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What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

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Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#91

Post by d--b »

This always reminds me of some dudes in France who decided to counter attack the scammers. They basically steer the conversation off-script to something more tempting to the scammers, and then make them do stupid things. Like "I am sorry there is nothing I can do for you, but while you're here, we're looking for some partnership to develop a new NGO in Benin". And then it turns out the NGO is called the "Sauerkraut brotherhood", and in order to get the funds, you need to join the brotherhood, and send videos of you and your family singing an anthem praising sauerkraut while being dressed up in "traditional clothes". These threads could go for months.

http://didoune.fr/blog/2012/03/08/les-croque-escrocs-et-la-c...

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#92

Post by u801e »

I've seen messages in Facebook comment threads where the usual approach is using short phrases like "Hi", "How are you", "I really love your posts" and some of them end with asking for a friend request (so they don't have to initiate one).

It may be a way to add a degree of positive reputation to those compromised accounts like another commenter suggested.

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#93

Post by Animats »

wpietri wrote: post #68
Animats wrote: post #7

In this case, the victim deposited the money into a fake crypto platform that told him his investments were performing well, presumably to entice him to deposit even more. Of course, once he tried to withdraw the money, he found he was unable to. That sounds just like the "binary option" business which used to be run out of Israel. The Times of Israel blew that apart with "The Wolves of Tel Aviv" investigation series…

> Scamming people outside Israel was legal in Israel at the time. My head just exploded here. I think I need to go lie down. Please nobody tell the Florida legislature about this.

Quite real, though. Until it became so embarrassing to Israel that the law was changed in 2017.[1] The Times of Israel: "The crooks are still out there. Some binary options firms have closed down. Others have relocated overseas, including to Cyprus and Ukraine. Some of the prime movers and shakers have already adjusted their focus to other fraudulent fields — in the fields of diamond sales, cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings and predatory business loans. Top scammers are still enjoying the vast overseas bank accounts, the yachts, luxury cars, exotic holidays and other profits of their ill-gotten gains." [2] That's a good article, and talks about the lobbyists, the political connections, and the refusal of the Israeli police to act.

The investigative reporter who broke the story, Simona Weinglass, frequently reports on how the Israeli financial scam industry has grown and changed. "Another 2 leading Israeli blockchain pioneers named as suspects in vast crypto scam"[3] A former Celsius CFO was one of them. Celsius, of course, denied there was a problem. That story was back in in March, three months before the Celsius collapse.

Somewhere, behind this new wrong-number/fake broker thing, there is probably an organized criminal enterprise.

[1] https://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Israeli-minist...

[2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/why-binary-options-ban-is-only...

[3] https://www.timesofisrael.com/another-2-leading-israeli-bloc...

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#94

Post by bigodbiel »

kristopolous wrote: post #42
ctoth wrote: post #23

Terrified to consider what happens when these scammers get hold of large language models here in a year or so. Rather than fading into the background as this article posits, I expect people to have models finetuned on convincing them to make purchases/send money. Probably trained by being pitted against other models which have been trained on the mark's social media feeds. Train the scambot to perfectly push your but…

I've long assumed they do the exact opposite - try to filter out people who likely see through the game so they don't waste their time mining a hill with no gold. And they do this by intentionally making basic mistakes or other easy to spot errors so the clever people will just see themselves out and by the time their funnel gets to an actual human scammer, they have a highly probable sucker.

Exactly! Even Microsoft had a paper on this ‘Why do Nigerian Scammers Say They are from Nigeria?’ [1].

'By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor.’

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#96

Post by 0des »

ntoskrnl wrote: post #86
0des wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the Amish do receive mail and use phones. I am assuming you don't mean to generalize to the degree that is being conveyed at first glance in your explainer comment. Amish people are not a monolith. As a culture it is quite a spectrum, from Beachy to Swartzentruber.

My experience is based on visits to an Amish town in Ohio when I was growing up in the 2000s. I distinctly remember being surprised to see they used phones and rode in cars. But that was a long time ago and only one town of many. I didn't mean to generalize all Amish communities.

No worries. It takes all kinds. Who knows, maybe you re-examine the culture and find some things you'd like to take home to your community.

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#98

Post by muststopmyths »

deepspace wrote: post #43
avalys wrote: post #29

Wow, how interesting. I started getting these a few months ago, right after starting a new job in a somewhat high-profile area. I have been getting 1-2 per month but found them quite unusual because none of them ever progressed to an actual scam - just a few messages back and forth about the fabricated "wrong number" situation and then each thread would stop, seemingly earnestly. Since there was no obvious scam, I've…

What would the motivation be for anyone to reply to a text from an unknown person? I have also been getting these for months, in it was 100% obvious from the get-go that it must be a scam. I have never felt the slightest urge to reply.

I guess some of us are old enough that wrong numbers were a thing and it was just polite to let them know. Especially when it sounds legit

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#99

Post by april_22 »

Animats wrote: post #44
woodruffw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, and the cryptocurrency ecosystem is not bereft of imitation.

Most crypto scams involve hyping some token, a form of market manipulation, or other classic financial scams. That's a bulk business based on PR. Running a long con uses a different mindset. It involves conning individuals one at a time. That takes a lot of effort per customer and experience in one on one selling. That's not the usual crypto scammer's MO. This is more like classic long con people pivoting to a new pr…

SpotOption had a production output of $5 Billion in trades in 2015. Damn!

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#100

Post by Wariith »

I have received the exact scam on whatsapp. What the hell??

They claimed to be a banker (following the exact format from the exmaples in the blog) and I genuinely thought that they were a real person but even after I told them that they are texting the wrong number they kept forcing the conversation so I blocked them. A couple of months later they texted from another number but a different name but they continued the conversation from where we last left off.

Crazy reading the article now. I would have been devastated if I fell for it. I am usually very good at spotting scams.

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