81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers • Hacker News Board

Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers

#111

Post by BinaryIdiot » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:26 PM UTC

ksherlock wrote: post #11

forgetsusername wrote: post #5

>" targets nearly 300,000 Americans a year, most of them elderly, and has enticed them to send an estimated $300 million annually " In this case, the scammers took advantage of an elderly man, inflicted with Alzheimer's and diminishing mental capacity. Sad. But that can't be the case for the majority. How on earth do "normal" people fall for this? I can see, maybe , when the internet was young and this was new. But i…

Why do people fall for the "work for a startup and get rich" scam?

> Why do people fall for the "work for a startup and get rich" scam?

In all fairness, just like the phone scams, people are warned the best they can be about start-up lottery tickets.

Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers

#112

Post by Shivetya » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:27 PM UTC

Well a close relative of mine recently got tricked by a phone scammer who claimed to be from Microsoft. They did the virus alert scam, claiming CRSS.EXE was a virulent virus and needed immediate attention. Hence, they request to connect, using TeamViewer and promptly change his windows account name to a phone number (CALL-XXX-XXX-XXXX) and put a password on it. They immediately disconnect.

Fix, 300+ for two years protection or 400 or so for three years. Needless to say fixing a password locked Windows computer is beyond the majority out there. Apparently its pretty common to declare themselves from Dell, Microsoft, or similar.

The modern day roofers, driveway sealers, and such.

on a side note, who do you report these guys too?

Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers

#113

Post by wernercd » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:32 PM UTC

memracom wrote: post #85

There is a solution to this problem. 1. Change the phone number system to require 207 digit phone numbers instead of the current 10 digits. 2. Assign random phone numbers to everybody. Now the only people who can call you are the people who know you. You have to actively share your number with people. If people call random numbers they will get "not in service" messages all day long. We have 20 years of experience wi…

Why create a new system? Just move everything on top of IPv6? Not like most of this junk isn't routed over the internet anyways...

With as much address space as is available in IPv6, it shouldn't be hard to create something that points to the person yet is malleable enough to not be easily abuse.

Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers

#114

Post by V-2 » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:33 PM UTC

saint_fiasco wrote: post #55

V-2 wrote: post #45

"The Jamaican lottery scam is a cruel, persistent and sophisticated scam that has victimized seniors throughout the nation" What's so sophisticated about it? Honest question. Seems like the oldest trick in the book, as primitive and crude as scams only get. One that couldn't possibly work against anyone but most senile people. It's a sad story, I'm just missing the "sophistication" element.

The sophisticated part is getting the phone numbers of old people to begin the scam and then laundering the money at the end.

As far as I know these can be simply bought on black market... it's not like these scammers get them by themselves, hacking into databases etc.

Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers

#115

Post by patsplat » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:36 PM UTC

adekok wrote: post #50

Once the relatives get wind of this, there is a simple solution. Get a new phone number for the person in question. And even more critical don't cancel the old one . Put an answering machine on the old one, and have a "safe" relative check it every other day or so. Give the new phone number to family and friends. After a few weeks of getting nothing but answering machine messages, the scammers will go away. If the ol…

like this... the best way to stop abuse is to waste their time not yours.

Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers

#116

Post by crpatino » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:36 PM UTC

weaksauce wrote: post #108

Someone called my grandma when she was still alive and tried to convince her that I was in trouble with some bad people or in jail or something. They were really well researched and convincing. I wasn't in either of those situations. It's insane that people prey on the elderly since it's not like most of them work at all and need the money to live.

Lions rarely go after the strongest, sharpest, healthiest gazelle. Why it should be any different in the human realm?

What we need is not stop denying there are populations at risk from the overwhelming disclosure of private information into the public, and start taking measures to educate the most vulnerable people, and if need be, isolate them from the (public?) online world. I know walled gardens are taboo, but they did make - and continue to make - a lot of sense once the Internet began to fill with lay (as in, not part of the technorati) people.

Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers

#117

Post by crpatino » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:42 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #84

nadams wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once the relatives get wind of this, there is a simple solution. Get a new phone number for the person in question. And even more critical don't cancel the old one. Or an even better idea - transfer the number to a reputable VOIP provider and setup the number so that it rejects calls from all numbers except for the ones you specify. Your loved ones can still call but any other scammer would get a busy signal or wha…

> I can guarantee you that they don't care if you are "on to them". They just stop calling because no one is picking up the line. I think that depends on how big a fish you are to them, or at least your relative size in their food chain. If you have someone worth a few hundred to you every month, you'll probably put in some extra work if you can't get that money for a month or two to try to recover that source.

There's the opportunity cost to the attacker as well.

Sure, they could walk around your barriers and scam your relative... or they could shrug it off, carry on with their list, and scam another five or ten people in the same time frame.

Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers

#118

Post by jakejake » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:46 PM UTC

goodJobWalrus wrote: post #25

Does anyone know what happens to the people when they get old, so they become gullible? Is there some physiological mechanism, or is it just that older people are less sophisticated about those issues?

In some cases like my great grandfather, I suspect he actually enjoyed the conversation because he was bored. Even though we went to his house nearly every day, there's still a lot of hours in the day.

He didn't get scammed over the phone but he probably had his driveway re-sealed 4-5 times a year. We would chase them away but they knew they could get him when there was nobody else around. Sickening people who do this.

It seemed possible that he knew his driveway didn't need sealed, but he would sit outside and chat with them for the 3-4 hours it took to do the job.

Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers

#119

Post by wvenable » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:48 PM UTC

murbard2 wrote: post #37

The lessons is not to "be wary of scammers" or "hack your phone"... That's totally missing the crux of the scam. The lesson is that, as you approach old age, and if at all possible, you should give a trusted relative or close friend a durable power of attorney over your finances. In addition, (or as a second best), put your money in an irrevocable living trust assigning yourself as a beneficiary, and laying out stric…

Unfortunately, a lot of elderly are just as likely to be scammed by a trusted relative or close friend.

Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers

#120

Post by awakeasleep » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:51 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #92

nadams wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once the relatives get wind of this, there is a simple solution. Get a new phone number for the person in question. And even more critical don't cancel the old one. Or an even better idea - transfer the number to a reputable VOIP provider and setup the number so that it rejects calls from all numbers except for the ones you specify. Your loved ones can still call but any other scammer would get a busy signal or wha…

We could build this with Twilio.

Isn't Twilio more about making sure your 1099 employees can't start a relationship with the people you have them do work with?