True enough, but in this case the device did not offer that functionality. Also, the SSL cert holder was Google, who would probably be loathe to share their private key.
Fundraising–attempts from donor and raiser sides.
Donor: Making pledges with no interest in fulfilling them. OK, anyone could have a financial problem, but everywhere I’ve worked there have been people who make pledges every year and never once send in a check. Don’t waste our money in processing your insincere pledge–just say “no thanks.”
“I give you this hoard”. We don’t have this problem so much, but many museums are inundated with old junk from estates. I know about one museum which had an entire warehouse of bequested stuff that they had to go through. I don’t know if the motive on giving piles of old things to the museum was to get deductions on inheritance tax, out of the mistaken belief that because it was old it must be valuable, or just to treat the museum as a cleaning service.
“I give you this valuable painting”. These guys don’t know that nonprofits have been working with professional appraisers for decades; in fact, nonprofits are probably their #1 source of work. They’re going to recognize that the fraudsters’ painting/book/antique/whatever is a fake. Doesn’t stop certain people, though.
Fundraisers: Inflated gift-in-kind values. The flipside of the last attempt at fraud is that sometimes institutions claim that the gifts of things they’ve received are a lot higher than they really are. For example, an organization might claim that for campaign accounting purposes gifts of books are valued at the full retail price; the IRS doesn’t see it that way. More recently, computer licenses have become a hot topic: software company donates thousands of licenses to a school, and the school says that “well if we didn’t have these donated it would have cost X amount to buy them retail.” Again, the IRS usually doesn’t do full-retail deductions.
I wonder whether this is a regional thing, or reflective of the demographics of the doctors’ practices, or something. I’ve had Vicodin prescribed (several times) for dental work. When I broke my elbow in '05, I was 3 time zones away from home. I went to the ER (after midnight)… the elbow was misdiagnosed as a sprain… and they gave me a scrip for 14 Vicodin.
The pain was not, honestly, that bad… I mean, it hurt, but I didn’t need the narcotics by a long shot and infact didn’t get the scrip filled until the next afternoon. I actually went to a drugstore, and asked the pharmacist to just give me about 6 (because they would help another condition that was being aggravated by the fall, not because of the fall-related pain)… and he argued with me. Insisted that the full fill wouldn’t cost any more than the 6. I finally just took the full scrip… used 3 or 4 of them. Finally found and tossed the remainder a year or so ago.
By comparison: a friend and I had our gallbladders out the same week (different doctors / cities). I got strong Percocet, she got a lower-dose version of Vicodin (lower comparative strength that is). My pain relief was adequate. Hers… not so much.
I’d say I don’t fit the “stereotype” of drug-seeing behavior (fat, middle-aged woman) but come on - out-of-towner, ER, middle of the night, for a “sprain”? Hell, I’m still stunned at being given Good Drugz.
I’ve always found doctors here to be surprisingly free with the drugs. Last time I went to urgent care with a flu* and come out with scripts for antibiotics, codeine cough syrup, pain killers, and a muscle relaxant after a 10 minute consult with a doctor I’d never met before.
I barely used any of the haul, of course. But if I had been an <ahem>enterprising individual I probably could have turned a tidy profit.
*later turned out to be mono. And even later turned out to be liver-mono. Long story.
Quoth Duke:
This can be the fundraisers’ fault. A couple of weeks ago, I got a call from my alma mater asking for money. “Well, money’s kind of tight right now, but if you send me something in the mail I can sit down with it and figure out how much I can afford” “Excellent, sir, now if you’ll just give us a minimum amount you’ll commit to.” “No, you don’t understand, I can’t just make a commitment over the phone, not without sitting down with my finances.” “We understand, sir, but we need to have an amount to put down for a minimum.” I finally got through to her that I was not going to make such a commitment, and I imagine they won’t send me anything as a result. But I could very easily see someone else naming a random number just to shut them up.
True anywhere, even in personal relationships.
“You don’t have to (verify)” = You better check with a microscope.
I’ve had one a couple of times lately.
Credit card system rejects their card.
I lay out the three most likely reasons for this, only one of which is “you don’t have enough credit”. (other two are; ‘flagged as suspicious because of the dollar amount’ and ‘the billing address you gave doesn’t match the bank’s records’)
Customer yells at me that their card is good and I have to take it.
The response I have settled on is “Sir, I can no more force it to take your card than the gas station can force it to take your card.” That stops 95% of the bullshit.
Another reason that’s a little more flattering (and so would help someone save face) would be “If you’ve made any other large purchases today, you may be over the daily limit.”
I had my debit card turned down about a year ago and I was mortified and confused because I knew there was tons of money in the account. It turned out that a major medical expense I put on the card hit a spending limit I didn’t even know I had.
I went to a doctor (a respected diabetes specialist) and I complained of some mild discomfort. He immediately handed me some sample packs of a drug.
I informed him that I was a recovering addict and could not take any mind or mood altering chemicals. Doctor said “there’s nothing in there that can hurt you” and walks out of the exam room.
I turn the box over and it says, in farily large letters “contains phenobarbital: could be habit forming”
Ha! I had a client last year who works as some sort of contractor try to say that he had 320,000 business miles on his vehicle that year. Sir, the IRS is not going to ever believe that you drove around the entire equator of the Earth. . . 13 times. . . as a plumber last year.
Or the audit clients we got (we did not prepare their returns but were representing them on the audit) who had NO IDEA why they were being audited. I pulled out their schedule C and it read more or less like this:
GROSS RECEIPTS: $200,000
MERCHANDISE BOUGHT: $145,000
UTILITIES: $10,000
WAGES: $10,000
SUPPLIES: $10,000
RENT: $25,000
Gee, I wonder why you got audited, sir?
For those of you who don’t realize: it’s because everything is perfectly round, even numbers— AND those numbers are exactly equal to the money made. Tax returns do not work like that.
I have had similar experiences. I’ve had minor surgery or stitches and practically had the Vicodin forced on me. They pretty much insisted that I take one right then and get the 'scrip. I would take one more the next day and not need anymore.
When I started my consulting business I got a special credit card for the business. My first gig was a business trip to Los Angeles which is about 100 miles away. I bought lunch in L.A. and then went to a big computer store to buy a lap top for the business. I totally fit the profile of someone who stole a credit card. The clerk just said that that happened all the time and put me through to Chase Bank Security who removed the hold from the card after a fifteen minute conversation.
The defense industry has quite a bit of fraud, particularly on the service side. The Government always asks for key personnel, which are the “big brains” that will do the work and run the project. This person will have a Masters or Ph.D. and 20+ years experience in the needed field. Every defense company I know has one such “big brain” that is pitched on every job. When they win the work, 100% of the time, the “big brain” shows up for the kickoff meeting and never again (often not even for that meeting) and the job is instead staffed by “low level peon” at the same “big brain” price for huge profit.
Overhead (for the employee’s benefits and to pay for non-direct people) is always bid extremely low on the jobs, but once these companies win, suddenly all kinds of “secretarial and financial management” support is always needed to go along with the “big brain” that doesn’t actually exist.
That’s not to say the Government doesn’t have their own scams in awarding the work too. If you are the incumbent and are friendly with the Government people, you can practically rape children in their parking lot in front of news cameras and still get the work on the re-compete, even if someone else has a better product and will do it cheaper. Why? Well there were unstated specs that conveniently only the current contractor knew to bid and you didn’t. Oh, and your cheaper bid? Well, the Government has something they call “cost realism” that lets them say your bid was unrealistically too low and so they conveniently multiplied it by a “realism” factor that made you higher than the company they wanted. Yeah, you have the right to protest it, and that’s a guaranteed way to make your customer hate you no matter whether you win or not in the end. So, it’s lose/lose 99% of the time. And when you start that process, be prepared to have them nitpick the hell out of your proposal and find every minor flaw in it as the excuse why you didn’t win. One easy one will be the “key personnel” which they know will not do the work. Because, you know, your company is apparently supposed to hire a Ph.D., pay him $150,000 a year, and have him sit on his ass collecting a paycheck on the off-chance the Government decides 10 months later they want him for the work you bid.
What? You mean he didn’t drive for 8 hours every single day that year at over 109 miles per hour? The devil you say.
Just as unlikely: 36.52 miles every hour for the whole year.
A few months ago I started working at a big-box home improvement store, and came across one of the weirdest (and grossest) “you must think I’m stupid” attempted theft ploys I’ve seen yet.
Someone, usually a contractor, will purchase a toilet. They will take the toilet home (or to the job site), install it, and place the old, USED, toilet back in the box, tape it up, and take it back to the store for a refund, claiming to not to have needed it after all.
The box is always opened and the person caught, although some of them scream loudly enough to get a refund anyway. And even the ones that don’t just walk quickly away, leaving their used toilet sitting right out in the store.
My brother, who is a lawyer, took a continuing education seminar in home-office deductions. He said the instructor called it an “Audit me now!” flag for the IRS because there is so much incentive to cheat. My brother doesn’t do tax law, but he does keep an office at home. As far as I know, he doesn’t take the deduction for that office.