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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

#261

Post by WorldMaker »

caf wrote: post #211
tempestn wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is good advice, despite it being a pain sometimes! I once got a voicemail from the fraud department at my bank, with a number to call back. I googled the number and all that came up were stories about being scammed. So I was 95% sure it was a scam, but called my bank directly just in case. The person who answered assured me they hadn't contacted me, and it was indeed a scam. I later got a follow-up voicemail fro…

This has a similarity to the original story here, in that the original sounded like: "They behaved a lot like a scammer would, but I also totally expect my real bank to behave like a scammer would" .

Many banks today have communications preferences options and I've told all of my banks that do to never call me directly. If I receive any sort of legitimate call from them I immediately follow up with a strongly worded letter that they should not have called me and violated their own security policies.

The only thing we can do about "bank behaviors make it easier for scammers" is to change bank behaviors. It's not an easy process, but unfortunately it is a necessary process.

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

#262

Post by cogman10 »

verve_rat wrote: post #186
bubblethink wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That doesn't follow. Just because an online retailer grows it doesn't mean they have to start allowing third-party sellers. In fact, seeing what is happening to Amazon's reputation, that seems like a bad long term move. Short termisum might win out, but it is not a foregone conclusion.

I agree it's not a foregone conclusion, but it's also not far fetched. That's what happened to newegg. They tried to turn into an amazon and now I have a hard time trusting them.

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

#263

Post by daniel-cussen »

dangus wrote: post #104
jjoonathan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Amazon gets a cut and they act like it.

This is quite a jump to conclusions. The alternative theory of the customer service rep googling a phone number and getting the wrong one is far more likely. Or, it's possible that the company's own seller login was compromised and a scammer changed their contact number. The idea that a wildly successful multi-billion dollar company would actually set up such an easily-noticed system where they "get a cut" of phishin…

No post body was provided.

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

#264

Post by jeromegv »

craftyguy wrote: post #233
dheera wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stuff in person costs 2X the price though. Especially bike parts. It's often cheaper to buy from Amazon but never go through troubleshooting support. Always return or replace. If that doesn't work, give a 1 star review, wait for the seller to come chasing you with a gift card in return for 5 stars. Change it to 5 stars, spend the gift card, and then change it back to 1 star.

As someone why buys a lot of cycling parts online, there are many mom/pop bike shops with web storefronts, that are very reasonably priced and often include "free" shipping. Stop giving bezos your money, you have no excuse.

Yeah.. lots of people keep repeating "but its expensive out of amazon!" and they never tried. Sure, you can find cheaper products on Amazon, but once you start looking around, it's definitely not always the case. But people are lazy, they get multiple amazon packages a week, and love to complain about Bezos but do nothing about it.

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

#265

Post by mort96 »

feoren wrote: post #159
paxys wrote: post #71

I expected some crazy new attack vector that was so sophisticated it could fool this Scam Prevention Expert, but this post is laughable. They fell for textbook "scamming 101" that my grandma knows to avoid. Here's one tip for this expert – if you get a 2FA code over text or email that clearly has the line "we will never contact you for this code over phone or text" right under it, DON'T give it to a "support agent" o…

I agree. I nodded along to the part about not assuming it's the victim's fault, and then this "expert" falls for an extremely basic, obvious attack. "Wells Fargo will not contact you by phone or text to request this code." -- maybe that should have been bigger and bolder, but it was there. This guy should not be allowed to call himself a "scam prevention expert" anymore.

There's a lot of text in that e-mail. The text you're referring to is perfectly positioned to be almost invisible -- it's in the last paragraph intermingled with the standard "if you have any questions, call us on blah blah blah" text. My brain skipped the rest of that paragraph the first 5 times I skimmed the e-mail.

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

#266

Post by WorldMaker »

rcurry wrote: post #258

It gets even weirder when your bank acts like a scammer. A few weeks ago I was trying to help my wife add her USBank credit card to Apple Pay and Apple Pay said I needed to call this number to finish setting up the card. So I call the number and the guy is very friendly and asks me for a bunch of identity verification details, which I provide to him, but then he asks us to send a code back that will be coming over te…

Something I learned (almost the hard way) was to always make sure I have a Bank/Credit Card's own app installed (and logged in) before trying to add to Apple Pay. Apple Pay can and will redirect you to verification steps in the app if the app is installed. More often than not, if you initiate "Add to Wallet" from the app itself there's no additional verification step.

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

#267

Post by amelius »

m463 wrote: post #142
carabiner wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reasona…

I'd like to see an economist's view on how the free market is failing here, and what we can do about it.

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

#268

Post by daniel-cussen »

InitialLastName wrote: post #185
rhizome wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never take restaurant phone numbers directly off of Google, I always check their (hopefully existent) website before calling, or at least crosscheck it against other sources. There is no way Grubhub or any of the other mediating greedholes will get even Caller ID data from me if I can help it.

Wait until you find out that Grubhub and ilk have been known to prop up fake websites for places.

Go to the right address in person. If you have no real-life connection with the restaurant, or any restaurants, give up and take what you get.

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

#269

Post by bcrosby95 »

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…

I dislike Amazon but yes, my experience in what you have outlined is that it's generally amazing.

The parts that aren't amazing is getting items that aren't representative of what I ordered. But refunding is always a breeze when that occurs.

My problem is that it shouldn't be a thing that happens so often (to me). I shouldn't be shipped shoes of the wrong size 3 times before I get shoes of the size I ordered. I shouldn't be buying open box items without being told it's open box. I shouldn't be buying things with the completely wrong thing in them.

Now, all of these can be problems with big box retailers. But the sheer frequency it happens to me on Amazon - it's never happened at this frequency to anyone I know when we would shop in store. Yes, my friend once bought a graphics card at Fry's that just contained a box of rocks. But that was one friend, one time. I've had more of these issues on Amazon, the last ~7 years, than I have for all shopping experiences everywhere else that I've ever shopped combined.

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

#270

Post by mlindner »

amelius wrote: post #267
m463 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reasona…

I'd like to see an economist's view on how the free market is failing here, and what we can do about it.

I'd say it's working just fine, by causing people to switch away from using Amazon. Amazon continued to lower their brand's quality and as the name becomes less and less trusted, their products are worth less and less.
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