Expert.
I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed
61–70 of 562 posts
Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed
#62Sounds like they’re not an expert after all, never give out information over the phone unless you initiated the call.
Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Calling on the official number is a good rule. But my neighbour followed that and was still scammed for tens of thousands. The critical extra step that they missed was to check that the line was disconnected before calling out. They were using a landline. The scammers called them, but didn't hang up. Then, when my neighbour called out to their bank, they pretended to be answering that call - going through security, e…
Your neighbor just dialed the new number without hanging up first?
No dial tone and no ring… Seems a difficult mistake to make but then again, I regularly surprise myself with my errors.
Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed
#64> And lastly, if you're reading this, Daniel Coffmane #1687979, whoever you really are: Well played.
I went to read the comments here to see if Daniel somehow acknowledged this
Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed
#65There's one easy rule that could have avoided all of this - never give out any info on incoming calls. If I get a call or text about fraudulent transactions, I'll keep them on hold while I log into the bank website. If I get a call about a late payment, I'll thank them for the info and ask them to stay on while I pay online. If I get an inbound call with a more complex request, I'll ask them for their employee info a…
Agreed. No matter how tired and annoyed I was, I'd have stopped dead at the confirmation code that they asked for. There's absolutely no way I'd have given that to them, even if it meant cancelling my account and using a different bank.
That seems a bit extreme, but if their procedures are so crazy as to require circumventing another system's security procedures, I'm not going to bank with them.
I actually had a bank send me an email asking for information that came from another domain, had a header that looked liked it had been badly scanned in, and had links to domains they don't own. When I ignored it, I eventually got a notice that my car loan was in jeopardy because I hadn't provided that information.
They had no clue why I was so upset about that email.
I paid off my loan immediately and never looked back, even though the interest was less than I make off the stock market.
Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
> always says "You will never be asked for this code" and everytime they ask for it. Yes, but the real meaning behind that phrase is "You will only be asked for this code by pages served by our domain name or a native app we published." It's unfortunate brevity.
Sorry the exact message is something like you will never be asked for this by a real employee.
Oh I didn't mean to suggest the brevity was your doing. I've seen it the short way first-hand, but yes, more typically it's pretty decent, as you've clarified.
Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed
#67> He verified my name, he had the last four digits of my debit card number, and everything generally seemed to follow the normal script of a transaction verification call There's a red flag right there — I've never found a bank willing to provide any verification of who they are when calling me. They call me and ask me to give them a code or card number without providing me with any proof of their identity. I've trie…
This happens with my doctor's scheduling people all the time. "Hi I'm calling for $YOU, will you please verify the last 4 of your social and full DOB?" uhhhh... no I will not, random person
Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed
#68There's one easy rule that could have avoided all of this - never give out any info on incoming calls. If I get a call or text about fraudulent transactions, I'll keep them on hold while I log into the bank website. If I get a call about a late payment, I'll thank them for the info and ask them to stay on while I pay online. If I get an inbound call with a more complex request, I'll ask them for their employee info a…
Calling on the official number is a good rule. But my neighbour followed that and was still scammed for tens of thousands. The critical extra step that they missed was to check that the line was disconnected before calling out. They were using a landline. The scammers called them, but didn't hang up. Then, when my neighbour called out to their bank, they pretended to be answering that call - going through security, e…
For the people who are confused: this is a fairly common thing on landlines in some countries, where the telephone exchange doesn't drop the connection until both ends have hung up, or in some cases when the caller hangs up but not the callee. So it's possible to put your own phone down, but when you pick it up again your phone is still connected to the scammer's telephone. If they play a convincing dial tone, then change to a ring tone when they hear DTMF, you'd be none the wiser.
The workaround to this is to use another phone (e.g. switch to mobile), or if that's not possible, apparently you can wait several minutes until the exchange times out the connection.
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/100268/does-han...
Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed
#69I'm so skeptical of these "experts" especially if they write a blog post where they hate their bank. I've been with Wells for over a decade. They have never called me. Never. I have had "fraud" alerts hundreds of times. They always happen at certain POS, and it's always a text alert. Some of the stories I read make me viscerally react with "what in the world are you doing with something as simple as a bank account?"…
The author does seem to bang on about his "reasonable assumptions" for how much Wells and Apple Pay suck, so he should continue the call! Like he's just too clever to follow the advice he'd give everyone else to hang up and call back.
Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed
#70Security theater. I had a situation where I had to buy something online from a company in Europe (owl4thunderbird) I placed the charge and then right after I got a text telling me to call a # for a possible fraud alert. That's a big red flag there. So I try and find the phone # of the fraud dept of Citi because anyone can send a text message. Turns out can't find it anywhere in the official Citi site. So I finally gi…
Side note: if unexpectedly getting a new card, call the support number on your old card. A friend of mine almost got taken about 15 years ago by a scam where someone got his address and bank name, then sent him a fake credit card from that bank with a letter saying something like fraud had been detected and they were sending him a replacement card. When he called the number on the new card's activation sticker, somet…
Whoah, that's a pretty smart attack.