Using online friend's account to get an employee discount, is it a scam?

Question

I was advised to ask my question here so here it is:

I'm in the market for a desktop and I met an online friend who happened to be an employee at the company that I want to buy from, he gets an employee's discount. So he gives me his login, I went to the official URL and it's legit, and there does apparently seem to be other people who also used his account to buy desktops with his employee discount.

However, most people said it could be a scam. But how exactly could he scam me if it's the official site? I'm thinking about doing a test purchase of like 50 dollars so if I lose that to a scammer I won't be too upset.

Answer 1

This is most assuredly a scam. You should stop contact with this person and you should not spend any money on the website. You are being set up for fraud or theft.

Some thoughts on how this scam works and some factors that show that it is a scam:

1. Sharing employee discounts is almost always against company policy. When or if the internet-stranger you're talking to is found out, he'll be in trouble at work. Why would he risk his job for someone he met on the internet? I take care of my mates with deals and hookups in real life, but not people I just met.
2. It's an "employee discount". You are not an employee. This isn't illegal but it is unethical. Be a better person.
3. Even if the site is legit, how do you know your so-called friend really has an employee discount and isn't just a salesman? "Hey ,I got a special deal, but ONLY for YOU!", is a sales tactic.
4. If the site used his login, then he can now, at a minimum, cancel the order or change the shipping address. Some sites save payment info and now the scammer can buy more stuff using your info.
5. The scammer is an "employee" at a minimum. He could also outright control the site he gave you. You've now entered your personal info and credit card info into his site and given it to him, including the CVV code.
6. Did you do any price comparison? Employee discounts are rarely more competitive than a simple 5%-15% off coupon or sale. Can you just buy the items you want without a buddy deal and without the risk for a similar price?

Answer 2

I met an online friend, who just happened to work for the company I want to buy something from...

Taking "online friend" literally, let's replace this by "a friendly stranger I haven't ever actually met, and don't actually know in real life, so I have no real way to tell if things they say are true or false."

How well do you know them? Apart from "they seem friendly" do you have any concrete way to determine what is genuine or not, or who they truly are? Suppose they were in a scammer call centre in another country and just aiming to sound convincing,would you know?

Scammers can make people fall in love, let alone be friends. How do you know for sure? Assume they may be, unless you have a really good reason.

Also while we think of it, let's have the name of this desktop computer company, so people here can see if they agree its legit.

Bonus points for sneaky scammers, If the company and site are genuine but they hacked the website or something, or poisoned some DNS, so it redirects anyway.

So this friendly person pretty much immediately gave me their employee computer login...

Well. Isn't that..... generous? And the sort of thing most people do for people they've only met online.

Suspicion.

The corporate site shows other people use friendly persons login and have also bought desktop computers using his discount.

That one point, to me, is the smoking gun and huge red flag. Its a very high risk of being a scam.

Why the red flags at that?

Scammers are confidence tricksters. Some themes are totally pervasive - some kind of "too good to be true". Some kind of "convincer". A friendly helpful person who seems to like and trust you and says they are glad to cut a corner to help.

Now, the thing about a convincer is, most genuine situations people don't actually throw them in. The excessive step to show you it's safe, is WAYYYYY further than the steps needed to tingle my red scammer warning lights.

Think about it. If your friend offered to pay the £200 flight cost for a holiday this time round, and you pay back your share, that's fine. But if he opens his banking app and puts it in your hands, gives you the login, just to specifically prove others have gone that way on holiday costs with him, ..... Isn't that just a little bit weird?

That's what I mean by being an excessive step too far. A genuine person just wouldn't do that. They'd say, "I work there, I've checked my employee discount, its $X to me.... " and then discuss making a payment in some nice safe way that you get your cash back if the thing doesn't turn up.

What a genuine person doesn't do, is let an unknown-to-them "online friend" log into their own account, risking their job at best and a criminal prosecution at worst for fraud, from a completely different IP address than usual, with full access, to reassure that lots of people have done it. Like, this person has supposedly bought how many desktops recently, anyway?

And its pointless anyway, because none of that is proof.

Scammers are known to set up entire company websites for a scam. A web page that just happens to show lots of people doing it, is a good convincer but actually proves jack shit, because you have no way to know if even one of those is more than a fabrication.

And all the other elements too.

I don't buy that its safe.

Let us know the company concerned, and let's see if they are genuine or not too.

Answer 3

It's a well known commonplace scam, just forget it.

If an "online friend" wants you to use your cards for anything, anywhere, it's a simple obvious scam being run by a scam team. OBVIOUSLY. This is a million-times dupe on this site.

One point for the record. You can buy everyday desktops far, far, far cheaper from discount sources (simply the major online shops or major box stores) than "employee discounts". So even if it was not a scam (which it is) just utterly forget it.