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More than 100 arrested in Spain in $900k WhatsApp scheme

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Re: More than 100 arrested in Spain in $900k WhatsApp scheme

#41

Post by nidnogg »

hugocbp wrote: post #39

In Brazil this is likely the most common scam nowadays. Almost every month one of the 4 members of my family gets a message in WhatsApp, usually from a cloned profiled, with the same script: "Hi ! I'm trying to buy something in store X but my card is getting declined, can you make a PIX (Brazil's real time rail payment) for for YYYYY (4, 5 digits amount) reais for me? I'll pay you tomorrow" Or the out of fashion "Thi…

My mother recently got scammed with that first script during a hectic day at her workplace. As stupid and out of character as those messages were, somehow in between her these guys managed to clean out most of her bank accounts in PIX transactions. They're so easy nowadays you can transfer thousands with very few swipes.

Re: More than 100 arrested in Spain in $900k WhatsApp scheme

#42

Post by EnigmaFlare »

danduma wrote: post #7

My mother fell for exactly this scam, thankfully was able to cancel the transaction just in time and gave evidence to the police. Funny to see on HN something that touches one so close. The most fascinating thing here is the lack of sophistication of the approach. No fake images or audio or anything. I'm worried about the new wave of impersonation scams that's coming thanks to voice cloning.

I wish there was more promotion of the simple way to protect yourself from most scams - if someone initiates contact with you, contact them back through a channel you found independently in a way you already trust. My bank keeps warning me of scams and has a list of ways to protect yourself, but they're stupid things like check if the message is from a mobile number, and does it sound too good to be true? They don't mention the more robust and simple technique of calling back using the number on the back of your bank card. This will nip voice impersonation scams in the bud too.

I hired a lawyer who did advise that. Telling me not to pay any invoices they send me without first contacting them to confirm.

On the other hand, my doctor sends text messages asking for bills to be paid to an account number in the message itself. Training people to trust scam techniques!

Re: More than 100 arrested in Spain in $900k WhatsApp scheme

#43

Post by arp242 »

hibikir wrote: post #19
_yb2s wrote: post #6

It’s hard to understand how someone could fall for this scam… if a loved one was having an emergency of some kind I would expect them to call rather than text, and I would respond with a call either way to discuss the details. I’m also generally leery of people “urgently needing money.” It seems like something a scammer would do, and I couldn’t see any of my family members doing it. Maybe I’m a jerk, but I’d be more…

There are similar versions of the scam aiming at companies, as the CEO needs money wired to him as part of a secret acquisition of some sort. There's training trying to target this vector specifically, as the amounts are huge, but it also means more efforts can be made to be more realistic: Getting plenty of pictures and entire voice interviews from many CEOs is trivial. You can imagine how hard one can go crafting a…

Years ago there was a Dutch notary who transferred about a million euros from his escrow account to someone pretending to be the Dutch prime on MSN Messenger. The email address was "ThePrimeMinister@hotmail.com" or something like that. They had a long story about national security and urgent need to access the funds and whatnot.

There were a lot of suspicions that he might be in on the scam, but as near as anyone could determine, he really was just scam victim. He did get disbarred and got a prison sentence of a year or so (IIRC) because while a victim, he also could and should have known better as a notary dealing with an escrow account.

Re: More than 100 arrested in Spain in $900k WhatsApp scheme

#45

Post by krageon »

hugocbp wrote: post #39

In Brazil this is likely the most common scam nowadays. Almost every month one of the 4 members of my family gets a message in WhatsApp, usually from a cloned profiled, with the same script: "Hi ! I'm trying to buy something in store X but my card is getting declined, can you make a PIX (Brazil's real time rail payment) for for YYYYY (4, 5 digits amount) reais for me? I'll pay you tomorrow" Or the out of fashion "Thi…

Those payments are for a good operation routed through stolen identities and funneled out using the internet (e.g. gift cards, traditionally). It's easy to trace until the money goes out of the country and gets transformed from a gift card back into money in some place the country has a hard time touching.

Re: More than 100 arrested in Spain in $900k WhatsApp scheme

#46

Post by krageon »

vladms wrote: post #16
nickff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police are not there to protect individuals, they’re there to protect the government. This has been made abundantly clear in a number of cases where police have disclaimed any duty to citizens & residents. Given all of that, the victims are reacting appropriately.

I would not generalize. Different countries have different police forces. It's true that police will reflect some of the problems of their society (either violence, racism or others), but even that might be more or less strong tendency.

Every police force exists for the state. They are the means by which the state exerts violence on you. The army is the means by which the state exerts violence on all the other countries' citizens.

Re: More than 100 arrested in Spain in $900k WhatsApp scheme

#48

Post by WhyNotHugo »

EnigmaFlare wrote: post #42
danduma wrote: post #7

My mother fell for exactly this scam, thankfully was able to cancel the transaction just in time and gave evidence to the police. Funny to see on HN something that touches one so close. The most fascinating thing here is the lack of sophistication of the approach. No fake images or audio or anything. I'm worried about the new wave of impersonation scams that's coming thanks to voice cloning.

I wish there was more promotion of the simple way to protect yourself from most scams - if someone initiates contact with you, contact them back through a channel you found independently in a way you already trust. My bank keeps warning me of scams and has a list of ways to protect yourself, but they're stupid things like check if the message is from a mobile number, and does it sound too good to be true? They don't…

I got a call once where the guy said he was from a bank. He said he wanted to verify who I was, so was going to ask me some personal details. I replied "you're the one calling me, how do I know you're really from the bank?".

He sounded amused by my reply, commented that my stance was quite uncommon, but I had made a fair point. He said I'd get a message via the bank's webapp, with a phone number where I could call him back.

It turned out that it was a legitimate call from the bank. But they clearly aren't training their customers to follow secure practices. The personal information that he was asking for is _exactly_ what a scammer would need to ask me too.

Re: More than 100 arrested in Spain in $900k WhatsApp scheme

#50

Post by a_random_canuck »

Aurornis wrote: post #37
joegibbs wrote: post #35

They only got $9000 each? That seems like a very small amount of money for a lot of work, and it's probably not getting divided up equally either. What's their motivation to get into this kind of scam? Spain's GDP per capita is $30,000, and I'd assume they'd been doing it for at least 6 months, so they're not even making an average wage.

From the article: > The scammers were so convincing that in most cases, they managed to get continuous payments from their victims, according to the police. They managed to secure continuous income streams of free money by talking to people on their phones. It’s extra money and surely they planned on doing more scams. That’s the motivation. > Spain's GDP per capita is $30,000, and I'd assume they'd been doing it for…

> They managed to secure continuous income streams of free money by talking to people on their phones. It’s extra money and surely they planned on doing more scams. That’s the motivation.

Doesn’t this pretty much describe a sales job? Except the product they are selling doesn’t exist.

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