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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?

#41

Post by feydaykyn »

I am really sorry it happened to you, and wish you and your mother lots of resilience.

The following is very naive...

I have no experience in this, but since you're working in the banking system, you may know someone who knows someone etc ? It may go high enough that "something" happens, be it some help, or green light for a project to prevent scamming or anything really.

Where I live, banks have to control wire transfers, so for instance if someone wires money for "Brad Pit's kidney", the bank must prevent this. Actually it's a real case, and an undisclosed deal was made between the victim and the bank. Maybe there's something like this where you live?

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

#42

Post by bhoult »

A technical solution without the will or ability to enforce it will ultimately be unsatisfying. I remember an old group https://www.419eater.com/ (I guess it is still there). They basically "waste the scammers time". The scams rely on low effort ways to find the target, robocalls, emails, etc. But once the target is found they have to put real effort into implementation. With AI, this will only become easier on their end.

I would look into solutions that would make it harder for them. Like AI chatbots that act like targets, both text and voice. If the majority of their efforts end up being weeks of conversation with an AI before they figure it out then it will not be worth the effort.

Right now it may take them hours to find a viable target then days to extort them. Make it take longer, until it is more lucrative to get a legitimate job.

I used to think it was fun to mess with scammers... but I think these days many of them are forced into it. Basically they are lured in with reasonable sounding job offers then once they find themselves in another country with only their "employer" look out for them, they basically become slave labor.

You need to hurt the ones trapping the slaves that run the scams, and your weapon is the same as theirs... technology.

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

#43

Post by TiredOfLife »

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…

> Here in Russia it's nearly always in the news

And that is bad because...?

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

#44

Post by scapbi »

Thanks everyone for your kind words and advice. It really means a lot to me right now. I hope someday I can get over this and turn it into a lesson, and I will share what I learned so others can be more careful.

To @dang and the moderators: I honestly do not understand why this topic was flagged. This situation is real and very painful for my family, and it is beyond my imagination that sharing it would be a problem.

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

#45

Post by tomhow »

scapbi wrote: post #44

Thanks everyone for your kind words and advice. It really means a lot to me right now. I hope someday I can get over this and turn it into a lesson, and I will share what I learned so others can be more careful. To @dang and the moderators: I honestly do not understand why this topic was flagged. This situation is real and very painful for my family, and it is beyond my imagination that sharing it would be a problem.

We've turned off the flags.

Sorry for any distress over this. The moderators didn't flag (or see) it. Users flagged it, and whilst we never know why users flag things, in this case it may have been because it seemed outside of HN's usual scope. But as moderators we think it's fine if the community is able to discuss a topic like this and provide meaningful advice and help. We're really sorry this happened to your family, and we wish you well in finding a way forward.

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

#46

Post by scapbi »

tomhow wrote: post #45
scapbi wrote: post #44

Thanks everyone for your kind words and advice. It really means a lot to me right now. I hope someday I can get over this and turn it into a lesson, and I will share what I learned so others can be more careful. To @dang and the moderators: I honestly do not understand why this topic was flagged. This situation is real and very painful for my family, and it is beyond my imagination that sharing it would be a problem.

We've turned off the flags. Sorry for any distress over this. The moderators didn't flag (or see) it. Users flagged it, and whilst we never know why users flag things, in this case it may have been because it seemed outside of HN's usual scope. But as moderators we think it's fine if the community is able to discuss a topic like this and provide meaningful advice and help. We're really sorry this happened to your fam…

Thank you, @tomhow. The quick response and the welcoming attitude from the moderators are something I personally appreciate a lot.

As I mentioned before, HN is a technology community. I hope that one day I can share only technical topics here, so we can focus the discussion on technical matters. I hope we can stand together as engineers, doing our part and taking responsibility, even if that does not fully address the root causes.

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

#47

Post by scapbi »

After sharing my story, I realized how widespread this has become. Almost every friend I know has at least one relative who has been a victim. These are not one or two isolated cases. It is almost everyone. This is no longer an exception. It is becoming normal, and that is terrifying.

One urgent warning I want to share is about how scammers are now using AI.

In my country, they are already using AI for video calls, voice cloning, and highly scripted conversations. The person on the screen can look and sound real. The conversation feels natural and authoritative. For many people, especially older relatives, it is almost impossible to tell that it is fake.

This is no longer about obvious scam messages or bad phone calls. AI is making scams feel personal and trustworthy. Please warn your families. No bank or authority will ever ask for OTP codes or urgent transfers, even if it is a video call and the person looks real.

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

#48

Post by vivzkestrel »

wtmt wrote: post #33

Sorry to hear this. From where I am (India), there’s hardly anything that you can do because it’s likely that the ones with power won’t do anything. As an individual, you can only focus on yourself and those you know and try to educate them as much as is possible. These kind of scams have become a huge problem in India (look up “digital arrest” scams). People of all backgrounds and age groups have lost a lot of money…

https://cybercrime.gov.in/ report cybercrimes here i shared more insight on a different comment on this post

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

#50

Post by jackiscott »

scapbi wrote: post #47

After sharing my story, I realized how widespread this has become. Almost every friend I know has at least one relative who has been a victim. These are not one or two isolated cases. It is almost everyone. This is no longer an exception. It is becoming normal, and that is terrifying. One urgent warning I want to share is about how scammers are now using AI. In my country, they are already using AI for video calls, v…

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