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I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

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Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#141

Post by nattaylor »

Galaxeblaffer wrote: post #139
rolobio wrote: post #6

I nearly got taken by a scammer because Amazon transferred me to one. I purchased a set of Reolink cameras on Amazon, (they've been great) one of them failed a couple months in. I contacted Amazon customer support (via my Amazon login and in their interface) and they wanted to troubleshoot with their technical team. Eventually the (very helpful) Amazon technician suggested contacting Reolink for support and started a…

It's really hard recognizing the image Amazon have in the US compared to my personal experience with amazon.de . The service is stellar, shipping both ways is free as long as you buy products covered by prime. Refunds are with no questions asked (as long as you don't start abusing it i guess). As soon as you go into 3rd party sellers the experience gets muddled, though I've had plenty of good experiences with those a…

My US based Amazon experience is like yours with fast shipping and easy refunds/exchanges, so don't lose hope. I guess with 100e6 or so customers, there are bound to be some bad experiences.

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#142

Post by m463 »

carabiner wrote: post #108
rolobio wrote: post #6

I nearly got taken by a scammer because Amazon transferred me to one. I purchased a set of Reolink cameras on Amazon, (they've been great) one of them failed a couple months in. I contacted Amazon customer support (via my Amazon login and in their interface) and they wanted to troubleshoot with their technical team. Eventually the (very helpful) Amazon technician suggested contacting Reolink for support and started a…

Amazon today is a street side flea market. You really don't know what you'll get. I've started ordering more stuff from traditional retailers. Their online operations these days are really good, and at most a few dollars more than Amazon. Clothes from macys.com, home goods from homedepot.com and target.com, and so on. You're not flooded with choices with these stores that are mostly garbage, instead you get only 1-3…

I think ordering on amazon has become a little like getting your car towed.

Towing companies appear to be a large shell game where your $200 tow is handled my one or more middlemen who eventually get some poor independent towtruck driver to tow you for $75

Amazon should do something that would allow partnering with decent brands. Customers would be happy, brands could keep their reputation, amazon could get a reasonable cut, and they would still sell stuff via flea-market brands and the made up word-salad amazon brands

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#143

Post by denton-scratch »

He "relayed" an "Apple Authentication Code" from an email to this Daniel fellow, right? Presumably he read it into the phone?

That's where (I hope) I would have stopped; if X sends me an authentication code, the only reasonable place to send it back to is X.

Also, I think the real fraud department would be completely OK with me saying "Oh, thanks for spotting it. I'd like to call you back now please - give me your name and the name of your department, and I'll look it up and call you back - what do I do to bypass transfer hell?".

Getting on the blower to Wells Fargo on the other line was smart, but you need to have multiple lines at your disposal.

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#145

Post by bubblethink »

carabiner wrote: post #108
rolobio wrote: post #6

I nearly got taken by a scammer because Amazon transferred me to one. I purchased a set of Reolink cameras on Amazon, (they've been great) one of them failed a couple months in. I contacted Amazon customer support (via my Amazon login and in their interface) and they wanted to troubleshoot with their technical team. Eventually the (very helpful) Amazon technician suggested contacting Reolink for support and started a…

Amazon today is a street side flea market. You really don't know what you'll get. I've started ordering more stuff from traditional retailers. Their online operations these days are really good, and at most a few dollars more than Amazon. Clothes from macys.com, home goods from homedepot.com and target.com, and so on. You're not flooded with choices with these stores that are mostly garbage, instead you get only 1-3…

This seems to be the classic underdog problem. The traditional retailers that you like today will become third party marketplaces tomorrow if they grow. So the issue is that we only get good service from underdogs and it is destined to fail once the underdog is not an underdog anymore.

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#146

Post by rolobio »

Galaxeblaffer wrote: post #139
rolobio wrote: post #6

I nearly got taken by a scammer because Amazon transferred me to one. I purchased a set of Reolink cameras on Amazon, (they've been great) one of them failed a couple months in. I contacted Amazon customer support (via my Amazon login and in their interface) and they wanted to troubleshoot with their technical team. Eventually the (very helpful) Amazon technician suggested contacting Reolink for support and started a…

It's really hard recognizing the image Amazon have in the US compared to my personal experience with amazon.de . The service is stellar, shipping both ways is free as long as you buy products covered by prime. Refunds are with no questions asked (as long as you don't start abusing it i guess). As soon as you go into 3rd party sellers the experience gets muddled, though I've had plenty of good experiences with those a…

Amazon US used to be as you describe. But now its mostly just cheap knockoff stuff. I hardly purchase there anymore. Its really sad because they used to have such a wide selection.

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#147

Post by chaostheory »

Can I get scammed? Sure, but in this specific case, that Wells Fargo scam wouldn’t work on me because I know firsthand that Wells Fargo fraud prevention is terrible. Case in point, a few years back I had in-store mall transactions happening 400 miles and 2600 miles away from my current location within an hour span of my lunch transaction. No fraud alert. It even took me weeks to contest these transactions. This is abysmal compared to virtually every other credit card provider.

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#148

Post by 14 »

carabiner wrote: post #108
rolobio wrote: post #6

I nearly got taken by a scammer because Amazon transferred me to one. I purchased a set of Reolink cameras on Amazon, (they've been great) one of them failed a couple months in. I contacted Amazon customer support (via my Amazon login and in their interface) and they wanted to troubleshoot with their technical team. Eventually the (very helpful) Amazon technician suggested contacting Reolink for support and started a…

Amazon today is a street side flea market. You really don't know what you'll get. I've started ordering more stuff from traditional retailers. Their online operations these days are really good, and at most a few dollars more than Amazon. Clothes from macys.com, home goods from homedepot.com and target.com, and so on. You're not flooded with choices with these stores that are mostly garbage, instead you get only 1-3…

Agreed. Last example was LED grow light I purchased and description said had a grounded plug. When it arrived there was only a 2 prong plug. I’m weary of everything I buy there now and try find a manufacturer direct order when possible. Fulfilled by Amazon should read as a warning sign.

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#149

Post by geek_at »

antiframe wrote: post #47
klik99 wrote: post #21

There'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…

Yes, this is what I do too. I say "Thank you for the information. For security reasons I won't discuss this matter on this incoming call but I will immediately contact your fraud department on the number I have." They've never been annoyed about this. In fact, mostly they've been positively surprised.

Another solution would be to find out who the scammers parents are and write them. Worked for me

https://blog.haschek.at/2016/how-a-scammer-stole-500-dollars...

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#150

Post by giaour »

indiv0 wrote: post #137
NavinF wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He almost certainly meant that sha256(card number) can be bruteforced to figure out what card number was hashed. 10^12*256 bits is only 29 TiB. So providing a hashed card number to a potential scammer is just as bad as providing the card number.

So just ask the other party to give you a salt they generate on the spot? And/or you do so on your end? You can still get targeted for a direct attack but much less likely to end up caught in a dragnet approach.

That would prevent using a pre-generated lookup table but doesn't help much with brute force attacks. All possible card numbers is a finite set, and if you have the sha256(card number + salt), you can figure out which card number was used as input given the improbability of sha256 collisions within that set.

Keep in mind this in the context of an account holder asking the bank to authenticate themselves on a phone call using data only the bank and the account holder should know. sha256(card number) was an example of something that is obviously inappropriate, and I don't think sha256(card number + salt) is any different qualitatively.

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