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U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

krebsonsecurity.com

111–120 of 305 posts

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The banks are usually unwilling to do them, and an individual may not be able to force them to in practice, but it's still possible in a way it's not possible with crypto. Generally they're unwilling to do that because it involves losing money for them. Transfers work in a multi-step process to ensure money isn't created. You tell Bank A to transfer money to person X at Bank B. Bank A tells an intermediary bank C t…

If Bank C is forced to take the loss, it'll be more careful in opening accounts for scammers to withdraw money. If Bank C is in a country that doesn't care to enforce such losses, then Bank B (or A if A is big enough) will think twice about deciding to do business with Bank B. Moving the cost of the scams onto the banks will strongly incentivize them to prevent the scams.

> Moving the cost of the scams onto the banks will strongly incentivize them to prevent the scams.

And then less people have bank accounts.

The scammer isn't necessarily the person with the final bank account. Its often somebody who was told they're managing payroll for some made-up company and they're going to get a 2k transfer and to keep 500 of it and withdrawal 1.5k of it as cash to do payroll.

While you may think that now only people who aren't scammers won't get bank accounts what actually is happening is that anybody that can be fooled doesn't get one.

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reason of most scams is the absurd level of trust existing in Western countries. When i first saw Upwork where hours were paid by the tracker in a guaranteed manner and people SIGNED for it, i knew West was doomed. I still find it hard to believe people can be that easy to dupe. Level of trust in the Western societies needs to be radically reduced through government propaganda, church and other channels. The world ha…

The cost world you describe didn’t emerge because of fear of god (which has been prevalent for milleniums, mostly everywhere) but the abondance of cheap energy and goods, basically since oil starts getting processed but other minor factors helped too. Democracy and peace emerges when peoples aren’t scared to miss food anymore.

In the US food is plentiful. Poor people die of obesity related illness. But trust is plummeting because of a decline in social cohesion. Building a high trust society is hard, and there is no monocausal solution. You can't plug in god, or food, into a low trust society to flip it to high trust.

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Bank C is forced to take the loss, it'll be more careful in opening accounts for scammers to withdraw money. If Bank C is in a country that doesn't care to enforce such losses, then Bank B (or A if A is big enough) will think twice about deciding to do business with Bank B. Moving the cost of the scams onto the banks will strongly incentivize them to prevent the scams.

> Moving the cost of the scams onto the banks will strongly incentivize them to prevent the scams. And then less people have bank accounts. The scammer isn't necessarily the person with the final bank account. Its often somebody who was told they're managing payroll for some made-up company and they're going to get a 2k transfer and to keep 500 of it and withdrawal 1.5k of it as cash to do payroll. While you may thin…

Doesn't that already happen? I've read stories from people in the US who are fooled, and as such, are marked as high risk and have their accounts closed. The rate it happens might be greater, but the total increase in harm from fewer people having bank accounts due to risk of scams might be less than the harm reduced by fewer people getting scammed. If scams are reduced enough, the number of people having bank accounts might go up because less people are losing them after being scammed.

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks aren't perfect, but they also aren't anonymous. If you feel wronged, you can take appropriate legal recourse. Crypto offers no such thing.

Good luck taking legal action against an off shore entity, especially when the legal fees is more than the money transferred, and the money most likely moved to three different accounts in as many countries from that first off shore account.

You’re right that you don’t have guaranteed recourse for foreign fraud. But at least the banks play whack-a-mole and make it somewhat expensive for criminals to set up accounts; crypto undoubtedly makes money laundering substantially easier and cheaper.

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#115
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Japanese people are not very religious but are very high trust and high on the development index, much higher than the Middle East in my opinion.

[flagged]

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#116
post #94

The US does not do enough in this space to punish companies. It feels like such low hanging fruit too that would significantly help the elderly population. Reported to Vercel a bank phishing site weeks ago, no response still. It’s amazing how little companies care.

Until we put people in prison, the cyber crimes will continue.

Declaring states that do nothing about these criminals as harboring terror is a good start. This is the same legal principle that resulted in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_Wars which stopped Barbary pirates enslaving US sailors.

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#117
post #25

Cryptocurrency enables a big part of this. Not saying that there weren't any wire scams before crypto, but crypto has made it much easier for average people to make anonymous international money transfers that can't be reversed. Not to start a big argument, but to my eyes the main usecases of cryptocurrency are to bet on them as a speculative asset or to use them for various forms of crime. Someone will probably tell…

>Not to start a big argument, but to my eyes the main usecases of cryptocurrency are to bet on them as a speculative asset or to use them for various forms of crime.

What argument can even be had? This is factually true. Whatever other use cases were hoped for when it was invented, they have failed to materialize.

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I experienced the same thing in my family. It sucks. I still haven't fully forgiven them (the supposed victim). As much as I agree it's partially mental decline, it's hard for me to imagine it's not at least also partially a character flaw that would get you into this situation

I, tiptoeing here, kind of agree. Am I missing something or do these scams operate on a person's greed? To be sure, I invest in order to see a return. That's greed, I guess? Or maybe not? I think having (unrealistic) expectations of doubling your money in anything shorter than ... about a decade ... should be sending up red flags for anyone. "Make money fast" should fire the same neurons as "Put it all on zero and sp…

> The best way I could try to reel him in was to simply suggest that if it were so easy, everyone would be doing it.

Alas, most good entrepreneurial activities violate the efficient market hypothesis. Ditto for many investments. Some people are more alert to opportunities, have better deal flow, etc.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28029044

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#119
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The banks here have said that if you get scammed and money has been transferred (no cryptocurrency involved), there's nothing they can do. It was a bit surprising to hear since you only hear cryptocurrency transactions being irreversible.

Banks aren't perfect, but they also aren't anonymous. If you feel wronged, you can take appropriate legal recourse. Crypto offers no such thing.

How is paypal / venmo / cashapp different?

Re: U.S. sanctions cloud provider 'Funnull' as top source of 'pig butchering' scams

#120
post #94

The US does not do enough in this space to punish companies. It feels like such low hanging fruit too that would significantly help the elderly population. Reported to Vercel a bank phishing site weeks ago, no response still. It’s amazing how little companies care.

Forcing telecos to authenticate phone calls would probably be the single most important change.

But instead of forcing them, we have been letting them drag their feet while while regular people are losing billions to scams.

The whole phone system is ancient and long deprecated. When I get a call from my bank I should see their name and a badge of authentication. Not a random phone number.

Imagine you could register irs.gov and start sending e-mails from that domain. That is pretty much the current state of the phone system.

Un-fucking-believable no one is forcing change here.

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