321–330 of 332 posts
The part where someone waits for a super long time in a queue, finally gets connected, but then gets sent to an answering machine that says "the mailbox is full" hit too close to home. I know this was set up on purpose but I've had that exact same thing happen to me on a real & important government system recently. I've been trying to call California EDD to get some back pay for my state paid family leave. There is n…
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Even when taking population size into account, India is still vastly overrepresented compared to other countries. Of course, tech support scams are just one particular kind of scam. Nobody is arguing that India has the largest percentage of scammers in general.
>Nobody is arguing that India has the largest percentage of scammers in general. That is _exactly_ the spirit of what the parent comment was implying: >they justify the scamming by saying (mostly to themselves) things like the West stole from the developing countries, so this is them stealing back That comment doesn't specify India, but is definitively a blanket statement that (most) scammers are from those filthy, n…
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So, I'm not sure but I think what's going on is that a scammer calls and asks the "victim" (in this case, Kitboga) to transfer funds into one of their Bitcoin wallet addresses. This can be done via a Bitcoin ATM which will then print out a receipt which the scammer asks the victim for a picture of (see [0]). As Kitboga says, the scam normally has to end at this point because the scammer can easily verify whether the…
Why would victims be calling in on the scammer's behalf then? I would assume that would only happen if a real victim somehow has a receipt that ties into Kitboga's fake system right?
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> The only way I've reliably been able to talk to anyone to say you wish to 'Talk to a representative about cancelling my account'. Threatening to leave is also a reliable technique to stop ridiculous price hikes and even get hefty discounts. Sometimes you have to talk to someone on the "retention team." At other times you can do it online. Most recently I preserved the NYT intro rate of $4 every 4 weeks (instead of…
My uncle calls up all his service providers at least twice a year and threatens to cancel just to see what they offer him. It's had a very positive ROI.
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> but there is no logical reason to assume the proportion of scammers in the West is any different than in other places of the world. Most tech support spam calls come from India. That's just a fact. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/cna-insider/tech-support-sca... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/magazine/scam-call-center...
Please look up the population of India, then re-read my comment, paying attention to one word in particular: proportion.
The twist at the end is wonderful in so many ways. Kitboga, by complete happenstance, directly saves someone from a prolonged scam. Not only that, but he may have inadvertently stumbled upon a new technique to help out victims. Trick the scammers into giving their victims Kitboga's number so he can help them directly. I am excited for his future endeavors.
This situation didn't make any sense to me. Wasn't Kitboga and his team playing the part of the party being scammed? What did this lady have to do with bitcoin receipt/qr-code?
What I don't understand is the bit at the end (spoilers): he finds out that a person who Kraken's fraud team sees as a victim of scams, but hasn't been able to contact, has called his Gauntlet. He's then able to reach out and help her, as well as other scam victims who end up in the Gauntlet. So, three questions - 1. How do scam victims end up in the Gauntlet at all? I thought the idea was that Kitboga and his team p…
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My uncle calls up all his service providers at least twice a year and threatens to cancel just to see what they offer him. It's had a very positive ROI.
I'm surprised they haven't caught on yet, sounds like all it would take would be a note on his account, this is a fairly well known strategy.
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Are you Brazilian? That sounds like home lol. Some of these are arguably "victimless crimes" - like cheating at the school. Yet I agree that the constant exposure to moral failure may lead to desensitizing people of morality.
Cheating in school is not a victimless crime. Universities offer admission and scholarship based upon your ranking relative to your peers. If you cheat and get a better grade, someone else is bumped down a rank through your dishonesty.
Not much sympathy for these scammers but I do wonder how desperate some of them have to be to waste so much time on a couple hundred bitcoin max.
In one of the screenshots, Kitboga's fake page promises them the equivalent of $11k in BTC. Considering a lot of these scams originate from countries with low wages and high unemployment, not really surprising people would be willing to waste a few days for the promise of a year's salary or more.