I find the inner workings of scams to be fascinating, and it's also important to remind people that everyone is vulnerable sometimes, and scammers are willing t

I find the inner workings of scams to be fascinating, and it's also important to remind people that everyone is vulnerable sometimes, and scammers are willing to try endless variations until an attack lands at just the right place, at just the right time, in just the right way. If you think you can't get scammed, that makes you especially vulnerable: No doubt. I think of myself as pretty fairly savvy at avoiding scams of various sorts, but I got nailed about a year ago. And as you might expect, there was one of those "this would only happen due to the the quirks of a specific set of circumstances" things that was part of the story. To summarize: I had been wanting a set of wrenches. Specifically a set of Capri extra-long, double-box-end, 75 degree offset wrenches. But every vendor that sold them was sold-out. Except for a set that popped up briefly somewhere, that I opted not to buy that specific day, and then they were sold out again the next time I checked. And then lo and behold, one day I find a vendor that purports to have the wrenches I want. The price is reasonable, and their site looks reputable enough, even though I'm not familiar with the vendor. You can probably guess how this ends. I enter my credit card info, address, etc. and click "order" and am promptly greeted by an "error message". It's only then that I notice a couple of discrepancies about the site that I probably should have picked up on earlier. I pretty much knew I'd been scammed at this point, but I held out hope that maybe, just maybe this was just a new vendor and they were still working the bugs out of their site. And no bogus charges appeared on my card right away... but then about a month later I got hit charges from a Dominos Pizza in Houston, and some online sales b.s. (acne treatment or something). Ding, ding, ding. Luckily my bank made it straightforward enough to get my money back and get my card replaced. But it's still kind of embarrassing to fall for something like that. And the crazy thing is, if that exact set of wrenches hadn't been sold out (more or less) everywhere for 2-3 months, it would never have happened. But they were, and I let myself get a little too enamored with the idea of scoring a set and I dropped my guard just a bit and bob's yer uncle. :-(