I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by lamontcg » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 11:35 PM UTC

lupire wrote: post #296

lamontcg wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mechanism is the managers that take over at companies who focus on the short term bottom line (trimming support today, to juice profits tomorrow, to lose credibility years down the road after the bonuses have long landed in their bank account). And the problem is that Amazon's growth profile (retail-side anyway) is going to be pretty constrained going forwards because they own too much of the available pie right…

"short term bottom line" is a comically absurd way to describe Amazon, which has been growing consistently for 25 years.

I'm talking about the prospects for growth in the next 25 years, not the last 25 years.

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

#332

Post by smeej » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 11:40 PM UTC

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…

My doctor's office has a note in my file about this now.

Every time they call me, they just say, "Hi smeej, it's NAME at Dr. NAME's office. We have an update for you, so go ahead and hang up and call us back."

Works like a charm!

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

#333

Post by ClumsyPilot » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 11:46 PM UTC

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.

Your regular reminder that theoretical free market assumes perfectly rational and informed consumer, no lies and no misleading or withholding information

In other news a car has infinute milage on a frictionless surface in a vacuum

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

#334

Post by smeej » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 11:46 PM UTC

onaworkcomputer wrote: post #33

hunter2_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sum of the last 4 It's a chicken/egg problem of not wanting to give information first, but a one-way function (hash) is a fantastic idea. The collision possibilities in this particular function are worrisome, though.

It'd be unreasonable to ask someone to perform a hash of those last four digits (how would your mom respond if the bank asked her for the sha256 hash of her card number?), but it could be helpful to ask questions that don't reveal too much information, like, "is the sum of the last four digits even?" or "is the sum evenly divisible by 3?" It would be difficult to come up with something you could reasonably ask an acc…

My mom would only have a 50% chance of correctly adding four single-digit numbers, and if she had to divide them by 3, she'd be lost.

She's an intelligent woman who's just lousy at arithmetic. I'd guess hers would be approximately the median experience if something like this became standard.

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

#335

Post by lamontcg » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 11:47 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #325

lupire wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"short term bottom line" is a comically absurd way to describe Amazon, which has been growing consistently for 25 years.

This comment is peak short-termism! It is comically absurd to refer to 25 years as a long time! There are companies that have been around for 300 years, in fact prior to rise of venture capital moat companies were multi-generational family business and you would consider how a decision would reflect on your children.

The professional management class in America no longer remotely behaves that way.

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

#336

Post by smeej » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 11:53 PM UTC

I got another report from a former colleague about a nearly identical story yesterday. This person was also in the "knows better than to fall for this kind of thing" category.

The critical difference, though, is that he reported the scammer read off a list of his actual recent transactions.

That part, especially when combined with this second story so soon afterward, makes me think some third-party budgeting tool or something was recently breached and just hasn't announced it yet.

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

#337

Post by duderific » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 11:56 PM UTC

aceazzameen wrote: post #178

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…

Yep. I've been ordering from Target, Best Buy, and Walmart much more often these days. I just assume the product descriptions and reviews on Amazon are all lies.

As someone who has contributed legitimate reviews on Amazon, I think "all lies" is a bit of an exaggeration.

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

#338

Post by rdevnull » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 11:56 PM UTC

No offence but as an "expert" there is no excuse to run a webpage/blog etc. with no https.

With Vercel, Netlify and many others offering free stating hosting and let's encrypt https certificate there is no excuse to run a site without an SSL certificate.

To me the moral of the story and that you should never ever follow instructions by an alleged bank calling you asking to confirm informations and, even worse, give them codes over the phone. Especially if you are an "expert".

The most unbelievable part is falling for the idea that if you had called back your whole account would be on hold. That was such a smoke bomb that was easily detectable.

If this seemed plausible as your dislike your bank and don't like the service why not take your business elsewhere?

From your own story, if anything, Wells Fargo prevented this from becoming a much bigger problem and acted very promptly to your request.

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

#339

Post by red369 » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 11:57 PM UTC

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 years ago, I have worked in a call centre for a bank and the process for calling customers was exactly what you’d expect from a scammer.

In the standard/credit card section (not, for example, credit card debt collections), it was rare to have to make outbound calls, but when they were needed, no information could be given out until the customer answered security questions. Some customers questioned this because it was exactly what they’d been told never to do. They were told that of course it was right to be cautious, and they could call back, but that they would need to wait in the queue and likely speak to a different person. This was all before they could even be told what they were being called about.

Perhaps half the people questioned the process upon receiving the call (“you called me, and you want ME to prove who I am?”, but very few hung up and called back.

From memory, this was mostly improved later on - no security questions needed unless some sort of action needed to be taken on the account.

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

#340

Post by denton-scratch » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 11:57 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #121

I'm a gullible motherfucker: I have memories of handing a $20 to a random guy walking up to me and saying "Hey, man, my car's stuck and I need some cash for gas". That said, I've had a lot of these calls and fortunately not fallen for them once. The funny thing is that eTrade (I think) has a system where you can ask for a callback but then they'll go right into taking your information. When that happens, I followed t…

> But I just know [...]

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