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The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

npr.org

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Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#121

Post by laurieg »

homonculus1 wrote: post #8

>WARNER: Joe Healy is sitting in this conference room with Felipe, the IT guy in his buttoned-up shirt. >HEALY: He's a physically little guy... >WARNER: He's 5-foot-4. >HEALY: ...And not overly muscular. Man, Planet Money's constant interruptions and hacked-apart quotations are just as jarring to read as they are to listen to. It's entirely possible to transition your narrative structure between accessible exposition…

I think this is a reasonable way to turn a long interview into a cohesive story for the listening. On TV it's we use "noddies"[1] to cut together interviews and this is the audio equivalent.

If you're interested in a different style, try listening to BBC radio shows. The interviews tend to be more complete and are often recorded live. The downside is that the interviews often run out of time or the interviewees don't get to make their point as well as they could.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noddy_(TV_interview_technique)

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#122

Post by donkeyd »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #5
danso wrote: post #2

The radio version: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/07/749135286/episode-931-the-it-... The climax of this story involves the belief that “Linux servers don’t just crash”.

I refuse to believe this wasn't just a way to add drama/tension. You can't work in IT and actually believe this.

I set up a couple Linux boxes at work a couple of years ago for some new software we were building. A year later, I logged into the box, checked the up-time and realized it hadn't been rebooted since I installed it. So if that's his experience, I understand him.

OTOH, we also have an NGINX box that is automatically restarted once a week, because otherwise our API gets really slow. I understand that this isn't good practice, but we've spent too many hours debugging already and at the end of the day, this works.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#123

Post by UweSchmidt »

rdtsc wrote: post #34
klenwell wrote: post #10

The victims didn't come forward because they felt so ashamed about falling for the con. This is such an interesting essential part of scams. I guess it's a part of human nature. I remember tracking down a phone scam that caught my grandmother once (based out of Montreal) and I eventually got to a point where I discovered that my grandmother had provided a verbal consent over the phone that had kept it just this side…

> This is such an interesting essential part of scams. I guess it's a part of human nature. Absolutely. It happened to my relatives too. The way I found out was I was there visiting and they got a call which I picked it up. It came from what sounded like an Indian person. You see, they wanted to "refund the money" and just needed the bank account details. Aha! I thought, I'll play dumb and pretended to mistype their…

They played a high pitched sound into the earpiece? Wow, that's on another level.

Overall I think it's not worth being on the phone with these people. It's a no-win situation. For them it's a 'job', while you'd be investing your precious time and energy.

There is something about just watching, say, scammers doing the shell game in the streets, that is incredibly draining.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#124

Post by Swenrekcah »

justinclift wrote: post #120
rasz wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesnt work. Scammers already adopted this to their advantage. Conman calls a landline , starts conversation with "please call the bank back, im putting down the phone now" and ... just plays Dial tone. The trick is call ends only when the person who started it hangs up .

Hmm... "No worries, I'll do that but it'll probably be in a few days as I'm pretty busy now." If they want to leave their line open "for a few days"... then good luck to them. :)

A good one. Or if it’s something you really should verify right away, call your friend or relative first. If the scammer answers again, you’ll definately know.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#125

Post by rasz »

justinclift wrote: post #120
rasz wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesnt work. Scammers already adopted this to their advantage. Conman calls a landline , starts conversation with "please call the bank back, im putting down the phone now" and ... just plays Dial tone. The trick is call ends only when the person who started it hangs up .

Hmm... "No worries, I'll do that but it'll probably be in a few days as I'm pretty busy now." If they want to leave their line open "for a few days"... then good luck to them. :)

Except its your 60 year old mum answering the call, and 'calling back' just made her absolutely sure she can trust the nice bank lady on the phone.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#126

Post by ptah »

klenwell wrote: post #10

The victims didn't come forward because they felt so ashamed about falling for the con. This is such an interesting essential part of scams. I guess it's a part of human nature. I remember tracking down a phone scam that caught my grandmother once (based out of Montreal) and I eventually got to a point where I discovered that my grandmother had provided a verbal consent over the phone that had kept it just this side…

you should read Iceberg slim's books. he cites a stronger requirement: the victim should be enticed to do/attempt something illegal so if they ever come forward they will incriminate themselves

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#127

Post by philpem »

rasz wrote: post #104
munificent wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teach them how do respond and how to handle these scammers. Concretely, the way to respond is this: If you ever get a call that claims to be from business X, tell them "OK, I'll call you back." Then get off the phone, look up the number for X yourself , and call them. If it was really X calling you, you'll get back to where you need to be. If it was a scam, X will tell you they don't know what you're talking about.…

Doesnt work. Scammers already adopted this to their advantage. Conman calls a landline , starts conversation with "please call the bank back, im putting down the phone now" and ... just plays Dial tone. The trick is call ends only when the person who started it hangs up .

This was an issue with UK BT POTS lines some years ago. The line would 'hang' for a fair while after the recipient hung up before clearing down (disconnecting both sides).

The idea was, maybe you dropped your phone and didn't mean to hang up and this gave you time to rectify your mistake without having to redial.

Scammers started exploiting this and the timeout was reduced to the order of a few seconds. Count to five after hanging up and you can just about guarantee that's a real dialtone.

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#128

Post by itronitron »

localhost wrote: post #88
munificent wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teach them how do respond and how to handle these scammers. Concretely, the way to respond is this: If you ever get a call that claims to be from business X, tell them "OK, I'll call you back." Then get off the phone, look up the number for X yourself , and call them. If it was really X calling you, you'll get back to where you need to be. If it was a scam, X will tell you they don't know what you're talking about.…

Many years ago, I had a police detective call me about an active investigation. He wanted to come over to visually verify that I had something in my possession. I was suspicious, and he totally understood. He said, "go look up the phone number for and ask to speak with detective so and so, badge number ZZZ".

you can also just call 911, tell them it's not an emergency, and ask them to connect you to the police station

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#129

Post by itronitron »

justinclift wrote: post #120
rasz wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesnt work. Scammers already adopted this to their advantage. Conman calls a landline , starts conversation with "please call the bank back, im putting down the phone now" and ... just plays Dial tone. The trick is call ends only when the person who started it hangs up .

Hmm... "No worries, I'll do that but it'll probably be in a few days as I'm pretty busy now." If they want to leave their line open "for a few days"... then good luck to them. :)

or call a friend before calling the number

Re: The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

#130

Post by DoreenMichele »

klenwell wrote: post #10

The victims didn't come forward because they felt so ashamed about falling for the con. This is such an interesting essential part of scams. I guess it's a part of human nature. I remember tracking down a phone scam that caught my grandmother once (based out of Montreal) and I eventually got to a point where I discovered that my grandmother had provided a verbal consent over the phone that had kept it just this side…

I guess it's a part of human nature.

I don't think this is true. I have read that most parents use either a shame model or a guilt model to try to keep the kids in line. So most people are brainwashed from an extremely early age to either feel shame or guilt, hide things from authority figures for fear of getting in trouble, etc.

That's not actually necessary.

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