191–200 of 224 posts
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Yeah, I'm somewhat familiar. I worked at a (fairly technological) UK bank, where we did investigations into scams like this. There's really not much that can be done about most of these scams, other than taking your multivitamins to prevent cognitive decline.
> really not much that can be done about most of these scams I'm surprised that in the surveillance state it's that easy to disappear with the money.
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Not all US credit card companies are like this. I specifically remember a few years ago that my Mom got a call from AMEX about some fraud on her card, to which she responded “I never get calls from you, how do I know this is real?”. They said no problem, just hang up and call the number on the back of your card. I believe some banks even skip the call entirely, and just prompt you to call the number on the card.
A weird one that happened to me a few years ago was when I ordered about $100 worth of products from banggood, my phone rang within seconds of the purchase going through. The display on my phone showed it to be a bank I never heard of. When I did a search, it turned out to be a small bank with about a dozen branches in a state hundreds of miles away. The voicemail however was from my bank's fraud department informing…
I also wonder if it's a contract call center or fraud prevention company and the caller ID value was just bad... at some point their phone number may have gotten put on a listing for one of the banks that uses them and now it's stuck in the Google Caller ID database or whatever. Google's caller ID is frequently pretty out of date and it's unclear how you would get it fixed (e.g. my husband has had his phone number for years and Android phones still show someone else's name when he calls).
What's always missing from stories like this is how the crooks get the money out. Considering that all Western governments have achieved total surveillance on our banking and made it impossible to have anonymous bank accounts, I'd like to see a detailed analysis about why they can't follow the money and see who gets it. Every scenario I can think of seems like it should be either traceable or actionable. Scenario 1:…
Or what about Nigeria and India based scam artists ripping off thousands and thousands of elderly Americans on a daily basis? I think in India it’s turned into an entire industry by now. Is there really nothing American law enforcement can do about it or are they just asleep at the wheel?
> The fraudsters had told her to shift her "at risk" cash to an account on a cryptocurrency platform that they emptied - while isolating her from family by stressing secrecy and coaching her on how to respond to sceptical bank officials. "They knew the name of my financial adviser, they were utterly convincing as FCA staff," she said. "And they told me I could not tell anyone about the investigation as it would damag…
I think it can be easy to read things like this and see them as obvious scams but the fraudsters only need to trick a few people as the payout is large, and they are strongly incentivised to come up with the most optimised flow for scamming people.
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That's pretty interesting, because the US is often stereotyped for being aggressively cost-cutting in pursuit of margin. And yet in the middle of nowhere in the US local bank branches are still very common. I can easily get someone from my bank on the phone any time I need to. And if anyone attempts to move a large sum of money out of my account, the bank will promptly call me and freeze the action unless I allow it.…
The US has weird banking regulations dating back to the depression that lead to this situation. I'm sure banks in the US would love to close everything and consolidate into 2-3 megabanks like in the UK.
The UK has greater industry competition in the form of challenger banks than the US
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Not all US credit card companies are like this. I specifically remember a few years ago that my Mom got a call from AMEX about some fraud on her card, to which she responded “I never get calls from you, how do I know this is real?”. They said no problem, just hang up and call the number on the back of your card. I believe some banks even skip the call entirely, and just prompt you to call the number on the card.
Agreed. I personally carry a Citi card (double cash) because it has the best (for me) rewards, but I also carry an AMEX blue cash preferred for which I pay an annual fee. The customer service I get from amex is DRAMATICALLY better than from Citi. With Citi: * it's non-native-English support. No judgement of course but I don't appreciate the language barrier when the entire job of customer support is communication. *…
I have more than a few credit cards, and I've never encountered a card issuer in the US that mails active cards. All of them require some sort of activation process before they can be used. That way, it doesn't matter if they're stolen.
Two days ago, I purchased a subscription online and my bank app thought it was a security incident, blocked the transaction and discarded the online virtual card I was using, informed me about the whole process and asked me to create another virtual card to replace all my other 6 subscriptions that were linked to the now defunct card. I'm discovering Revolut.
I had a long argument with HSBC UK Security a few years ago where I was completely unable to get the to understand they were putting their customers at risk. In the event that something looked strange on your account the 'HSBC Fraud Department' would text you and ask them to call you on a phone number. A phone number that didn't appear anywhere on their website. "We don't want it public. OK,well at least put it on a…
US credit card companies aren't any better. I recently had a similar "fraud alert." The company ditched travel notices in 2016 claiming their AI was good enough to replace it. A few weeks after traveling I had a very small purchase flagged (under $20 at a place like Target). When I called the number they asked me for my complete credit card number, social security number, they didn't know my phone number or email and…
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Bank phone numbers should be written on the back of credit/debit cards (and in a lot of countries, they are). "A fraudulent transaction has been detected on your credit card no. *1234, please call the number written on the back of your card", and you're done.
Unless the fraudulent transaction is due to the fact you just lost your credit card.
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It's well documented that a lot of this money goes out of the country by transferring it to a 'mule' with a bank account in the UK, who think they are doing something innocuous. They transfer it to the scammers either via cryptocurrency (basically untraceable) or previously, via an international money transfer service such as Western Union. The latter is also pretty much untraceable. You can pick up money anywhere in…
> doing something innocuous. They transfer it to the scammers either via cryptocurrency Whoah. Do you mean there are people that think cryptocurrency is "inoccuous"? I mean, I know there are inoccuous uses; but if someone "official" tells you to use a cryptocurrency account, that is very definitely occuous.
TIL: I have been spelling "innocuous" wrong since forever. It's apparently the negating prefix "in-", and the Latin word "nocere" (to harm).
So I should have quipped "that is very definitely nocuous". Or not quipped at all.