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The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

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Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#111

Post by ilaksh »

jansan wrote: post #46
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…

Long time (maybe twenty years) ago I read about a fascinating scam. The scammers were announcing a totally cool sex toy (maybe early VR, don't remember), but they never intended to deliver. Through clever marketing they managed to find enough potential customers who were asked to prepay a certain amount to finance production of the product (comparable to crowdfunding). When delivery day arrived, the scammers sent out…

Isn't that just like an average KickStarter campaign?

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#113

Post by hiccuphippo »

fencepost wrote: post #29
giarc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increase playback speed. You'd be surprised how your hearing can adjust. Just work your way up in small increments. Just be prepared that if you ever go back to 1x speed, it sounds really weird.

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 going up to 2x for a minute then down to 1.5 again and it will sound fine.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#115

Post by eitland »

Topgamer7 wrote: post #68
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading vs viewing/listening speed must be at least 10:1 for most people and maybe 20:1 for speed readers. Video/audio are such timewasters if you can read at a decent rate.

I like youtube content too, however I watch it at 2X speed.

Today I learned the Youtube app has a speed setting :-)

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#116

Post by crag »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #100
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.

> 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.

82 years old, with serious cash flow issues. Choosing between food and meds? It's 50/50. In fact, living among them in Florida, I'd give odds that he'd choose to die.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#117

Post by feedbeef »

rdtsc wrote: post #34
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…

> This is such an interesting essential part of scams. I guess it's a part of human nature. Absolutely. It happened to my relatives too. The way I found out was I was there visiting and they got a call which I picked it up. It came from what sounded like an Indian person. You see, they wanted to "refund the money" and just needed the bank account details. Aha! I thought, I'll play dumb and pretended to mistype their…

Watching a scambaiter won't help recover their loss, but it may offer some form of vicarious revenge:

https://www.twitch.tv/kitboga

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#118

Post by cosmodisk »

We don't have IT scams like this in Lithuania,as nobody ever pays for IT support,they just get someone they know to do it for free. However massive prize scams used to be quite popular and still are to certain degree today. Scammer calls a victim and claims he's calling from a radio show,some company, events organiser, whatever.Then obviously comes the part where he saya that the victim won x,y,z and all they. need to do is to buy some prepaid topup cards for mobile( these usually have a code on them that needs to be used to add credit) and tell the con artist those codes,for "verification purposes" or whatever the reason of the day is. This was many years ago. One day,a friend of mine gets home and his dad,a surgeon, shouts across the room: Anthony,we won!!!!we won it all!!My friend: what? Yeah,we won!! HI-Fi system, a vacuum cleaner and I think a washing masine as well!!!Yeah! My friend,still being quite confused about his dad's instant gains: what are you talking about, where's this coming from? Well,the guy called from the radio,they ran a game and we won.Anthony, here's some money(it was at least a couple weeks wage),go to the shop across the road and buy topup cards,will you? My friend looked at his dad and said: dad, shut up and go back to bed.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#119

Post by jansan »

apsanz wrote: post #62
jansan wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long time (maybe twenty years) ago I read about a fascinating scam. The scammers were announcing a totally cool sex toy (maybe early VR, don't remember), but they never intended to deliver. Through clever marketing they managed to find enough potential customers who were asked to prepay a certain amount to finance production of the product (comparable to crowdfunding). When delivery day arrived, the scammers sent out…

Why not just deposit the check in an ATM or with an image

I think this was not possible at that time. Bank business was a lot more personal back in the old days. People knew each other and you wouldn't want to be the one in the community being know for having ordered a sex toy.

https://videosift.com/video/Dylan-Moran-tells-a-joke

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#120

Post by justinclift »

rasz wrote: post #104
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.…

Doesnt work. Scammers already adopted this to their advantage. Conman calls a landline , starts conversation with "please call the bank back, im putting down the phone now" and ... just plays Dial tone. The trick is call ends only when the person who started it hangs up .

Hmm... "No worries, I'll do that but it'll probably be in a few days as I'm pretty busy now."

If they want to leave their line open "for a few days"... then good luck to them. :)

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