Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 102 posts

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#81

Post by potato3732842 »

secabeen wrote: post #63
vinni2 wrote: post #29

I struggled to find the source the fact that $1T is lost to scammers. From the FBI internet crime report in 2023 Americans lost about 12.5 Billion dollars [0]. That is far from 1T$. Another source reports cost if cybercrime is reported to reach 9.5T$ in 2024 but again no source provided for that number [1] [0] https://www.ic3.gov/AnnualReport/Reports/2023_IC3Report.pdf#... [1] https://www.esentire.com/resources/libra…

It's a pretty ridiculous number, total US GDP is only $27T. That would mean scams are ~1% of the US economy, which is non-sensical.

This. That number just doesn't make sense. Nations get regime changed over far smaller slights.

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#82

Post by nathancahill »

hasbot wrote: post #65

My elderly mother has been scammed twice (that I know of). She fell for one of those "Your computer has been hacked" popup windows a few years ago. Which led to her buying a "protection" service that installed malware on her machine. Every couple of months she'd have an "issue" and have to shell out more money to fix it. She's been using computers since the 80's (Apple ][e) but still is utterly clueless on how to ope…

You took her computer to a "computer shop" and yet she's the one that's clueless?

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#83

Post by nathancahill »

pembrook wrote: post #25

Certain cities in countries like Nigeria and Morocco have become fraud “Silicon Valleys” where there’s quite literally tens of thousands of people collaborating and sharing best practices on how best to scam Americans and Europeans. This will only get worse with AI. When I worked for a certain large inbox provider a few years back, I was astonished at the volume of fraud and phishing attempts that actually originate…

My favorite one is the fake US embassy in Ghana: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/28/the-true-story...

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#84

Post by metalman »

secabeen wrote: post #67
votepaunchy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t $1T be close to 4% of US GDP?

Yes, but it says "mostly from Americans", so I cut it in half, then halved again just to be conservative. The argument holds at 2% and 4% as well as it does at 1%.

the fundamental reality is that money itself is a construct, and all of the values attached to goods a services are arbitrary, so there is no basis to diferentiate beween scams, and entertainment

it's all pay per view, and any dissastisfaction could fall under buyers remorse gambling is perfectly legal....as long as it gets taxed I have never had any account with apple, yet a charge to my credit card from apple appeared , I disputed it, but my bank refused to stop payment, and instead issued me a "credit", rather than go after apple, where as, anyone like me doing the same, would be a "scammer" and be prosecuted this impossible breach of law therefor is absolute proof of the complete falsity of our financial system. some are designated "scammers" others are empowered to take and I am personaly happy to live with that, and do what I can to protect my own tiny patch, from the marauding grabbers and muckers

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#85

Post by 3np »

redserk wrote: post #74
throwaway48476 wrote: post #35

It would be so easy to stop scammers if international transactions were insured and reversible. Governments just don't care at all about stopping scammers.

But a lot of scams don’t require this. The international transaction side isn’t with the victim, it’s with a completely different person happily sending cash over. Say you run a gift card scam. Victim buys $100 in gift cards and provides you codes. You sell the $100 gift cards on a marketplace for $75. A completely unrelated person buys the gift cards for $75 from you. That unrelated person is satisfied, they got $10…

Also triangulation fraud:

1. Acquire stolen ccs

2. Set up web shop (or Amazon/eBay account) with attractive deals

3. When an order comes in, purchase the ordered item elsewhere using a stolen CC and have it sent to buyer

The clueless buyer will be the one under investigation for cc fraud.

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#86

Post by Kirby64 »

nathancahill wrote: post #82
hasbot wrote: post #65

My elderly mother has been scammed twice (that I know of). She fell for one of those "Your computer has been hacked" popup windows a few years ago. Which led to her buying a "protection" service that installed malware on her machine. Every couple of months she'd have an "issue" and have to shell out more money to fix it. She's been using computers since the 80's (Apple ][e) but still is utterly clueless on how to ope…

You took her computer to a "computer shop" and yet she's the one that's clueless?

“Had her take her computer” - presumably GP didn’t do it themselves. Easily understandable if they don’t live nearby.

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#87

Post by leosanchez »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #48
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And rich and uneducated.

Western societies have higher social trust which enabled them to outcompete the rest of the world. Business moves at the speed of trust. Now that western society has increasing contact with the low trust world it is regressing to the mean.

Did you account for crypto scammers in your theory ?

Aren't most crypto scammers from developed countries ?

It can be argued that POTUS himself is a crypto scammer.

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#88

Post by stouset »

pembrook wrote: post #57
throwaway48476 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people dramatically underestimate how widespread their cultural moral system is. Billions of people live in cultures where scamming is perfectly moral.

And most people dramatically underestimate what a death sentence a low trust society is for economic development. Countries that allow a culture of scamming are all poor because a low trust society will never develop into a first world economy. Trust and property rights are the basis of all development and investment and human collaboration.

Which is why it’s so depressing to see the U.S. backslide into this so quickly and willfully.

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#89

Post by evilsetg »

One thing I have trouble wrapping my head around is blatant scams being advertised on reputable sites and apps. As I understand sites run ads through advertisement networks, but why are those networks not required to vet the ads that are bought for obvious scams. There should be regulation that requires these networks to vet each ad that is bought. With that in place at least the scams would not follow us everywhere on the web.

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#90

Post by tough »

consp wrote: post #26
banqjls wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Which is 100 since it has to be measured against a peer group.

does this technically mean that if humanity gets dumber overall as a group, 100 IQ (average) human would be dumber in that bleak future than they're now?
Post reply on HN