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Sunday, May 31, 2020

How to Get Scammed


A Cautionary Tale  

Like many of you, I get tons of email and facebook posts from companies I do business with.  llbean has been sending quite a few.  Today, I fell for one that looked legitimate on facebook.  It was a super sale on shoes and boots.

I clicked on the facebook link.
It looked quite real.  The little logo on the tab was as expected, a green square with a boot.


The URL was close to real.

BUT . . .

The URL was close to real - not real.  Now that I look back, I see that the real URL is always beginning https://www.llbean.com/

The prices were too good to be true!  That should be a clue.  We got 7 pairs of shoes/slippers/boots for $149.00!

Another clue, there were only shoes in full sizes, no half-sizes.

A fourth clue, they were not out of any of the sizes/styles.

The fifth clue was the text from Citibank saying they suspected fraud, and did we really authorize that payment? 
Free L.L.Bean Citi Fraud Msg: Card 1167. Did you attempt $149 at RELIABLE KIND on 05-31? Yes=1, No=2. Reply STOP to Opt-Out

Well, we had made the purchase, so we authorized it. . . 

Then we began to second guess.  Did we authorize payment to a not-llbean company?

Stay tuned - we now think we fell for a scam.  We have received an email from the seller with the purchase summary. . . we'll see what happens next.  

My guess - nothing more will happen and we will have to challenge citibank to avoid this bill.

Let this be a warning.
TANSTAAFL



2 comments:

R. said...

Scammers are locked down, too. And bored! I got 2 text messages on my phone today about my Netflix account. Since I have never had one, it was easy to delete it. Got the first one in the morning, the second one in the afternoon. I guess it might be time to find out how to block phone numbers.

Unknown said...

Don't have below email anymore