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The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

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Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#61

Post by MobileVet »

eurleif wrote: post #57
MobileVet wrote: post #29

Shame and pride are such strong motivators. My wife was taken by a very elaborate and well-crafted scam in November. In retrospect, it all sounds ridiculous... but in the moment, with kids in tow, it was very convincing. It was so traumatizing that when it was over and she finally realized it was a scam, she was relieved! They had convinced her she was going to jail and that was terrifying. Losing the money was less…

>The police don't call you if they are trying to serve a warrant, they show up. But be aware that the converse isn't true: someone who shows up at your door claiming to be law enforcement with a warrant isn't necessarily legitimate. E.g.: https://madison.com/news/local/crime-courts/jack-mcquestion-...

Good point

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#62

Post by akoboldfrying »

eurleif wrote: post #57
MobileVet wrote: post #29

Shame and pride are such strong motivators. My wife was taken by a very elaborate and well-crafted scam in November. In retrospect, it all sounds ridiculous... but in the moment, with kids in tow, it was very convincing. It was so traumatizing that when it was over and she finally realized it was a scam, she was relieved! They had convinced her she was going to jail and that was terrifying. Losing the money was less…

>The police don't call you if they are trying to serve a warrant, they show up. But be aware that the converse isn't true: someone who shows up at your door claiming to be law enforcement with a warrant isn't necessarily legitimate. E.g.: https://madison.com/news/local/crime-courts/jack-mcquestion-...

I don't trust anyone to be a police officer unless there's another police officer present certifying that they are in fact a police officer, and another police officer present certifying that that person is a police officer, and so on, up to a piece of paper listing hundreds of "root" police officers around the world that was prepared in an unspecified way by an unknown programmer involved in making whichever browser I happen to be using, and which I have not even glanced at.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#63

Post by iraqmtpizza »

deanCommie wrote: post #33
renewiltord wrote: post #13

In the foreword for Animal Farm (in the del Rey edition, I think), Orwell writes that he was asked by tankie friends to keep quiet about the USSR's crimes because they were the best chance for Communism. Bullshit from scientists is normal. They're just people after all. But people who join the Culture War on one side must necessarily choose Science as a side despite it being just a technique for knowledge, not a team…

> he was asked by tankie friends to keep quiet about the USSR's crimes because they were the best chance for Communism. I have a lot of empathy for the tankies of that era. It was clear that people like Stalin were truly evil, but it was also clear from centuries of evidence that capitalism was exploitative and needed upheaval. On PAPER, Communism sounds great. I do think people genuinely believed there were simply g…

Everything sounds great until you ask, what if someone wants to opt out?

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#64

Post by DavidWoof »

Did anyone notice that the author talks about scams and cons, but when it actually comes to a list of examples the majority are actually about plagiarism?

Which... I largely don't care about. I understand why it's super important for academics, but in my book it's not a con or scam. It's accurate information. If somebody is giving me accurate information, the fact that they don't have correct citations isn't really a concern to me as a consumer of the data, and I absolutely don't put it in the same category as faking data or lying about results.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#65

Post by akoboldfrying »

MobileVet wrote: post #53
MobileVet wrote: post #29

Shame and pride are such strong motivators. My wife was taken by a very elaborate and well-crafted scam in November. In retrospect, it all sounds ridiculous... but in the moment, with kids in tow, it was very convincing. It was so traumatizing that when it was over and she finally realized it was a scam, she was relieved! They had convinced her she was going to jail and that was terrifying. Losing the money was less…

This scam is pretty active right now. My brother in law was called 2 days prior and they called my wife again 2 days later… Rough scam script: - - hello, is this XYZ? - this is Officer Z, do you agree to abide by Judge ABC’s orders? - we have been trying to reach you by mail about this case. It has to do with a minor. - the judge has issued a gag order, do not talk with anyone about this - look up the number from the…

Every step feels plausible to me, except the last. Sending crypto to a government agency?

Not saying I wouldn't be taken in by this or other scams in the heat of the moment, but from my armchair position, that redlined my suspicion.

EDIT: heart -> heat

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#66

Post by scrubs »

edmundsauto wrote: post #15
scrubs wrote: post #11

Throughout the 1960s to the mid-1980s it used to fashionable because it was so helpful to reconstitute manufacturing corporate culture around a three axis orientation of quality through SPC, of customers, and profit. This was done to avoid the distortions that ruin companies in the medium and long term including bankruptcy, layoffs, junk products, and all the related human BS that comes with it: corporate politics, i…

Can you elaborate why you think managing up/down is bad? Maybe we differ in definition, but I take it to mean customize how you communicate (zoom in / zoom out) based on the intended audiences typical scope and responsibilities. I don’t want to tell my skip super in depth technical details they don’t need to know. It’s my job to process it for them.

What you write sounds fine. "It’s my job to process it for them" has truth in it too.

However, it takes street smarts, experience, and being burned a time or two to know when it's two guys (associates) talking trying to get it right and when you're being played by a player.

Flailing individual trust precedes the decline in institutional competency. And once that happens the prospect for legit corrective action is largely gone. In-fighting will dominate.

Clues that maybe something is off (not exhaustive) based on some guys I worked with a few years ago:

* The boss talks with team individuals only then brings the team together to report what everybody said, and what everybody agreed to. Actually, no individual knows what anyone else said and didn't have a chance to ask questions.

* You're afraid to bring something up, or notice privately team members complain or share concerns but never say anything to decision makers or in a team setting

* You're encouraged to make changes because of "reputation," team image or other nebulous sounding reasons. Change may indeed need to happen. But those are not reasons

* You're instructed to remain technical to not engage or discuss issues that seem more pertinent to management, organizational values. Being boxed in is a bad sign.

* Being brow beat into doing things out of guilt or entitlement are bad signs.

* Putting internal politics or good light on the boss' project ahead of customer satisfaction even though the work will not satisfy intended customers is a bad sign.

* Abusing through manipulation internal service supplier status is bad. One guy I knew slickly sold his team's capability knowing once tied in they were practically married. The code was implemented such that the customer had no insight or control to it. By running around the floor and vacuuming up as many internal teams as he could, he parlayed his position to "take over the floor, but taking over the data." Guess what? It failed in a spectacular fashion; he never took over control of that system and never gave his "customers" a better solution. He treated his customers as suckers.

* The above point has a corollary: internal service suppliers get implicit management support, and it's implied internal customers have no choice but to work with them. This is NOT how it works on the outside. I choose my roofer and if I am not happy payment may not be given or is disputed or I fire the roofer. The hole in my roof is my motivation to treat the roofer right. My checkbook is why the roofer needs to treat me right. Either can walk away if the other is a jerk. But not in large corporations. That's why, for example, deprecating private data centers for the cloud are horror shows. The internal service suppliers are used to being in charge even entitled no matter how crappy or expensive their service is. And when they find out they might be replaced, they fight it all the way.

See:

https://www.amazon.com/What-Total-Quality-Control-Japanese/d...

https://www.amazon.com/Human-Element-Productivity-Self-Estee...

https://www.amazon.com/FIRO-Three-Dimensional-Theory-Interpe...

and any work from Deming, Crosby, or Drucker which do far better at integrating business, profit, people, and customers.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#68

Post by nneonneo »

The article calls out the reason why this happens in academia: administrators need to perform the thorough investigations even if things appear obvious in order to protect themselves against a lawsuit. See what’s happening with Francesca Gino for example: she’s suing Harvard and the four scientists who uncovered her fraud for $25 million, and you can bet that she would win (or at least make it very expensive for the defendants) unless the evidence is very strong. Institutions are obviously incentivized to not prosecute misconduct strongly, or at least not until the misconduct is so blatantly obvious it cannot be ignored.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#69

Post by injeolmi_love »

MobileVet wrote: post #29

Shame and pride are such strong motivators. My wife was taken by a very elaborate and well-crafted scam in November. In retrospect, it all sounds ridiculous... but in the moment, with kids in tow, it was very convincing. It was so traumatizing that when it was over and she finally realized it was a scam, she was relieved! They had convinced her she was going to jail and that was terrifying. Losing the money was less…

I’ve received so many of these scam calls from fake authorities that I used to just hang up (now I don’t answer calls ever). One time I didn’t hang up because something felt weird. Turned out it was legit and I owed a $20 traffic ticket from years ago. I’m pretty certain it wasn’t a scam, maybe it was.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#70

Post by eurleif »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #62
eurleif wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The police don't call you if they are trying to serve a warrant, they show up. But be aware that the converse isn't true: someone who shows up at your door claiming to be law enforcement with a warrant isn't necessarily legitimate. E.g.: https://madison.com/news/local/crime-courts/jack-mcquestion-...

I don't trust anyone to be a police officer unless there's another police officer present certifying that they are in fact a police officer, and another police officer present certifying that that person is a police officer, and so on, up to a piece of paper listing hundreds of "root" police officers around the world that was prepared in an unspecified way by an unknown programmer involved in making whichever browser…

Funny, but to be clear, the actual practical advice is to call the police department and verify it. That's what the woman in the article did, and it most likely saved her life.
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