I have such immense disdain for Capital One and MasterCard for how they implement 3DS. I have been in Germany for 6 weeks. I have spent thousands of dollars between flights, train tickets, and hotels. Guess what I have to do every, single, time I buy a 3EUR train ticket? Receive an SMS on my American cellphone number. Their "solution" is to have a family member in the US add their number to my account, wake up in the…
Get a Google Voice account to accept the SMSes for you, it's free and Capital One will complain about the number but accept it. I permanently live overseas but with US bank accounts and cards, and all my cards go through cycles and phases. Sometimes they want to send SMSes for months to verify account access, then they stop. Same for transactions. Some will refuse to work on Amazon.de for months, then start working.…
Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
371–380 of 406 posts
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#372Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#373I've worked as an 'IT guy' (short form for 'I do basically everything') for many small businesses, a lot of which were computer repair shops that, in their small town feel, spent a lot of time just helping old people navigate how to use a computer. Many times I had people come in that found a clearly fake site advertising some too good to be true deal and didn't realize, spent their money, and never got anything or got like a toothbrush when they ordered a desk.
This fraud protection doesn't protect in any way against that. I've helped probably 2,000 instances of fraud in this way just telling them "you need to file a claim with your bank and get your money back because you're never going to get that product" and hundreds upon hundreds of issues where they're like " oh Microsoft is going to delete my computer if I don't pay them 30 Bitcoin" and other bullshit like that. Maybe two times in my 10 plus year career has anyone actually had their cards stolen and used overseas.
Just kinda wild to think about that my bank cares more about me travelling to new York than it does making a 6000$ purchase on coinbase.
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#374Wrong assumptions programmers make about fraud prevention: -- A mobile phone number uniquely identifies a single person. -- Every person has a mobile phone number and they only have one mobile phone number. -- If a person's mobile phone number is associated with VoIP or Google Voice, that indicates fraud. -- Every person always has their mobile phone handy and it is always able to receive calls and SMS messages under…
> Geolocated IP addresses always indicate the preferred and correct human language of the person on the other end. This one is only tangentially related to fraud prevention. But I've never really understood this. Is the Accept-Language header really so inaccurate?
I'd say so yeah. Many many old people here (in a country where English isn't the primary language) use 'misconfigured' browsers.
It's getting better nowadays I suppose with new installers defaulting to our native language but (even though I tend to prefer the English version myself) I think it's a good default. I do prefer an easy way to change it though (or a quick confirmation on the first visit.)
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This sort of thing is where I hope Bitcoin can help more people. It is a use for a Bitcoin like system (The transaction costs, planet destroying character, and slow speed probably not Bitcoin) It is the intersection of money laundering and normal requirements Stopping crime by stopping money laundering will always have these problems, surely? Is there a way to inhibit CC fraud, and money laundering without making l…
> Is there a way to inhibit CC fraud, and money laundering without making life difficult for people who are in the tails of the distributions? Yes. Have better customer support and actually fix issues when they happen. This ends up costing someone money.
I do not think it will be paid for by reducing profits...
...you and I will pay that bill
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
My primary phone number is a Google Voice number, and I am entirely legitimate. Just curious, how often are other people filtering with this kind of criteria? I have been considering migrating away from GV for unrelated reasons, but if that sort of thing automatically makes me less attractive when looking for gigs then I'd like to prioritize actually doing that.
Long story short, GV or VOIP numbers will forever be a big red flag for me moving forward. Longer story: A few months ago, I posted a job for a remote US-based developer. 90% of the applicants were not in the US. Some of those who were immediately rejected re-applied with new US addresses and phone numbers, but that's another story. In the end, hired someone who was a great fit, passed the background checks, etc. The…
They will make excuses (and blame Covid) for why they can’t meet in person. At that point you can politely reject the candidate.
If you already hired one that you’re suspicious of, ask them if they’re willing to fly to you to meet in person. If they’re legitimate, then they’ll fly out and you’ll have a great opportunity to meet the new employee in person (a good practice in general IMO), and if they’re not in the US they’ll have a bunch of excuses why they can’t.
They will never admit to anything and when confronted with the lie they’ll continue to deny it with silly excuses or they’ll totally ghost you.
Longevity is not part of this scam. The goal is to get a couple paychecks and bounce. (1 month of a US salary is a ton of money to them)
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#377Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
> US-only remote roles. The entire premise of remote is that it shouldn't matter where you work from, as long as you get the work done. This is extremely, incredibly harmful. I hope you know that.
This is completely normal and legally necessary in many cases. Your hyperbole is mildly harmless. I hope you know that.
Yes, it is. It's even hard for a US citizen like me to find jobs that don't require some proof of citizenship that I don't have. IDs cost money here, money that I don't have because I can't get a job, because they want my ID.
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
Long story short, GV or VOIP numbers will forever be a big red flag for me moving forward. Longer story: A few months ago, I posted a job for a remote US-based developer. 90% of the applicants were not in the US. Some of those who were immediately rejected re-applied with new US addresses and phone numbers, but that's another story. In the end, hired someone who was a great fit, passed the background checks, etc. The…
One quick trick that has worked for me to weed these people out is saying “You live in ? That’s great! We have another employee who lives 30 minutes away, would you be able to do an in person interview later in the process?” They will make excuses (and blame Covid) for why they can’t meet in person. At that point you can politely reject the candidate. If you already hired one that you’re suspicious of, ask them if th…
Just curious, how do you expect someone without a job to pay for this?
Re: Tell HN: Automatic fraud detection is making my life hell
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note: You probably meant †, not ↑
Well I meant any character I could type (and find again easily for the second one) that would be unique within the comment and not give me italics, but sure. I often use ^, since it's kind of like 'imagine there's a superscript here', think I just inadvertently held on it and ↑ popped up and up and I went with it.
Here’s how to type “†”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dagger_(mark)&old...>