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I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

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Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#501

Post by khafra »

itslennysfault wrote: post #129
rolobio wrote: post #6

I nearly got taken by a scammer because Amazon transferred me to one. I purchased a set of Reolink cameras on Amazon, (they've been great) one of them failed a couple months in. I contacted Amazon customer support (via my Amazon login and in their interface) and they wanted to troubleshoot with their technical team. Eventually the (very helpful) Amazon technician suggested contacting Reolink for support and started a…

Reason #99,999 that I don't use Amazon anymore. Just buy stuff in-person, pay the shipping, wait the week, or whatever. You'll be fine I promise.

The reason I buy on Amazon is that finding anything you wouldn't see in a typical department store from somewhere else online takes a bit of effort; and it's an additional effort to gain some confidence that the "somewhere else" won't scam me, sign me up for even more spam, etc.

If there were some reliable meta-shopping site that aggregated trustworthy vendors, I would use that--but I can't see how to build one that wouldn't have all the problems of Amazon in the best case; and all the problems of wish.com in the more likely case.

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#502

Post by dade_ »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #174
dade_ wrote: post #16

Not much of an expert, caller ID means nothing. Standard procedure for everybody in the last 20 years should be: Whenever I get a call about security or fraud from the bank, I thank them for the notification and tell them I will call them back, and hang up. Then I call the number on my credit /bank card, not the number I was called from. Fortunately there is a lost or stolen cards so there is no queue time and tell t…

> Not much of an expert, caller ID means nothing They... said that: > The caller ID showed the correct name and number for my bank, but caller ID data is so hilariously easy to spoof that it might as well not even exist. Honestly, what is with the low quality comments attempting to undermine this person's credibility?

What is with low quality comments commenting on low quality comments?

An expert doesn’t just know about a risk, they think through mitigations and apply them. This is a basic 101, and yet no mitigation. A phone call warning about fraud is highly likely to be fraud in itself, so never, ever proceed with the call.

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#504

Post by evancoop »

rolobio wrote: post #6

I nearly got taken by a scammer because Amazon transferred me to one. I purchased a set of Reolink cameras on Amazon, (they've been great) one of them failed a couple months in. I contacted Amazon customer support (via my Amazon login and in their interface) and they wanted to troubleshoot with their technical team. Eventually the (very helpful) Amazon technician suggested contacting Reolink for support and started a…

The question reduces to one of incentives. Scams are extremely easy to initiate, cheap to scale, and once they're sniffed out, extremely easy to replicate with a small variation in location/product/approach. In other words, they're like good software.

So...what might curtail the proliferation of scams (besides cruel and unusual punishments)? Decentralization? More factors of authentication?

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#505

Post by KMag »

walrus01 wrote: post #399
KMag wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Side note: if unexpectedly getting a new card, call the support number on your old card. A friend of mine almost got taken about 15 years ago by a scam where someone got his address and bank name, then sent him a fake credit card from that bank with a letter saying something like fraud had been detected and they were sending him a replacement card. When he called the number on the new card's activation sticker, somet…

somebody physically manufactured a fake, new card and mailing envelope that was close enough to pass scrutiny and in person physical inspection, and send it to him by US postal, for the purpose of getting the person to call the 1-800 number on the sticker and give the scammers his SSN and other details?

He was the CTO of a reasonably large hedge fund at the time, so it's reasonable to think he was the target of a spear fishing attack. If you don't need the magnetic strip to actually be magnetic, I don't think making a fake credit card is much different from making a fake ID.

Though, I suppose it's possible he was telling me a tall tale, he's generally trustworthy.

The two additional explanations would be that he was confused about what was going on, or that there was genuinely a mixup at his bank. If he was confused about what was going on, it would seem that he would have needed to have gotten a card that he didn't remember applying for, and being confused about which bank issued it. The spear fishing and mixup at his bank both sound like million-to-one odds to me.

So now, re-evaluating things based on what I've learned about banks in the past 15 years, maybe his bank grew organically by acquiring several other banks, and has incomplete consolidation internally. Maybe he requested a card from one subsidiary of the bank, forgot about it, and called another subsidiary of the bank (the one that gave him his first card), which had no idea what was going on. The internal structures of large banks are much more disjoint than I realized 15 years ago.

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#506

Post by marioletto »

fleddr wrote: post #251

Some of the comments here are cruel and missing the entire point. Well yes, as you're slowly reading this entire case, with the prior knowledge that he is getting scammed, and having all the time in the world to find the mistake or red flag in his actions, sure enough you'll find it. How very smart and vigilant you are. But as the article already explains, those are not the conditions in which a scam happens. You don…

> are Americans still logging into online banking with a username and password?

For financial institutions identity verification of existing and new customers is a way more complex topic than most people realize. Fraud is an issue but so it’s friction. If it’s too hard to login or to open a new account, people will use/move to a different service. So in the US institutions use “invisible tools” to authenticate users and minimize the risks. Third party services collect huge amounts of user data which is then used to verify customers’ identities in a probabilistic way. (For instance the odds that a fraudster is logging in into your bank account from your phone and from an IP that you have used numerous times in the past are very low) So while the impression is that only a username and a pw are used, that’s not the case.

So in short: security is not the only goal of the financial services available to the masses. The goal is finding a balance between security and friction.

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#507

Post by sumedh »

grog454 wrote: post #427
red369 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just going from memory - but I’m fairly sure that around 25 to 30 years ago, in Australia, it did work the way that is being described. That is, the person receiving the call could not disconnect the call by hanging up. The person making the call needed to hang up, otherwise the line stayed open. I messed around with this a few times because I was amazed it existed. Editing to add that more detail, since I’m basicall…

Was harassment by exploiting this ever a big problem? Seems like you could call someone and if they pick up, you now control their phone line... indefinitely?

> you now control their phone line... indefinitely?

Some other comments said there was a timeout after which the call was disconnected if the receiver hangs up.

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#508

Post by fatnoah »

wccrawford wrote: post #65
klik99 wrote: post #21

There's one easy rule that could have avoided all of this - never give out any info on incoming calls. If I get a call or text about fraudulent transactions, I'll keep them on hold while I log into the bank website. If I get a call about a late payment, I'll thank them for the info and ask them to stay on while I pay online. If I get an inbound call with a more complex request, I'll ask them for their employee info a…

Agreed. No matter how tired and annoyed I was, I'd have stopped dead at the confirmation code that they asked for. There's absolutely no way I'd have given that to them, even if it meant cancelling my account and using a different bank. That seems a bit extreme, but if their procedures are so crazy as to require circumventing another system's security procedures, I'm not going to bank with them. I actually had a bank…

> In order to do that, I needed to relay a confirmation code that would be texted to me.

Everything up to that point matches exactly what happened when I got a call from my own bank (Charles Schwab) regarding fraudulent charges. However, whenever Schwab sends me a code (or Bank of America, Coinbase, etc) the code comes with a message stating that an employee will never ask you for this code.

The fact that OP is an "expert" yet fell for this shows me that they are in fact not an expert here. Don't get me wrong, the execution by the scammer was slick, but I would expect an "expert" to be familiar with their own bank's policies:

"Wells Fargo will not call or text you requesting an access code. We may ask for an access code when you call Wells Fargo customer service. Always contact us using a trusted number on the back of your card or wellsfargo.com."

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#509

Post by LegitShady »

FpUser wrote: post #221
Galaxeblaffer wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really hard recognizing the image Amazon have in the US compared to my personal experience with amazon.de . The service is stellar, shipping both ways is free as long as you buy products covered by prime. Refunds are with no questions asked (as long as you don't start abusing it i guess). As soon as you go into 3rd party sellers the experience gets muddled, though I've had plenty of good experiences with those a…

>" The service is stellar, shipping both ways is free as long as you buy products covered by prime. Refunds are with no questions asked" This is my exact experience in Canada so far. But they did something else weird. I wanted to buy Google Store gift card from Amazon and as soon as I made the purchase my account was suspended. It had taken me few hours including lengthy phone call to sort things out. I was told that…

shipping both ways is 100% not free in canada. I went to price match a power supply I had just purchased and they said they don't price match. I said no worries since it's unopened I'll return it and buy it again and they quoted me $30 shipping to return it. I had prime and it was a prime item.

I've also reported businesses who sneak 'give us a 5 star review and we'll give you $30' cards into their parcels and amazon did absolutely nothing.

Amazon is amazing until you realize it isn't. I got rid of prime and suddenly I found myself spending less money on junk because I wasn't incentivized to get junk by the prime membership. If I have to wait to have enough stuff for free shipping minimums I can wait enough to look locally and 1/2 the time I can find it locally for similar cost and the other 1/2 it turns out I never needed it just wanted it.

Highly recommend getting rid of prime and taking a couple months off ordering anything from them - you'll find out not only is amazon not worth it, they're easily replaced.

Re: I'm a scam prevention expert and I got scammed

#510

Post by LegitShady »

overtonwhy wrote: post #101
rolobio wrote: post #6

I nearly got taken by a scammer because Amazon transferred me to one. I purchased a set of Reolink cameras on Amazon, (they've been great) one of them failed a couple months in. I contacted Amazon customer support (via my Amazon login and in their interface) and they wanted to troubleshoot with their technical team. Eventually the (very helpful) Amazon technician suggested contacting Reolink for support and started a…

Lots of call centers get targeted with this type of scam. I think it's because call center employees are so poorly treated and compensated that it's appealing to join the scam. I've seen the same exact thing happen with QuickBooks support. The actual agent you're speaking with gives your contact info to the scammer who calls you back.

I've never seen this before but I imagine the call center employee has a lot more to lose being a part of fraud than the scammer who isn't legitimately employed and can't be found. Doesn't seem likely.
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