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

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

#121

Post by saryant » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:54 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #71

saryant wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started getting those after creating an LLC. I've tried to screw with them but they seem pretty good at sniffing that out and they just hang up whenever I tell them I "need to go find some paperwork" and leave the phone muted on my desk. I also started getting letters that look like bills for my LLC but are actually just junk mail for SEO services. Those ones really pissed me off. Looks just like an invoice with "T…

I think this should be actionable offense. But its been going on for years in one form or another. Used to get a big ad packet from a local dept store - with the bill mixed into the middle. They were hoping I wouldn't notice, and my balance would roll over so I'd pay charges. Instead I took the reply envelope, put my check in and stuffed it full of the ads too.

It wasn't an actual bill, it was an SEO guy trying to trick me into thinking I'd already hired him for my new company by sending me something that looked like an invoice for services rendered.

Whoever sent it is still an asshole though.

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

#122

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:55 PM UTC

URSpider94 wrote: post #106

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…

The problem is that many senior citizens, especially men, will fight tooth and nail against this. They have a self-image problem. They can not see themselves as frail and vulnerable. I lived through this with first my grandfather, then my grandmother.

Indeed. And it's absolutely understandable. Our seniors have been productive members of society for long decades, and as they reach their old age they suddenly find themselves not needed by anyone - the society doesn't want their services, their sons and daughters have already started their families and have little time for parents. No surprise they'll fight tooth and nail to keep the last bits that make them feel human - holding responsibility for their own actions, managing their own resources.

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

#123

Post by patio11 » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:57 PM UTC

nadams wrote: post #102

toomuchtodo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I specifically mentioned Twilio because anyone can build a custom solution to address this problem. Someone already has done this (with Twilio) to win the FTCs RoboCall Challenge: https://www.twilio.com/blog/2013/04/twilio-powered-nomorobo-... I also like Twilio ;)

> There are no infrastructure changes, or hardware required. This was one of FTC’s guidelines for the contest. > Unfortunately, Nomorobo is not available on traditional analog landlines or wireless phones at this time. Sounds like he failed the challenge... I don't think his idea is revolutionary - one could setup Asterisk to do what he did.

One is welcome to ship an Asterisk implementation of it any time one feels like doing so. One has not shipped an Asterisk implementation. One may underestimate to which degree ideas, revolutionary or otherwise, are improved by actually shipping concrete instantiations of them which actually work.

Incidentally: NoMoRobo gains some utility specifically because Twilio exists. A trivial example: phone numbers have a history to them. Most customers of Twilio want to buy phone numbers with a relatively clean history, i.e., ones that were not widely distributed prior to their life with that customer, to avoid misdirected calls or e.g. reputational issues. NoMoRobo wants precisely the opposite -- they literally ask Twilio to provision them with phone numbers which are otherwise unsaleable to customers, for example because those numbers are actively getting spammed to death. (Twilio has an entire team of people whose job is telephone number quality. Things you wouldn't have guessed existed in the world, right?)

This works great for NoMoRobo's use case, because a phone number getting spammed to death is perfect for them -- it lets them cheaply capture a lot of phone numbers which one has a high confidence are spam rather than ham.

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

#124

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:59 PM UTC

crpatino wrote: post #116

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 th…

As a society we also need to start doing something more against it. Blanket ban on telemarketing and very high sentences for confirmed scammers would not be uncalled for.

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

#125

Post by slipstream- » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 5:00 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #112

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 pro…

Low-tech winlocker ransomware! That's interesting. Never heard of that being done before by fake tech support scammers.

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

#126

Post by gefh » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 5:00 PM UTC

triangleman wrote: post #86

https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+tech+support Google still takes ads from iYogi. If you call iYogi they will try to scam you, over and over again. This has been going on for years. Has no one complained to Google about this? What about Apple, aren't they concerned about their brand being tarnished over unwitting seniors typing "Apple tech support" into their browsers and running into a tech support scam?

I don't seem to get any iYogi ads - could you share a screenshot and I'll share it with the bad ads people?

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

#127

Post by toomuchtodo » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 5:04 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #123

nadams wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are no infrastructure changes, or hardware required. This was one of FTC’s guidelines for the contest. > Unfortunately, Nomorobo is not available on traditional analog landlines or wireless phones at this time. Sounds like he failed the challenge... I don't think his idea is revolutionary - one could setup Asterisk to do what he did.

One is welcome to ship an Asterisk implementation of it any time one feels like doing so. One has not shipped an Asterisk implementation. One may underestimate to which degree ideas, revolutionary or otherwise, are improved by actually shipping concrete instantiations of them which actually work. Incidentally: NoMoRobo gains some utility specifically because Twilio exists. A trivial example: phone numbers have a hist…

Wow, thanks so much for contributing this Patrick. I had no idea Twilio did this or had a team who worked on it!

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

#128

Post by michaelpinto » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 5:07 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?

That's easy to answer: Dementia.

http://www.dementiaguide.com/symptomlibrary/thinkingjudgemen...

Dementia can grow slowly over time and can impact your judgement. And said person can be highly functional at the time, so the relatives don't know until something goes wrong.

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

#129

Post by patio11 » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

justinsb wrote: post #89

I don't understand why Western Union et al aren't being held accountable, at the very least in the form of a class action lawsuit. It seems that either the money transmitters aren't obeying the "Know Your Customer" laws (are they somehow exempt?), or they are knowingly allowing people to be victims of fraud to increase their profit. Making it much harder to transfer money anonymously seems both helpful in these cases…

Western Union is not exempt from KYC requirements. Most agents of it, however, sound something like "the owner of your local bodega." They'll satisfy themselves of your identity, either via personal knowledge or asking to see an ID. They'll then ring up your transfer. The person on the other end of the transfer is "Some person in Jamaica." That doesn't automatically scream FRAUD unless you say "Lottery" -- the overwhelming majority of Americans wiring money to someone in Jamaica are, in fact, supporting family or friends there.

Fraudsters also tend to get pretty decent about instructing their marks to structure payments to avoid the obvious controls, for example by using mules [+] or by striping a $5,000 transfer into multiple smaller transfers on different days to different recipients controlled by the same operation. This is explained to the mark as something like "Oh, different tax bureau than last time" but it's operationally to avoid having velocity checks tripped at WU.

[ + ] Witting or unwitting co-conspirators who receive money in their own name and then forward it to the criminals, often for a cut of the profits.

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

#130

Post by DanBC » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 5:19 PM UTC

saint_fiasco wrote: post #96

DanBC wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how dementia works.

What part? I'm almost sure the part about being mentally active to delay dementia is true. Does that only work on Alzheimer's disease, and not dementia in general?

Do you have any research papers to show that mental activity delays onset of dementia illnesses? So far what I've seen has been poor quality studies or early investigations. So, it might help, but we don't know yet.

The part I was mostly querying was about money being protective. It probably isn't. rich people probably get dementia at the same rate as poor people.

https://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/publication/preventing-al...

> Unlike age and genetics, certain health and lifestyle factors associated with Alzheimer’s disease risk may be controlled. Scientists are exploring prevention strategies to determine whether or not things like exercise, diet, and “brain games” can help delay or prevent Alzheimer’s disease and age-related cognitive decline. They are also investigating how certain medical conditions, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes, influence risk for cognitive impairment.

> So far, studies have not demonstrated that, over the long term, health or lifestyle factors can prevent or slow Alzheimer’s disease or age-related cognitive decline. Similarly, clinical trial results do not support the use of any particular medication or dietary supplement to prevent these conditions.