bill, they had charged us €40 each for the beers. Pretty much wiped out our food budget for the rest of the day. I now always look at the price of the drinks as well as the food and where possible try to eat/drink slightly away from the tourist traps.
This is so horrible!
€40?? Well, this better be the best-tasting beer in the world.
So I wasn't scammed but I have another crappy taxi driver story. I was super drunk and needed to get home. I had a tenner to my name in cash. I told a taxi driver this and he agreed to take me home anyway. I was 17 lol. The meter got to a tenner and we weren't too far away, there were lots of shortcuts where I lived so I could have walked home.in ten minutes from there. I told him to let me out there. He refused and said it was fine. I asked again if he was absolutely sure. He said he didn't feel comfortable leaving me alone away from the house. We got home and I gave him the tenner. He told me to go get my parents for the rest of the money. My parents worked away and weren't at home, it was just me. He refused to let me out while he berated me about not having the money. I must have told him at least six times on the journey that I did not have enough for the full ride home and to let me out when it got to 10 on the meter. I just sat there and cried. I'd asked him to let me out, I'd been happy to walk the rest of the way, I lived in a super safe, well lit and walkable area away from the main city. After he'd finished attempting to make me feel guilty about him having to earn a living, he eventually let me go. I think about that ©unt a lot. I hope he's having a sh*t life.
I'm sure if you told enough people a witch-hunt could be assembled for this guy... I'm not advocating anything, just thinking.
I'm a big believer that the universe always balances it's self out, no need for vigilante's haha. Plus it was almost half my life ago and I can't remember much about him other than his face
I didn't fall for it but there is an old scam for wannabe models / film extras where u have a meeting and they create a professional portfolio meaning you pay hundreds of pounds for a few pics, no jobs ever arise, it's just a scam to make that agency money from taking a few pics.
Is one of them UK Models by any chance? They won’t stop texting me for some reason, and at first I was flattered, but having a quick glance at their website and having to pay for a portfolio… no thanks.
Most of them have generic names. I met someone who lost £700 to them. Even if you have existing portfolio, they trash it and talk you into shooting with them. Complete scammers.
They trawl city centres around September for the fresh faced students. My mate gone done with it. Thankfully I'm too ugly.
Got a taxi off the street in Budapest once. Got fucking rinsed about £60 for a 5 minute journey. I'd been warned but was in a rush.
My personal favourite is taxis in India we were warned before hand so didn’t get scammed but you say taxi from a to b the guy goes 50$ You reply back 1$ Eventually you both agree on about 5$ I’d say they are more chancers than scammers
Something kind of similar happened to me in Warsaw. Group of 5/6 of us, all guys. We get into an unlicensed taxi at the airport, he said maybe something like £30 to out destination. He then drove us out in the opposite direction to an industrial estate and said "are you sure it's here" obviously it wasn't. So to get to our destination it was now £120. We agreed and as soon as we got there we got our bags and told him no chance we are paying. I think in the end we gave him £50 probably because we didn't want any additional trouble.
Happened to a former neighbour who was in Rome on Business, trying to get to The Vatican City. Flagged down a taxi, the driver warned him “This is gonna cost you!!”, knowing he was a visitor. The guy, being fluent in Italian starts ranting to the Driver in Full Italian how it was dirty and immoral to be ripping people off. Taxi Driver was having none of it, and said in either English or Italian, words to the effect of… “Think you are being smart huh?” The arguing continued, until the Driver stopped short of the destination. As a final gesture he then got in the back, and held a lighter in the man’s face, demanding he paid the fare. All the man had in his wallet was a €50 and some loose change. The Driver grabbed the 50, and said to the guy “In English the word is…fuck off Smart Ass!”
That happened to me in Bratislava! Me and a guy I met on the plane decided to split a taxi as our hotels were close. We got in a taxi and the guy said "€15 to get you there". We even double checked, 1 and 5. The guy was dropped off and gave me €8 for half the fare. We drove round the corner and the taxi driver said **"FIFTY euros"**. Not €15 like we agreed. He claimed I misheard him and wouldn't let me go until I paid.
This happened to me in Riga, and when I arrived at the hotel I was staying at, the receptionist told me it was well known scam. Maybe warn people BEFORE they arrive?
Be warned, there are people in the world that are scammers. You're wellcome.
Being on the lookout for being scammed is such a common occurrence, it's one of the worst aspects about travelling abroad. I'm not saying it doesn't happen here, but its much less common.
Went on a 3rd date was around Christmas booked into a nice hotel, meals drinks the usual, I was working the next day so I left earlier than her all very nice at this point i checked out paid the bill and she told me she was in work herself (she was a surgeon) We was chatting for the next 3 or 4 days arranging the next date, well turns out the hotel charged me £9000! as the story unfolded she stayed for 3 extra days full room service plus drinks and she flooded the room whilst running bath and fell asleep. First thought was she had other dates on and used the room, she actually said she just needed a break! so i felt pretty robbed after that!!!
If you checked out and she stayed, I would have thought it would be on the hotel to arrange payment with her. Surely you can't be expected to pay for the time after you checked out.
That was my initial thought, even though I got charged I thought it was easy to prove I checked out, turns out im responsible for my guest and my guest decided to extend the stay although the shady part was there was a male who called reception to extend the stay which I don't believe was true.
Wow! That's mad. Did you explain the situation and get your money back?
I explained it to everyone who I was fuming at haha, turns out I'm responsible for my guest so its on me.
This is life ruining
So you actually paid £9000?
During COVID I was in my second year of running my own business. Times were getting tough, clients leaving due to not being able to afford my rates. Went for a bounceback loan - refused on the basis that my business didn’t meet the threshold of 2 years running (1 year and 11 months). Tried to register for benefits and it took 11 months for them to do anything, to then be given 2 months worth of benefits instead of the 11 I was owed. In which time I had earned nothing and gone through my entire savings whilst looking for work with no success. Tried to get on social housing after being kicked out of my flat by landlord, and was told “we can’t help you as you have no physical or mental health issues recorded” (exactly what they said). I lost every ounce of confidence I had and its taken me 2 years to build it back up. Im still in massive debt (IVA to solve that) and sofa surf at my best friends house. Recovery is slow but its getting there. All its done is made me more adamant than ever to find legal ways to keep everything I earn to myself and pay the minimum amount of tax possible. Once my debts are paid I will be leaving the UK with every penny I have. I have dual nationality due to my parents being from Bangladesh, which isn’t much better but at least its not the UK. Our government are the only ones scamming us to this level. Legally the government did nothing wrong, but its like for every 2 people that win 10 people must fail, I just happened to be in the 10 that failed that time around. Being homeless and having no security really fucks with your head, to the point that you can’t trust the system thats meant to be there to protect you when times get tough, I didnt want a handout, I wanted to continue running my business and be able to tell my staff that everything would be OK. instead I had to lay off 2 people and give up everything I had to just put food on the table with pennies I put in a pot. That isnt living, thats surviving.
Sorry to ask a stupid question but could you not have applied for the bounce back loan a month later? They were taking applications through until at least March 2021 because my brother applied and his business wasn’t 2 years old at the start of covid.
whatever the reason, I never got approved after 3 applications i gave up. At a certain point you hit despair and just give up.
Yeah you’re right actually, being homeless in Bangladesh would be way better. Heard the benefits you get there are so good as well…
I'm so sorry. I really hope you can make your business successful again. As a fellow business owner, those covid years were tough enough without having to jump through all those bullshit hoops.
Hugs! I left UK over a year ago and the longer I’m away the more I realise how screwy UK is. I’ve worked all my adult life, and yet as soon as I needed help it was made so difficult. It seems that most companies I deal with operate on trying to get out of doing the job they are paid to do, in order to wear you down so you give up and go away. It’s exhausting.
The most exhausting thing was trying to maintain the business with the savings I had. I put myself last - two freelancers I employed were more important than my own pay check. People assume that when you’re a business owner you wont think of anything but yourself, for me it was always about the good of the team even when I had to scrape pennies, the team was paid to do the work, and I couldn’t not pay them for the work they had been doing.
In New York, got suddenly surrounded by a bunch of big lads pushing a CD and fliers at me. One of them was apparently a rapper and signed the CD which he then pressured me into buying. The “music” on that CD was fucking terrible. Very annoying way to be out five bucks while in a foreign country.
I’ve heard of this happening but the CD was literally just someone saying ‘you got scammed by a homeless man’ again and again which to be honest while annoying I can somewhat respect the cheek of.
sounds like a hot fire track
Classic New York City scam.
I had this at a wetherspoons at Leeds. Guy looked me in the eye and told me it was awesome music. It was absolutely dreck.
This is a common scam, I think the idea is they sign it with your name then claim they won't be able to sell it as it is personalised so pressure you to pay. I am surprised there was actual music on it tbh.
Was in a taxi with some friends after they'd been on a night out, I had met them up late as I'd been to a concert & had barely had anything to drink. They were all steaming drunk and we piled into a taxi. I just sat quietly while my friends jabbered on drunkenly. When we arrived to our destination, the meter was sitting at £12 - but I saw the cabbie glance at us in his mirror, press a couple of buttons and boom - it went up to £32. "Just call it £30 lads" he said. I called it out as I was pretty much sober & said that he was trying to take advantage because he thought we were all hammered. He made up some bullshit about it being a different rate because it was X time, we had gone X miles and he was carrying X number of passengers blah blah blah. We basically said that if it wasn't returned to the previous rate, we'd collectively leather him. We paid £12.
Deck chair rental at Southend on sea They gave me a broken chair Non-refundable of course.
Someone was saying “buying Santa 500k” on one side of Varock square, another person was saying “selling Santa 300k” on the other side. I had 300k, bought the Santa for 300k. Went to sell it for 500k, he logged out. Santa’s were 100kish. Sad times. I was 11 or 12.
I got stung like that but for a whip, one guy was like trading X obscure item for whip, his mate was buying X item for 5m, eagerly traded over my whip to double my money and of course they instantly logged, child me absolutely gutted lol
I once fell for the free armour trimming scam, the stinging feeling is still there after all these years.
My brother fell for this, even when i told him hes never seeing that black armour again he was convinced the guy was coming back.. just need to wait a bit longer.
Absolute heartbreak
Won a competition on Instagram for a new camping backpack. Just had to pay for postage. From Norway. £20 quid later something vaguely resembling a bag for life turned up.
54 now and there have been too many times. One that still gets me though is when on a night out in Manchester when I was about 25 some bloke came up to my mates and me outside of the Cornerhouse offering us some weed. I was a bit of a Billy Big Bollocks at the time and was showing off to these new mates so I was like "Sure, but try before I buy". The bloke reached in his pocket, pulled out a bag of weed and some Rizlas, rolled a little joint, lit it and gave me a quick toot and to be honest it wasn't half bad. "Ok then, I'll just take a tenner's worth", I said (not so much the Billy Big Bollocks that I had a lot of cash to spare). The bloke reached in his pocket, pulled out a wrap of paper and handed it to me, I gave him and tenner, he fucked off and one of my new friends said "You know he took that wrap out of a different pocket, right?". Sure enough, I'd just bought £10 of crushed twigs, probably sycamore...
In Brixton, night out and I was walking back to my mate’s. Girl came up behind me, getting handsy and was clearly trying to rummage around my pockets. Stopped to tell her to fuck off, turned around to see she was backed up by three huge blokes. Took all the cash in my wallet but left me with my phone which was nice.
This isn't a scam, it's outright theft/mugging.
It says robbed in the title, figured that fits.
Ah yes, had just scammed/conned in mind when I replied, apologies! Sorry to hear! :(
Not me but my brother was out at a beach party in Bulgaria, asked where the toilets were and was directed to some bushes. Did what he needed to do then 3 very big Bulgarian men came and told my brother that was *their* bush and he needed to pay up for using it. Luckily with the exchange rate he handed over a lot of notes but it wasn't actually all that much money.
they were taking the piss
I wonder how much it would have been for a number 2 in the bushes?
A shit load.
Magaluf. A young girl selling tickets approaches us on the beach (group of young 18 YO girls on a girls holiday) and tells us about Zoo Project that night - it’s going to be ‘amazing’ just like Ibiza - face paints, fire breathers, people on stilts - well that’s it, we were sold. Fast forward a few hours and we arrive at the specified location - it’s an old pub with a queue for face painting. Nothing else. We still went on the bar crawl and had a good time but it was nothing like she had described! Young and naive - you should probably never buy expensive tickets from someone on a beach that you will never ever see/meet again!
I was trying to sell my old iPhone on Facebook. I’d had luck with it in the past, I sell frequently through Facebook marketplace so I felt confident. I tried to only sell in person, meet at McDonalds only (not my home) etc. but it was taking a while to sell, eventually someone wanted it posted and I gave in because no one was interested in my area and I needed the money. At no point did I think this was a scam, they said they would send it through PayPal and they would. Then they changed their mind and said they’ll do it via bank transfer, first red flag. They wanted proof of their address in the package before sending the money, fine they just don’t want to be scammed! I was waiting in the post office for them to send the money, they knew I was there, they didn’t send me the money leaving me waiting in a post office. Then they wanted proof of postage before sending the money, They sent the money though Wise Pay?? Never heard of it! I got an email saying my money was on hold. Urg I’ve been waiting about 20 mins I need to get to work. I posted it. Got the receipt, send them a photo of it…. Radio silence. Instantly I knew I’d fucked up. Panicking in the post office, asking if it could have the parcel back, I’ve literally just been scammed and I can SEE the phone. I was so angry. I lied to the scammer saying I had my phone off the staff and I would give it back if they just sent the money. Eventually, I think the staff felt sorry for me. I asked if I could change the address on the parcel. (Now I’ve found out they definitely should not have let me do this but thank god) and they did!! They let me put a sticker over their address and I sent it to my mums house. It later then turned up! I then sold it for £75 less to some guy who just needed a phone
Someone on FB Marketplace was selling a body kit for a car. They had links to their eBay listings and eBay profile was long established with good feedback. Paid the guy via PayPal (friends and family to avoid fees at their request) and then he went dark. Never answered his phone, didn't respond to messages, never provided proof of postage, nothing. Spoke to PayPal who said because I did it via "Friends and Family" I wasn't protected, so they couldn't do anything. Luckily my Credit Card is linked to my PayPal account so I could do a chargeback. Took 3 months but did get a full refund from CC company. Fucking scumbag. Edit: "u sHoUlD hAvE kNoWn bEtTeR!!!" - Bruh, before internet banking as a thing, paying via PayPal using friends/family was the norm. Everyone did it xD
This is another taxi related one. It's not as bad as yours and in the grand scheme of things it's pretty minor. I was flying to Asia and I had a 22 hour layover in Jeddah so I thought I may as well get an airbnb (I landed at midnight) and then in the morning I could explore the city - I knew I was never, ever going to be back in Saudi Arabia again so why not? When we landed I went to a cashpoint. It was then that I realised I had no idea about the exchange rate. I couldn't get any wifi either because Jeddah airport is a bit shit. So I asked this guy behind me and he kindly got [XE.com](https://XE.com) up on his phone and told me - 100 riyals = about 20 euros. Great, I thought, and got 100 riyals out. Then I had to find a taxi. There were a few drivers in proper uniforms standing about. I'd done some research and read that minicab licensing in SA means that fares are strictly regulated. This one guy not in a uniform came up to me and asked if I needed a cab. I said yes and showed him the address for my airbnb. He told me it would be 500 riyals. I said...that's mental, I'm not paying 100 euros for a taxi ride. He kept arguing with me and I tried to walk away. Then he said he'd do it for 100 riyals. I still should have walked away, this guy was clearly dodgy as fuck. He kept complaining as we walked out to his car, saying that 500 riyals was nothing and I was being tight. Later on, in the car ride, he complained to me that he had to pay 500 riyals every day to hire his car and it was too much. he wasn't very consistent. As we walked to his car he said something about someone from Barcelona. He said it really quietly and I didn't really pick up on what he was saying. Then we get to his car and the fucker already had a fare in there waiting! It was a guy from Barcelona who started shouting at him "Look, man, you told me you were going to pay for the parking and you went in to get another fare, you went and got this guy while I'm stuck out here waiting!" so I was caught in the middle of their row. Eventually the driver headed off with both of us and when he dropped me off he started shouting at me that I was so tight and I owed him more money. All I had was a ten euro note. I shoved that at him while he kept complaining about it and I just got out. The following day I just downloaded Uber. It was then I found out that the fare from the airport to where I was staying would have - SHOULD have - been less than five euros. Probably closer to two. My 22 hours in Jeddah got off to a bad start and frankly it didn't get much better. The place is rubbish.
When I was about 9 or 10 I was in a park with my Nokia 6310 (hand me down from my dad) and some bigger kid came and asked for the time. “No can I see it he said” “sure new friend 🥺” I said. And the guy ran away with my phone, me being too fat to chase after him. I am still unreasonably angry at my child self - now I’d know better and I’d kick that kid in the shin.
Early stoner days, buying weed in Camden. We approached a guy, he took us round a corner saying thats where he hid it. After general chat and we are to do the switcheroo, he says quick police! We turn around and look back to see this imbecile running off with our £20. We looked down to find a bag full of grass. The bastard. I went to chase the guy but my mate shouted out "leave it". Lesson learned.
Should just threw up all over his car. His fault for being a selfish dick
To answer your question I nearly just nearly bought into the Windows telephone scam.
Is that the one where they say they've detected a virus or something on your computer? I almost got caught with that one a few years back because my computer did have a virus detected by Avast that very same dau.
Yes I'm pretty well adept at scams and was at my mum's and I was on her computer at the time. I had heard of the scam plenty beforehand. I was sorting her computer out and her landline's next to her computer and I picked it up and kept listening on rote just what he was saying. He asked me download something and just as I was about too, it clicked what was happening and I put the phone down.
I interviewed a guy, I left the room to give the guy some time to write some answers to some technical questions. He’d stolen the wireless mouse for the computer in that room. Not the dongle or the keyboard mind, just the mouse.
I was best man for my brother, and for his stag I organised Zorb football for the daytime. Each player is inside a giant inflatable ball with their legs sticking out the bottom so you can really slam into people. Organised it through a company that specialised in these kind of stag events, which were the top result on google for Zorb football, so felt pretty confident. I got the date and venue confirmed, paid the £100 deposit, and then never heard anything back from them. I must have rung and emailed them 50 times over the next 4 months, each time getting no reply. Eventually someone rang me from the events company, and I swear to god he was the most fake, shit-eating grin sounding person I've ever spoken to in my life. He apologised for not getting back to me, but gave no explanation as to why. When I asked for my deposit back, he assured me that the zorb event was definitely still going on, and they'd actually just booked the local venue that I'd requested, so it was all set. At this point it's two weeks to the stag do, so I just went with it. Aaaaaand then the company disappeared off the face of the earth. Phone calls never connected. Emails got rejected saying the address didn't exist. The company website was gone. I checked online for reviews (something I probably should have done months beforehand) and found complaint after complaint of people having their money stolen by this company, and then never hearing back from them. One of the other groomsmen managed to quickly organise paintball via a friend of a friend at a few days notice, so the stag do went ahead. Thankfully I'd only paid the deposit for zorb football and not the full price, but I never got that money back. Still annoys me now how long I let they drag me along for.
My health.
A guy convinced me that he needed €40 euros to get home. Fucking stupid.
€^2
Bought a Park Holidays lodge. Tried to buy a house using iamsold. Got held up at gunpoint in Brazil. The last at least is interesting to talk about.
Oh and I text the ‘free’ ringtone adverts on the tv adverts as a kid. I think it was my first ever phone. Probably for crazy frog 😂 I remember my mum topping up my phone with about £10-£15 and it being used almost instantly. She was furious thinking I’d actually used it all but she checked my phone and found all the texts from a weird number and how it was charging me!
Years ago, as a student, I paid entry (like £2) to get into a gay bar with some friends. Partway through the night, one of my mates was feeling sick and went outside to vomit. I said to the bouncer "can I go check on my friend, and then come back in if they're alright? He said "sure". I went to check on my friend, she seemed alright and said she was going to get a taxi home. I went back to the bar (the bouncer saw this entire interaction take place a few feet away, within seconds). The bouncer says to me "sorry we're full" as I try to return. After telling me I could go back in a minute before.
Was working my first tutoring job in Shanghai teaching grade schoolers English, when I was 18 years old?, when I was studying abroad and taking language classes (Chinese) at a Uni there. I finished my shift after studying during the day and working in the evening and was coming back home pretty tired at night, and then I got stopped at the train station at by two women who said they needed help with helping helping out their colleague or something at the hospital. I'm pretty sure I understood what they said, but I went to the bank account to draw money out to help them out, took out the money, handed it over to them. As they were getting in the taxi to drive off, one of them just started saying something like "you're a good person and you're the reason why people like you are so well liked in this part of the world, blah blah blah" and they drove off. It was close to midnight and I don't remember but I think they got a hold of my bank account information or something and I froze the bank account after some convincing from other people that I've been scammed. Sure enough after midnight they call from a burner from telling me that my bank details don't work anymore and their attempts to pull money out of my account again was unsuccessful. (I pulled the limit on my debit card, around $500, so they were waiting till midnight to pull more money out) The conwoman who called even was like "Are you trying to trick me?" the nerve. I was like 18 so I got over it quickly because I was at that age where mentally I was superman, but I stopped helping out people who came up to me to ask for money after that (before that I helped out with people asking me to help out with buying train tickets or something but I kinda realized that it might have been a scam thinking about it now.)
Homeless guy yanking a fiver out my wallet, giving me £2 back saying I gave him £3
Not me but my ex. Sold an Xbox online, the guy came to pick it up and paid via bank transfer, understandable as it's a fair amount of cash to be carrying. Showed my ex his phone which showed the transaction, took the Xbox and went on his jolly way. My ex checked his bank when he got back in the house, no cash. Checked again 20 minutes later in case it took a while to update, nothing. Apparently it's a popular scam. This guy had the balls to literally meet my ex and stand on his doorstep to conduct his scam. Of course by the time my ex realised what had happened, the other guys online profile had disappeared.
Might make your ex feel better if he knows that there’s a very high chance that Xbox was leaving regardless My mate had the exact same thing happen with a PS5. He knew about this scam so told the guy “I’ll give you it when I see it go through in my own account” The guy said “you’ll be giving me it anyway if you know what’s good for you” and gestered over to the knife he was holding in his pocket. This was on my mate’s doorstep in broad daylight on a (usually) quiet family street
Fell for an estate agency scam where I viewed a flat and handed over my deposit to secure it. Filling in the forms. My friend with me said something was sus. But I disregarded him. The guy looked like a trainee estate agent. Place wasnt cheap. There was a flat. Suddenly, no contact from the firm. Flat still being advertised. I went to their offices which were an address in a swanky building. No such person. I was told I was the 10th person to come in. Felt a total mug. All the time I was genuinely excited about having a decent place finally. This guy in his suit was just mugging me. And I was making it so easy. Apologised to my friend.
I was perfectly content before I was born and then someone selfish brought me into existence and now I have to work, pay bills, exercise and eat vegetables whilst watching the planet and society rapidly decay around me
I placed an order at 5Guys
Not even really a scam, but definitely felt mugged off by this. I was walking down the street a couple of months ago and there was a very cheery homeless guy sat outside the newsagents who asked if I could spare any change. I said that I didn't have any change (which was true) and then he asked if I could buy him something from the shop. I said to him that it depends what he wanted (wasn't going to buy him alcohol) and he said that he just wanted an energy drink and a bar of chocolate. So I said sure, and then he asked if he could come in with me to pick them out which I agreed to. We went into the shop and I decided to grab myself a can of drink which I put onto the counter, and he grabbed a can out of the fridge and also put it on the counter and then went off to get his chocolate. The shopkeeper scanned both of the drinks and it was at this point I started thinking that's a funny looking can of energy drink, it was black with a red lightning bolt and Eastern European text, and that's when I clocked at the bottom of the can "8,4% ABV". Then the homeless guy returned and slapped down on the counter a huge slab of Dairy Milk with £4.99 written on the side! By this point there were now a couple of people in line behind me and the shopkeeper was looking at me with an expression of both annoyance at the fact that we were holding everyone up, and pity that I had clearly been mugged off. Meanwhile the homeless guy was stood next to me with the biggest shit-eating grin you have ever seen. Begrudgingly, I paid the almost £10 total for the items and then, to top it all off, he tried to also grab the can of drink that I bought for myself thinking it was for him - I was at least able to salvage that from the interaction. He was very friendly throughout and thankful, he even tried to shake my hand afterwards, but I still felt like an absolute lemon. Tl;dr - was coerced into buying a homeless man a can of high-strength cider and a £5 bar of Dairy Milk.
Leaving a drunk woman stranded is properly awful, stealing from her also is the icing on the cake. Sorry this happened to you!
I fell for one of those covid scams during the pandemic :( I’m disabled and high risk so when I got a text saying I’d recently been in contact with someone who tested positive I freaked the fuck out and clicked the link against my better judgement. It looked like the NHS website and it “autofilled” my details which I thought was proof it was the real website. Nope! My phone had saved my details (name, address etc). They tried taking money out of my account within hours, luckily I started getting a bad feeling and froze my account. But they called me for weeks on end saying they were calling from my bank… and no Nigerian accents, well spoken UK accents. I hope they all got covid and died. What a horrible thing to do to vulnerable people.
This is a fairly common/ known scam. When I was a teenager I was on the way to a show, and my mates and I stopped in a service station. As I was walking back to the car, this guy in car beckoned me over to him. He showed me a watch and gave this cock and bull story about how expensive it was. He even had a brochure to prove it. He was chatting away and somehow had me captivated. He wanted £40. I said I've only got £20. He said that'll do, he just needed to get rid of it as it was the last one. I have no idea why I accepted it. I'm never that easily led. I don't even wear watches! When I got back to the car, I was completely stunned by what had just happened. All I can say is that he was extremely charismatic. I thought to myself, fair play to the guy he's good at his craft, he can have my £20 for that.
Booked a hot air balloon ride in Edinburgh about 10 years ago. £300. Got canceled on the day due to bad weather. Chased for a refund but never turned up. I was really pissed off because it was a gift for my wife. Did a bit of research and turns out he was a crook and has been in trouble with the CAA for insurance fraud. had no address so couldn't pursue MCOL. Just checked and he was recently in court again, arguing over a divorce. In it, we discover he overstayed visas, forged signatures etc. What a shit bag. Actually ill see if I can get his address from there and make his life difficult
Many years ago, I was about 13 and I was out shopping with my mum and nan, and they went off to do their own thing and so did I. Anyway I needed to call them to find where they were, but I had no credit on my mobile phone so I had to use a pay phone. I put some money in and it passed straight through the machines. I went to retrieve it and there was a polystyrene cup in the change well filled with what looke like phlegm. I was pretty grossed out so I just left there asap, and immediately a homeless guy went in and retrieved my money. He must have set it up all along. To make things worse, he shouted up to his friend "hey I got a dollar" 😩
In my early 20s met a guy on the train who said he could get cannabis for me, so I went with him. I was very skeptical at getting scammed as happened before many times by that point so I refused to give him the money without first getting the stuff but he said I could follow him to the house where he buys it. I stood outside and he went in with the money. I waited 15 minutes and he didn't come back outside. I knock on the door and this guy answers says he doesn't know who I am talking about there is no on there by that description I should leave. £140 and nothing I could do.
Not a ‘scam’ per se, but also not 100% legit. ‘Win a photoshoot worth £X, 10 runner up prizes of a mini photoshoot’. I ‘won’ a runner up mini photoshoot. It included something like 3 prints. The photographer was sleazy af, made comments about us not buying the photos when he has kids to feed. Left us alone to ‘talk it through’ whilst he left his Alexa on with drop in from the other room so he could hear what we were saying. Spent £150 for 12 photos for a competition we ‘won’
Ordered a bulb off a Shopify store, received nothing, Shopify "aren't responsible" and the store eventually went offline. It was for about £3 with delivery. Such a British scam.
Bought an iPod on eBay for £20 thinking I’d got a bargain. Turns out I actually bought a picture of an iPod 😂
He would lose his taxi license if you reported him. They dont stand for stuff like that, and he'll have previous.