Palimpsest - I guess that's the thing, "usually indicated" is just not enough. The strange thing is that many, many IR said they were 'authorized retailers' of this manufacturer, but when directed to the place on their website where they note who is, none of them is. When asked, the IR say they are authorized. It's not true and they're saying otherwise. So relying on what is "usually indicated" just won't work in this instance at least. I remember soon after joining GW reading a post where someone warned of this, of IR claiming to be authorized retailers and then turning to the manufacturer and being soundly disabused of this notion, statements, written or otherwise, to the contrary having zero significance. At the time I thought 'well, so what, just ask more carefully...?'. But I'm beginning to think you *can't*, yet still you lose. Quite truthfully -- and I know most everyone here completely doesn't understand why this fascinates me -- but I'm mostly interested not so much in protecting myself against potential future problems with the product; I'm interested in the meaning of all this rococco selling process; the favored and the out-of-favor: and *why*. Weissman -- thank you. That goes a really long way toward some glimpse of this 'why'-thing. The occasional package "falling off" the forklift I can sort of understand, but it doesn't explain the vast volume of this quasi-authorized selling. What just mystifies me is this explicit system that's supposedly set up, only to be explicitly undermined necessarily by the very ones who set it up. The complicated curlicues just confuse me: why? Seems if it's your product, and you are permitted to and chose to control who sells it, then do so. What's with the "looking the other way"? Why do that and who loses; who gains? I really feel twiddled with; I can't even tell if, when or how I am doing some wrong thing. I appreciate this peep, Weismman. At last some beginnings of an explanation...

Sadly, this just happened to my 83 year old parents on Friday morning and they called to tell me about yesterday after the scammer tried a second attempt. I am so stunned that they fell for this scam and are now out $4000. They were told to get $4000 in Visa gift cards immediately as their grandson "Tommy" was set to appear before a judge at 11:00am, so they went to Best Buy and purchased several cards. The "officer" that called even said that they may be questioned why they are buying so many cards, but to tell Best Buy it is for a friend you are helping out. The officer told them he would be calling them at 10:30am to get the card info. He called right on time and my mom read the numbers and pins on all the cards. She asked if she could talk to her grandson and they put "Tommy" on the phone who kept begging my parents not to call his wife or parents. Apparently he had been in jail for 2 days. My mom said it sounded just like "Tommy" and he even called her "Nana". Second attempt happened yesterday morning when the officer called them again saying that "Tommy's" bail was increased and he needed another $4000. This time my dad wised up and asked to speak to "Tommy". It took about 10 minutes for "Tommy" to come to the phone and my dad asked what is your sister's name (he doesn't have a sister). Tommy kept laughing saying "oh come on you know what her name is, why are you playing these games with me." This went on for a few minutes and "Tommy" hung up. My dad then called the real "Tommy" who was home with his wife and quite stunned by what my dad proceeded to tell him. It makes me sick as I write this, I can't believe my parents fell for it because they know about all these scams, we talk about them quite often and this incident is so not my parents. FYI, "Tommy" is my son and has never been in trouble with the law. My parents feel so embarrassed and upset about what happened, so there was no lecturing from me. I feel bad for them.

I have an app called extreme call blocker and I've set it up so all calls from anyone not in my phone contacts or on my whitelist go automatically to voicemail. The phone doesn't even ring. Every few days, I go through the blocked calls list and set the ones who are scammers to the setting which automatically hangs up on them, without letting them have the option to leave a voicemail. I get very few voicemails from scammers. I enjoy that fact that my phone automatically hangs up on a fair number of scammers and illegal telemarketers (I'm on the dnc list) now. Still, I do get the occasional voicemail from a scammer. Last week, they left a voicemail that I was going to be arrested if I didn't call them back. Of course, I didn't return the call, but many people do fall for these scams. The phone companies could stop a lot of this, especially the robocalls, if they wanted to, I think.

People absolutely can be too diligent, because that implies the need to be wary, concerned or have focused attention to this phenomenon. In between being diligent at one extreme and oblivious at the other is a big middle ground where I think most people should be. The possibility of having a problem because of a bogus email trying to install malware, or trying to get sign-on information, or trying to do other types of nefarious things is very well known, easy to spot and easy to handle. The risk is quite low for those who are not oblivious. If you receive an email that sounds ominous or is trying to alert you to a problem it says you need to act on, check the return address first. If you get an unrequested email with a link or a box to click on, don't. If there's an attachment, even if the return address is someone you know, don't open it before first checking with that person. Otherwise, just ignore it and move on. This is no different than bogus phone calls purporting to be from the IRS or the Social Security administration that many get. They're obvious and while annoying, they're easy to deal with. Remember that when you need to reset a password or validate your identity for a particular site, the way it works may be for you to be sent an email or message from that LEGITIMATE site you're interacting with. Such messages come in a minute or two and you know to expect them. Links contained in messages like that that you've just been alerted to, that arrive immediately or in a minute or two, are perfectly okay to click on.