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The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

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Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#91

Post by noodlesUK »

dragonwriter wrote: post #89
kingbirdy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say that? What difference would it make?

I suppose it's theoretically possible that a fraudulent caller had exploited your device or phone line in some way, though that's a rare and extreme case. Still, it doesn't hurt to mitigate it when you verify (of course, it's also theoretically possible the same attacker compromised your other phone, or just that of the business they are impersonating, too.)

Especially with landlines it’s possible for them to stay on the line and pretend that they have hung up, play the dial tone and ring back noises, then continue the con. This is particularly easy with elderly people who have older phones.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#92

Post by rhizome »

chiph wrote: post #54
klenwell wrote: post #10

The victims didn't come forward because they felt so ashamed about falling for the con. This is such an interesting essential part of scams. I guess it's a part of human nature. I remember tracking down a phone scam that caught my grandmother once (based out of Montreal) and I eventually got to a point where I discovered that my grandmother had provided a verbal consent over the phone that had kept it just this side…

My dad got taken by the "Hello this is Microsoft Support calling" scammers. They quickly got him to approve a remote connection to his machine and then they showed him a random registry entry as "proof" that his machine was infected with a virus. Which they just so happened to have the anti-virus for, for $300. Dad was computer savvy, but by this point he was 80 years old and they flat-out took advantage of him. He h…

My mom only ever uses Thunderbird and Firefox, I've been considering converting her to Linux, which would make all of this impossible. She already knows the IRS isn't going to call her on the phone, much less arrest her.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#93

Post by daurnimator »

pakwa wrote: post #76
munificent wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teach them how do respond and how to handle these scammers. Concretely, the way to respond is this: If you ever get a call that claims to be from business X, tell them "OK, I'll call you back." Then get off the phone, look up the number for X yourself , and call them. If it was really X calling you, you'll get back to where you need to be. If it was a scam, X will tell you they don't know what you're talking about.…

As an important addition to this - use a completely different line for calling the real company. If the suspicious call came from a cell, use another cell phone. If call came from landline, use a cell.

I don't think many people have more than one phone any more. e.g. I haven't had a landline in almost a decade.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#95

Post by dwd »

redler wrote: post #77
klenwell wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please - teach your parents to just hang up on these clowns. That was the other thing. It was impossible to get my grandparents to do this. I think I eventually got them to let the answering machine answer and not return calls for messages from anyone they didn't recognize.

Maybe this is a new angle for Google Voice or similar services. Protect vulnerable members of your family with a fail-safe auto-attendant system with approval rules.

It's not fully automatic and I'm sure scammers will come up with new scripts to still trick people into answering.

Over time it should allow Google to flag numbers as potentially being a scam, marketing, etc based on other users flagging a caller. Saves Googling for that information which is what I currently do with an unknown number. The only risk is spoofing/false positives putting your number on some blacklist.

https://support.google.com/phoneapp/answer/9118387?hl=en

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#96

Post by chiph »

dwd wrote: post #86
chiph wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad got taken by the "Hello this is Microsoft Support calling" scammers. They quickly got him to approve a remote connection to his machine and then they showed him a random registry entry as "proof" that his machine was infected with a virus. Which they just so happened to have the anti-virus for, for $300. Dad was computer savvy, but by this point he was 80 years old and they flat-out took advantage of him. He h…

Troy Hunt took on one of these groups years ago and let them loose in a VM to see what they did. Their initial contact https://www.troyhunt.com/anatomy-of-virus-call-centre-scam/ When he called them back https://www.troyhunt.com/scamming-scammers-catching-virus-ca...

They are apparently onto the VM trick now. I've heard of them checking the running processes for the virtualized network connection, etc.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#97

Post by judge2020 »

knowow1 wrote: post #74
munificent wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teach them how do respond and how to handle these scammers. Concretely, the way to respond is this: If you ever get a call that claims to be from business X, tell them "OK, I'll call you back." Then get off the phone, look up the number for X yourself , and call them. If it was really X calling you, you'll get back to where you need to be. If it was a scam, X will tell you they don't know what you're talking about.…

It works in the average situation, but unfortunately there are some huge scams happening(passing unnoticed) in undeveloped countries where somehow the scammers can hijack the number for a certain time frame. If you call the same number the next day the real institution is going to answer, but nobody knows a thing. Apparently, in some cases, they can hijack the phone number of an institution, but only for the specific…

In other cases, they might be able to take over the Google Maps listing (Google Search will show the listing from maps btw) due to it not being previously claimed/suggesting an update and can change the phone number to one they control: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18527328

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#98

Post by OhneHerren »

liability wrote: post #39
fencepost wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up to 1.4 is not a big deal, somewhere around 1.5 or starts to get a little strange. Since I generally have technical or industry related podcasts going while doing other things too high a speed becomes a hindrance.

Try out rubberband. I find that with rubberband and mpv I can get close to 3x and still understand many (but not all) speakers. It depends on their particular accent/annunciation/cadence though. Some accents, like RP, are very clear to me at 1x but degrade more rapidly (for me) than others at high speeds. https://breakfastquay.com/rubberband/

What is improved by using Rubberband rather than the internal playback speed setting on mpv, which keeps pitch the same?

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#99

Post by pavel_lishin »

paggle wrote: post #65
crag wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why he was downloaded. I mean, come too Florida and talk to some 80 year old guy who has nothing, due to being scammed or ID theft. Frankly, be better if you just killed the guy. Now this guy has to decide between food and meds because his SSI doesn't cover it all. And his savings are gone.

I was downvoted because the same people who have the influence to legalize their crimes have the influence to make the public believe that it is right and proper.

That is absolutely not why you were downvoted.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#100

Post by pavel_lishin »

crag wrote: post #30
pavel_lishin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being downvoted, but I hear where you're coming from. Phone scammers make my blood boil like little else does.

I don't know why he was downloaded. I mean, come too Florida and talk to some 80 year old guy who has nothing, due to being scammed or ID theft. Frankly, be better if you just killed the guy. Now this guy has to decide between food and meds because his SSI doesn't cover it all. And his savings are gone.

> Frankly, be better if you just killed the guy.

I feel like you should ask the guy his opinion on the subject. He's likely to disagree.

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