Bonus Brolic: Storytime w/ Stan - Scam Stories

Stan retells his famous wire scam story during MySpace days and his current strategy for/enjoyment in dealing with bots.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Yeah, so so that happened.Let me see, I was out of
college by then, I mean Iwas out of high school by then,
I was in college. It musthave been maybe like two thousand, like
no, no, no, Igraduated high school in two thousand and two,
so it was like two thousand andfour anyway, So it's like right

(00:23):
after my sophomore year of college itwas, and I was I wasn't working,
so I like, I would likemy you know back for whatever reason,
I always had a hard time findinga job, and then once I
started working, huh, I said, understandable. Yeah yeah, and then
like I I, I always hadtrouble and then you know, once I

(00:48):
started working, it was fine.But like, yeah, so like I
would you know back then, youknow, you'd either go to a place
in person and drop off a resumeor an application or I remember at one
point my mom she didn't know shefound out. She was like, oh,
a friend of mine, her songot a job, or somebody she

(01:08):
knew got a job, and shegave me the number, and I like,
she gave me the address and Iwent and she was like, it's
like a staffing firm. So Iwas like all right, So I went
and it was like, for somereason, I was like, something's off
about this and I couldn't tell whatit was, and so I took it

(01:30):
was all like off the books,and I didn't really I was like twenty
I was. I don't think Iwas twenty one yet, okay, So
I was like, all right,off the books, that's fine. And
it was all like manual labor.But I was like, all right,
I didn't think anything. I didn'tthink too much of it. And then
sure enough it was specifically for peoplewithout papers. Here I am with an

(01:53):
associate's degree. My mom didn't knowmy mom had work. Yeah. She
was like, oh yeah, somebodyis work here, okay. Because they
were like yeah, you know,it's like sixty dollars a day and it's
like early mornings, and it waslike this feels weird. So I was
like fuck it, I'll do it. Yeah, it was like I did.
It was one they asked me ifI could work a grill and I

(02:15):
was like, I guess for barbecue, Yeah why not? So I was
like, uh, so I settledon this. There was one job they
sent me on. It was thiscompany that put that put up awnings,
like like all of like you know, just like a sign or an aunting
or whatever. Yeah, it waslike a Chinese run company. And the

(02:39):
thing about this staffing firm is likeso there was it was like an office
in Jackson Heights, all right,one Asian guy and like two two Spanish
ladies. And like the only reasonI went to the Asian guy was because

(02:59):
he never all the all of hisclients or whatever, we're all Asian and
there was like it was all Spanishpeople in there. They didn't speak English,
just happened to speak English. Soso anyway, I go. They
sent me on this on this jobwith this company that starts that that that
that puts up onwnings. And it'slike the guy, the guy's like,

(03:23):
hey, do you have a driver'slicense. I'm like yeah. He's like
all right, do you have ado you have a CD L or do
you have a commercial the yeah,the commercial one? Yeah yeah yeah.
I was like nah, He's likeall right, that's fine. So I
drove a commercial van. Go withthe plan anyway? Yeah I don't even
yeah, yeah, why why botherasking me? He was just like yeah,

(03:46):
go ahead, whatever, And likeit's like four of us crammed into
this fucking and I don't know,like but halfway through the day, I
was like, there's a this alittle Salvadorian dude teaching me how to time
knots and ship and I'm just like, listen, you're never gonna see me
ever again. So this mood point, I'm wasting your time, You're wasting

(04:08):
mine. This is I finished outthe day because I'm a man of my
word, right, come out anyway. So I say all this to say
I had a hard time finding ajob until before I was like twenty one.
Okay, one day I'm on Craigslistbecause as one does, yeah,
as you knows, you can getanything. Yeah, my Alexa is going

(04:30):
off my timer, Alexa, stopdon't put me on Craigslist. Yeah,
I'm not offering services, Alexa.Right, I got to spend out of
the morning that you're offering, likelike you're you're tricking yourself out right.
I got stuff in the oven.That's why I was like, yeah,

(04:50):
anyway, all right, So soI get I see this thing as like
work from home, and I waslike, okay, whatever, I sent
my resume. Yeah, I getan email back and it's like it's like
questionnaire. You got to fill outand it's like you know, name,
address, you know things like that. Everything seems fine. So then I

(05:13):
get an email from the guy andhe was like, all right, I
have a mind you this is twothousand and four. Okay, I just
yeah, I need everybody. Rememberthis is two thousand and four, right,
it's two thousand and four. Weweren't working from home normally. Into
that, we hadn't had it.We were four years away from a black
president. Nobody knew nobody do.We barely knew anything but dial up right

(05:36):
right exactly. So he was like, I have this company. It's in
Australia. I sell textiles. AndI was like, I don't know what
textiles are, but that's great.The problem is in order for me to
get full payment, it's impossible becauseof like taxes, and like, I
was like, that checks out.That all makes sense. So he goes

(06:01):
What happens is I get payment insteadof me getting it, You're gonna get
it. You receive payment, youdeposit in your account, and then once
the check clears, you send itto me. You keep ten percent.
Now at this point, I'm like, that seems too good to be true.
I'm doing nothing. I'm basically,I'm a facilitator and I keep ten
percent. He was like yeah.I was like, all right, because

(06:23):
in my mind, if it's abad check, it's not gonna it's not
gonna clear. It'll bounce. Yeah. Right. If the bank has questions,
I'll just be like, this iswhere I got it from. So
I'm like and at this point,all I wanted was an Xbox three sixty.
It's all I cared about it,or doing this all for the Xbox.
Yeah, that's all I wanted,right, Okay, fuck it.

(06:45):
I'll just do it until I canget an Xbox. And I'm yeah,
okay. One day I get acheck for eight thousand dollars, I'm like,
okay, so that's eight hundred forme. I could buy the Xbox
games controllers. I'm set right,goodbye stock an Xbox until out before.
In addition to that, I shouldhave That's what I should have done with
it. Had I known, Iwould have invested in Netflix or something.

(07:09):
Yeah. Yeah, So so thecheck was fishy right because the name on
the check. Okay, again,I just need people to think about this.
This is two thousand and four.This name wasn't as popular as it
is now. The name on thecheck was Terrence Howard. Now I forgot
that part. Terrence Howard had barelydone anything yet. He was like in

(07:32):
music videos. He hadn't done IronMan yet, Pustle and Flow didn't come
out yet. We're like a yearaway or so, yeah, recklessly.
So like it's one of those thingswhere like it's a it's a name that
you've heard, you know, youknow who Terrence Howard is. You know
who he is, because it's notlike he was like nobody, but it's
just like he hadn't blown up.Yeah, I'm like, I'm like,

(07:57):
what's what are the odds that itis? It's are so many tower Terrences
in the world, Right, there'sa Millward popular last name. Yeah.
I'm like, yeah, probably acoincidence. So I deposited the check,
right check clears. I wait,I'm like, wait a little bit longer,
make sure the check fully clears.Check clears, so then I withdraw

(08:18):
seventy two hundred dollars and send itvia Western Union another red flag. But
again I was twenty. I didn'tknow shit. Uh So then I go
out, I buy my Xbox,I buy my games, I buy Controlers.
I'm set and I tell the guy, hey, look, you know
what. Uh. That was theone time thing I think I'm good.

(08:39):
I don't know. I want Idon't want to. He's like, no,
it's totally safe, it's totally fine. I'm like, yeah, I
don't know, man, I don'tknow if this is for me. I
appreciate the opportunity, but I'm gonnaI'm gonna call it. And he's like
all right, And then he tried. He kept calling me and trying to
get me to do it more likeuntil I was amer. I was at
like the beach and like he calledme, and I was like, I

(09:01):
put my friend on. I waslike, you tell him, and my
brother like screamed on him. He'syo, leave my boy alone, blah
blah blah. So uh, Ishould also point out, yes, at
the time, ah, I hada little bit of a side hustle going.
It wasn't really my side hustle.I was just helping out a friend.

(09:22):
So basically I had a friend.Rest in peace. Sylvester one of
my one of my good friends fromhigh school. He he used to work
in like a jewelry shop and likewhenever you get a chain or a bracelet
or even like me, anytime there'slike they have to fix something, wrap

(09:45):
gold, there's always going to beleft over gold and it's like right,
tiny pieces of gold. So hewould keep all this gold because it was
like, what's the point of throwingit out? I don't I don't know
what the statute of limitations are onthis. I don't think this is illegal,
but I hope it isn't. Andeither way, wait, wait,
this is what we do. It'sit's legally. This is what I learned
and not going to law school.Allegedly allegedly allegedly sprinkled so uh So he

(10:16):
had had a lot of scrap goldover the year at this shot. This
was right about the time when likeyou'd always see commercials like we buy gold
or yeah yeah commercials. So atfirst I was he was He asked me,
He's like, yo, you knowwhere I get rid of this gold?
I was like, yeah, wecan probably do we buy gold or

(10:37):
whatever. He's like, let's dothat and then I'll put it in your
name just so it doesn't you know, come back to me right, I'll
give you a piece. And Iwas like, yeah, that's fine,
you know, but this is mybest friend. So after a while,
We're like, we started doing moreresearch and realized the we buy gold,
people give you like fifty percent fiftyfive maybe of what it's worth. Damn

(10:58):
well if you go straight to refinery, if you find a refinery, yeah,
of its value. Okay. Solike we went from making well,
he went from making like, youknow, every couple of weeks he'd make
like a couple of grand to makinglike eight ten whatever. So like that
summer when I when I did thatthe Craigslist thing Diana, and there was

(11:22):
a check for him in my account. So it was for actually eight thousands,
okay. So I was holding ontoa forum. And then one day
after this this uh, this Nigerianthing, because you know, turned out
to be a Nigerian scamp. Theywere like, I checked my account and

(11:43):
my account is zero, like hiscount, his money's gone. And I'm
freaking out. I'm like, goto the bank. I'm like, yo,
what the hell happened? They werelike, well, you you catched
a bad check. I'm like,no, I didn't. The check cleared.
It cleared though. Yeah, Sothey were like no, you know,
sometimes you know, they have toinvestigate, and I'm like, why
did they clear it? Should havenever cleared it. Should have they should
have investigated it before they cleared it. And they were like, well yeah,

(12:05):
I think yeah, you know.So I was like, whatever you
got to do is to get thatmoney back. That's come on, that's
this is nonsense. So then theywere like all right, cool. So
I waited like ten days. Themoney comes back. I go to the
bank. I withdrew all the money, right, I remember you you got

(12:26):
it in cash? Yeah. Yeah, I withdrew all the money. I
closed my account. I gave theguy my defert card. I was like,
you keep it. I don't wantit, yeah account. Yeah.
Yeah. So at this point,because I was getting by the way,
I took out the money and Ihad my cousin come with me, and
uh he this is this is likemy Space days. Yeah, this is

(12:48):
yeah he uh he took all themoney and like laid it out on my
bed and spelled out his nickname andtook a picture of it for his marks
and not alerting any authority nor individualthat I would like to partake. Yeah.
Yeah, nobody's questioning why there's eightthousand dollars and a hundred just on

(13:11):
on a bed. Yeah. Soanyway, so a few months go by,
and I don't get bank statements inthe mail because I don't want I
never wanted my mom to like read, because she's she's nosy. So I

(13:35):
I got in. I kept gettingemail statements in my I was like,
what the fuck. And then this, because initially this happened in August.
When I got the money out inOctober, I'm like, why am I
still getting email statements from these people? So I checked my email and it
says account information or whatever. Igo to the account. The account was
never closed and now it's negative eightthousand dollars. Yeah, matter of fact,

(13:58):
it was. It was exactly eightthousand, negative eighty and eleven dollars
and thirty cents. Okay, becauseof the the fees. Yeah. Well,
I'm like, what the fuck isthis? So I go to the
bank. I'm like, yo,why am I still geting email statements?
Why does this say I, oh, eight thousand dollars? They're like,
oh, well, your account wasnever closed. I was like, no,

(14:20):
no, no, no. Ipointed to the person that I was
like, I gave him, yeah, I close my account. They were
like, he goes, well,there was a pending transaction. I'm like,
you can't do this. You can'tjust say that. You can't just
let somebody close their account. Youcan't. Yeah, you can't just like
not. You can't just hear yourcheck the closed supersedes appending. Right,

(14:43):
Wait, do they know what theword the verb of closing? Should they
taken care of this? Also?They didn't, like you could have been
like, hey, just so youknow, if we once we close this
account, as we as we closethis account, there may be a tender.
Actually, all right, go toNo, I would have known that,
but whatever. So then I'm like, all right, I don't know

(15:05):
what to tell you, guys.I'm out. So that was October,
I guess October oh four mm hmmm. And then fast forward to I guess
it would have been spring sometime becauseso they started calling me because they sent
me the collections the bank. Yeah, that's always fun. And I won't
say I'm not, I say whatbank it is? It's fun. So,

(15:26):
uh, it's a major one.It's one of the big ones.
All good. I think it tookit took like ten years before I can
open an account there again, Ohmy god, a while? So uh
so I I I, uh,I just ignored their calls. They kept

(15:48):
calling me. They were like,hey, no, this is collections.
Oh yeah, blah blah blah.I'm like, I'm not paying it.
Another hustle. Absolutely. Then thiswas like it's probably like May or April
or May of five. And Iget a my cousin, who at the

(16:10):
time would have been like eighth.He comes like, I'm like asleep,
I'm ye in the afternoon, I'mnot doing anything. I'm already out of
school. And he comes and he'slike, hey, somebody outside told me
to give this to you. Mhmm. Somebody outside to you to give
me what And it was a summonsthey served. They served me papers,

(16:32):
but they served you secondhand, right, so that I don't know if this
is still the case. If youget served directly, you have a certain
amount of time to to contest.Yeah, if you if someone if they
give it to somebody else that givesit to you, you have an extra
ten days. So I had thirtydays at the time. I had thirty
days to that's good, Okay.So I go to the and I don't

(16:56):
at this point, I'm not Ihaven't said anything to anybody, like I
have a mom So then I getthat I'm reading the thing. I'm like,
all right, So I guess Igot to tell my mom. So
I told her. So I Iwas like, hey, just so this
is what's going on. I toldher the whole story. Yeah, He's
like, you're a fucking idiot.We go to the Was that the extent

(17:21):
of it or were there other otherlanguages? There was more? There was
more? Sorry, okay. Yeah. Then then at this point we had
we have a family friend who's aparalegal at the time. She was Apparentegal.
Yeah. We talked to her.We're like, you know, what
do we do? You know.She's like, well, you can.

(17:45):
You can fight it. If youlose, you know, you have to
pay the full eight okay plus legalfees and they were like that could that
could be as high as fifteen totwenty thousand okay, all right, And
then I was like, what's theother alternative. She was like, you
can settle for less. So thenwe were like I wanted to fight it,

(18:11):
but my mom was yeah, nowno, we're not going to fight
this whatever. So I'm like,fine, we we go to court.
I mean, we go to thewe call the people, and they just
to settle for five thousand. Theyoriginally wanted fifty five, but I was
like, they were like no.My mom wanted to like she was like,

(18:32):
I'm not I don't want to payanything, but let's get this down
as low as we can. Wegot it down to five thousand. Okay
when a cash news check. Uhit was me, my mom and my
aunt. We drove all the wayup to like Comac Long, which is,
uh, why do you have togo there because that's where they're that's
where their their corporate we're trying tofix this. Yep, that's where their

(18:56):
their corporate office was. Okay,one of them. I guess that was
the closest one. M hm.All the way out there, and the
whole time, my mom is justlike, you're a dumb ass. How
could you be so dumb? Sowe get we get to the sorry,
I gotta respond to this text beforeI get she gets mad at me.

(19:18):
It's okay, uh so okay.So then uh, we get there and
I explained the whole thing, hopingas like the last ditch effort, the
lawyer would be like, okay,never mind. So I told the whole
story and he literally looked at me. He was like, man, they

(19:42):
got you good. Yeah. Souh so then my mom had the check
already written out, you know,catch his check and yeah, the desk
to the lawyer and look, lookme dead in my eyes and she goes,
I was gonna get you a car. That's so. That's that's uh,

(20:04):
that's the lesson learned. You knowwhat's crazy is like I have a
I have a cousin you know whogot who got wrote the same thing,
but it was through it was anotherbank, and it was for less money,
and like he just never told me. And then when I told him
what happened, he was like,oh, that happened to me. I
was like, you dick it.You could have told me. He could
have worn Yeah, you could.He could have been like hey, just

(20:26):
so you know, there's people tryingto scan people out of money. You
could have like yeah, it wasn'tas well known then as it is now.
Like now we hear about these thingsall the time, but this is
two thousand and four, Like we'restill some of us still have fucking Pokemon
cards. I mean, like we'rein a different place in life. Yeah,
you know, I wasn't even legallyallowed to drink yet, Like this,

(20:48):
it was right so I was likethis is I was like, this
is It's so dumb that that happened. Yeah, So but you know that's
uh, you know what. Therewas a I don't know, I wish
I could remember the name of thebook, but there was a guy who

(21:08):
basically would start these email correspondents withall these like scammers. It was like,
you know, it was like,oh, I'm a prince in Africa.
I need so he would do allthose he would like respond to all
of them, but he would likelike like respond in earnest and like as
if he believed that they were aprince. Yeah, and he just printed

(21:30):
all the emails, the back andforth, the correspondence and like, yeah,
it was it was a book thatcame Yeah, it's like that's hilarious.
That's it's like an art project almost. Yeah, it's basically what I
do now when I get bots,right, I get when I get a
bot, I'm like all right,like I got one not long ago.
I wish I got to go throughand find it. But it was basically

(21:53):
I could tell you a way obviouslybecause you know they're they're so so obvious
these days. Yeah, it waslike I just pretended be Ted Kaczinski.
Yeah, the day that they probablydon't even know who the fuck that is.
No, the algorithm probably doesn't.I just I was like, yeah.
They were like, they were like, oh, what's your name?
And I was like, uh,I was like Ted. And then they

(22:17):
were like, how you doing Ted. I'm like, well, not great
because you know Ted Tedz just dieda few months ago. I did,
I haven't kept up on the dude. Yeah, you didn't know what happened.
So I was like, I waslike, not great. I think
I'm on the run. I gottafind it. Because I was hoping that
they would they would respond, butI took it to the point where I

(22:37):
was like, I guess this isdone, So I'm gonna I'm gonna probably
post that soon. Just some screenshotsof that conversation. Yeah, I every
time I've just said I'm Batman.Yeah that's yeah. See, that's I
like to have fun with it,so like, yeah, I would do
that, except I would say I'mBruce and just wait till they get to

(23:00):
the Wayne. Yes, I'd belike, yeah, my parents died.
You know. I like to dressup as a bat sometimes. I'm very
rich though, you know, thingslike that yeah, I gotta I gotta
find it. It was like,see if I could, Uh, okay,
good now yeah, I mean soyeah it works off. Hey how

(23:26):
is your day? And I saidpretty good? Sorry, who's this?
I don't have this? Number's DaveAnd he's like, god, Lisa,
don't you remember me? They alwaysdo that, Oh my god, don't
you remember. I was like,oh, I'm sorry, you have the
wrong number. This isn't Lisa right. Sorry, maybe I accidentally are into
the wrong number. I hope Ididn't disturb your beautiful day. Oh yep,
yep YouTube text yeah, and they'relike, thank you for your forgiveness.

(23:49):
You're a good man. I lovemaking new friends. What should I
call you? And I said,I'm Ted. Nice to meet you,
Ted. My name is Alena.How old you? I'm thirty six.
I'm eighty one years young. Mostpeople think I'm dead at this age.
But the secret, that secret shapewith you. I hope. Wow,
eighty one years old. I'm fromSwitzerland and currently live in San Francisco.
What about you? Well, I'vebeen telling people on North Carolina, but

(24:11):
between you and me, I'm onthe run. Just don't google my last
name. It's Kazinski. I'm alittle famous for my work in the nineties,
Like, are you okay? Friendme, I'm great, And I
sent her this picture. I mean, look at me. I feel good.

(24:32):
Where'd you come from? Well,I was born in Chicago, if
that's what you mean, beautiful city. I am a woman who likes to
travel. If five times to goto Chicago, I believe you must be
an excellent tour guide. Listen,there's nothing I love more than exploring a
new city with in my van.I just don't stay long because there's always
a new city. It's a caseI mean explorer. Just to confirm,
I said explore and not explode.I mix those two things up sometimes.

(24:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basicallyshe was trying to get me to download
Telegram and then this is I hada lot of fun with that. That
was a good day. I gotvery little work done. No, it's
it's the algorithm that keeps on giving. Yeah. Uh yeah. I I

(25:15):
usually haven't gone much past Batman's andnow now I think I got it.
You should. You should have toldher that you like to go to especially
explore universities and uh in different cities. Yeah, you're a big academic fan.
Of academia. Yeah, but likescam uh, it's just it's it's

(25:40):
it's crazy. It's like like thereare people that still fall for them,
though I think. Of course,I had a relative tell me like,
so I knew something was up firstbecause she mentioned Google hangouts. So because
I'm like, what what century isthis? First of all, so she
was like, Hey, in gchat or hangouts do you speak to people
you don't know? And I waslike, you're kind of you're saying it

(26:04):
out loud at this point. It'slike, no, why would you.
It's like because I think I'm goingto a celebrities party, and I was
like, you can't. You can'thonestly believe that a celebrity somehow like would
get like George Clooney fucking finds yournumber, uses it and not only that

(26:26):
says wait a second, actually Googlehangouts. Yeah, that's that's the way
to go, and that's how he'sgonna invite you. It's it's less likely
even that anyone's going to use Googlehangouts to communicate with someone and expect them
to show up at a party.Let's just let's just start there, right

(26:48):
is it's and then it used tobe that they were don'ting target like old
people. But like now, Imean now I don't think I don't know
if that who who gets caught withthis stuff anymore? Anyway. I mean
I'm gonna lie. My mom islike I don't know. She's somehow wrapped
up in like cryptocurrency and I don'tknow how. Yeah, no, it's
the scariest thing ever. But itwas like one of her cousins that like

(27:11):
got her into it. Yeah shehas no I don't I don't know what
it's called. And she knows evenless because at least I have an idea
of like cryptocurrency. I know how, I kind of have an idea about
how it works. But like everyevery time I talk to her, she's
like, oh, I just madeX amount of money. I was like,
where is it? Where is that? Ye, let's see it.

(27:32):
Yeah, like it's it's I thinkthis is this is like a millennial thing
where we're not like gen Z,like fucking you could tell them the money
is wherever. It's like, oh, you know, the money's in the
cloud, and like okay, cool. I think millennials like we're still like
no, no, no, Iwant to see it. Yeah, I

(27:55):
want to like, physical money iswhat I want. Don't don't think like
no, no, no, it'sas coin and it's in the stratosphere.
You knew boomer, and it's likeokay, okay, you pay these bills
with as coin, right,