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Ask HN: My mother was scammed out of all her savings. What should I do?

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Re: Ask HN: My mother was scammed out of all her savings. What should I do?

#21

Post by scapbi »

freedomben wrote: post #4

Unfortunately I don't have any advice for recovering the money, as that's just so far outside of my knowledge field. This may not help, but you have my utmost sympathy. An elderly lady that I know recently lost her husband and her only son, and got scammed out of much of her savings by people exploiting her horrible circumstances. She had to come out of retirement and go back to work because of it. I think crimes lik…

Thank you very much for your kind words. What I am thinking about most right now is, first, encouraging my mother and helping her through this difficult situation. Beyond my responsibility to my family, I also feel a responsibility related to the system I built. I want to connect with people who have much more knowledge than I do and see whether we can do something meaningful for third-world countries. That has always been my lifelong dream.

Re: Ask HN: My mother was scammed out of all her savings. What should I do?

#23

Post by scapbi »

thrownaway561 wrote: post #10

I hate to be the one that says it, but there is only one way to handle scammers like this. They need to be hunted down and put down. All of them and anyone who is involved. Truth be told that scamming is becoming easier and easier. The problem is that most countries not only allow it, it is part of their GDP. Look at the number of scammers that originate in India. Everyone there knows who they are, there are numerous…

It is much easier than you might imagine. Hundreds of thousands of people live together almost like a city, scamming their own people, speaking the same language as their victims. They train day and night to manipulate the human mind, supported by an underlying system of fake accounts. When I was building the system against that, I felt like David facing Goliath. The problem goes far beyond what technical systems alone can solve.

Re: Ask HN: My mother was scammed out of all her savings. What should I do?

#24

Post by Mikhail_Edoshin »

It's a growing threat everywhere. Here in Russia it's nearly always in the news. They can even trick a person into selling expensive property (real estate) and then steal the money.

One thing is the government must act. These calls are mostly done from abroad. Phone companies can implement some protective measures. Banks too need to watch for common patterns (doesn't always help because scammers talk the victim around the checks). The society as a whole needs to get aware. What a single person could do is to keep contact with the relatives. I've read an expert report on one such case; the author wrote that even a single close someone could break the trance and stop the scam. In that case the victim happened to be a popular singer seemingly never alone, yet as it turned out she actually was a lone old lady with not a single confidant close enough for more than a month.

She was, of course, shattered with what happened (she lost close to $3M), but after some time in one if her interviews she said: "I will survive". She said it in Russian and did not comment on the phrase further, it must be too personal. Yet of course she meant that song. The song helps her. The song's story is different, but the emotion is same. We have all our love to give. A hard hit will do good if it makes us to commit on that.

Re: Ask HN: My mother was scammed out of all her savings. What should I do?

#25

Post by scapbi »

ch4s3 wrote: post #8
csomar wrote: post #3

There are only 3 countries neighboring Cambodia. It could help to mention the country as different countries have different guarantees. The thing you can do right now is to try and get hold of someone in the bank that can freeze the flows, for the possibility of returning the money. Otherwise, not much can be done.

It's always going to be near impossible to get money back out of Cambodia, which is the implication in the post. You can trivially figure out where the author of the post lives too, but I'm not sure there's much usable advice here.

It is almost impossible. Unlike in developed countries, where banks can offer some level of protection to customers, in third-world countries, banks mainly protect themselves. All responsibility is pushed onto users. Banks take no accountability, and the government protects the banks.

Let me give a concrete example. When money is transferred to scammer accounts, it is immediately distributed across hundreds of other accounts and moved out of the electronic system in under 30 seconds. At that point, everything is gone.

Re: Ask HN: My mother was scammed out of all her savings. What should I do?

#26

Post by scapbi »

Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #24

It's a growing threat everywhere. Here in Russia it's nearly always in the news. They can even trick a person into selling expensive property (real estate) and then steal the money. One thing is the government must act. These calls are mostly done from abroad. Phone companies can implement some protective measures. Banks too need to watch for common patterns (doesn't always help because scammers talk the victim aroun…

My main background is in mathematics, and after 15 years working in big data, I am now focusing on machine learning and AI. Not flashy technologies, but practical ones that can do things beyond what a normal human can do alone.

As for the human side, I have already shared my story within a closed community where other engineers know me personally. I am not begging for help; my goal is to inform more people about this situation and, if I am fortunate, to find others who are willing to join me in this fight.

Re: Ask HN: My mother was scammed out of all her savings. What should I do?

#27

Post by scapbi »

Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #24

It's a growing threat everywhere. Here in Russia it's nearly always in the news. They can even trick a person into selling expensive property (real estate) and then steal the money. One thing is the government must act. These calls are mostly done from abroad. Phone companies can implement some protective measures. Banks too need to watch for common patterns (doesn't always help because scammers talk the victim aroun…

Your last story is deeply moving. It captures the human cost behind these crimes in a way that statistics never can. Her quiet strength, expressed in just a few words, is a powerful reminder that even after devastating loss, people can find the will to endure and move forward.

Re: Ask HN: My mother was scammed out of all her savings. What should I do?

#28

Post by vorpalhex »

I'm sorry this happened to you and your family.

1. Get police reports 2. Use the police report to start an issue with the bank 3. Work with a lawyer and escalate through the courts.

Do all of these things. Don't let the bank staff dissuade you from getting a lawyer involved now.

There is a second "thing to do" which is to regather yourself. You seem to feel, justly, as if your house was robbed. Take care of yourself as if that was true. Do a personal security audit if that is the sort of thing that makes you feel better. Journal, meditate, pray, etc as appropriate.

No defense is perfect and complete. That doesn't mean the defenders stop trying.

Re: Ask HN: My mother was scammed out of all her savings. What should I do?

#29

Post by [deleted] »

libertarian2 wrote: post #19

It's interesting that in our digital age there are tens of thousands of text editors emerge every millisecond but hackers won't do any project that would help their own people to build robust communities and educational platforms, that would teach everyday (cyber)security and computer/tech skills.

[deleted]
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