I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud
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Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud
#2The problem with stopping fraud is that people generally do not fight fraud as hard as fraudsters fight to keep their income.
Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud
#3Long ago I did some contract coding for a company that processed donations via credit card. To my amazement, we had to watch out for people trying to donate small amounts to the Red Cross. Why? Because people with a list of possibly-valid credit card numbers would use small donations to brand-name charities as a way of validating credit cards.
It made me long for some sort of professional association that kept track of naughty uses of technology. It's easy to think only about the happy path. But there are all sorts of unsavory people out there: abusers, mobsters, thieves, authoritarian governments. Once I know how they think, I can defend against them. But keeping up with how they think has always been a challenge for me.
Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud
#4Long ago I did some contract coding for a company that processed donations via credit card. To my amazement, we had to watch out for people trying to donate small amounts to the Red Cross. Why? Because people with a list of possibly-valid credit card numbers would use small donations to brand-name charities as a way of validating credit cards. It made me long for some sort of professional association that kept track…
After launching several SaaS with a $1 trial and such, this also happens there.
Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud
#5A real great scam recording is the following: A "maid"-sounding voice answers, pretends to not understand for a second, then says "oh yeah I'll go get them". In the background there's a TV and people talking. I've had it happen to me twice, and it was effective on keeping me on the line, despite not having a TV or the woman not sounding like anyone I know.
Margins in telecom can be super thin. Diverting, say, 1% of traffic to fake answering could mean increasing profits by 10%. If the scammer doesn't go overboard, users won't complain. They'll just say "the wires got crossed" and redial.
Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud
#6The problem with stopping fraud is that people generally do not fight fraud as hard as fraudsters fight to keep their income.
Definitely. There's also the same sort of issue with gazelles and cheetahs. Both are fast, but for the cheetah to get its dinner, it only has to be faster than the slowest gazelle. I'm sure some of the phone companies are reasonably fraud-resistant, but securing a whole industry is harder.
Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud
#7I have a related story. I was in North America, looking for an apartment in Australia. At the time I'd buy phone cards for long distance calls, and they'd always work fine.
So, I used the phone card, and tried to call someone about an apartment that looked great. According to the advertisement, it was a woman that owned the apartment and she had an extra bedroom she was renting. I called, and a man answered. It went like this...
Him: Hello
Me: Hi, I was calling about your apartment for rent online.
// Dogs barking in the background fairly loudly.
Him: Sorry, what was your name?
Me: John Doe
Him: It's difficult to hear, could you hold on a moment?
Me: Sure
// He puts down the phone, and it sounds like he's taking the dogs outside or to another room. In the background a TV is playing. I'm getting annoyed, but he finally returns 4 or 5 minutes later.
Him: Are you still there?
Me: Yes
// A woman starts talking to him from inside the house.
Him: Sorry, just give me one more moment.
// He starts talking and arguing with her. I wait two minutes, then hang up.
After the call, I was frustrated. The apartment sounded great online, but what a nightmare; dogs barking, people yelling at each other, and they wasted 10 minutes of my time. So, I moved on, and tried calling others. Sometimes I'd get through to the person, sometimes I'd get errors about not being able to reach the number. Fast forward a week, I changed my plans, and started looking at apartments in another Australian city, hundreds of kilometers from the first. I call for an apartment, and guess what I hear? That's right, the same recording from above. Now, I was confused. I didn't even expect it was a recording the first time. But, how was I getting the recording from a completely different number, in a different city? I called back, because I was getting curious at that point. To my surprise, someone answered the second time, and it was actually the person from the advertisement I was trying to call. It became obvious at that moment that someone in the middle was hijacking calls, and trying to keep people on the line as long as possible.
Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud
#8Interesting to note that Phreaking is still very much alive and kicking.
Most of the hackers I know gave up on Phreaking once hacking became popular in their circles. To me, there will always be something more fascinating about the telephone infrastructure.
Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud
#9Long ago I did some contract coding for a company that processed donations via credit card. To my amazement, we had to watch out for people trying to donate small amounts to the Red Cross. Why? Because people with a list of possibly-valid credit card numbers would use small donations to brand-name charities as a way of validating credit cards. It made me long for some sort of professional association that kept track…
After launching several SaaS with a $1 trial and such, this also happens there.
I think the candy japan guy from around here talks about it a lot.. people using candy to validate stolen CCs...
Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud
#10I have a related story. I was in North America, looking for an apartment in Australia. At the time I'd buy phone cards for long distance calls, and they'd always work fine. So, I used the phone card, and tried to call someone about an apartment that looked great. According to the advertisement, it was a woman that owned the apartment and she had an extra bedroom she was renting. I called, and a man answered. It went…
That is weird. Did you ever see a charge from the call? Or I guess if it was a prepaid card, the minutes just drained faster?