71–79 of 79 posts
Reminded me we hired an indian android developer (contractor) through a phone interview (in US). When “he” showed up for work, it wasn’t him. The contractor who actually showed up couldn’t answer the same questions.
I'm always shocked that these IRS scams ever work, let alone consistently enough to make them viable businesses. Someone with an Indian accent and really bad phone connection calls you up and tells you they are from the IRS and you need to pay them "taxes" with an Apple gift card, and people fall for this?? First off, the government will never contact you by phone. I thought everyone knew this but if not the FTC is h…
People are used to this when getting a call from a call center. They imagine the IRS being the kind of behemoth that might need to outsource to a large call center.
> tells you they are from the IRS
It's not inherently apparent that the IRS would never call someone. Although the IRS would rather use mail which can be certified and better archived, it's not apparent that recorded calls couldn't do the same thing.
> you need to pay them "taxes" with an Apple gift card
If you're not up to date on "fancy new things happening with banking" and you're the kind of person who only ever uses checks and thinks your debit card is a credit card because of the Visa logo maybe this is just legitimate enough to trick you. Assuming the person fell for the first two aspects of this, they're probably flummoxed, thinking the "big bad IRS" is trying to go after them and want to resolve it with zero friction, so you're easily influenced. These used to be prepaid debit cards until crackdowns on Moneypak cards used for scams, maybe the person says "Get the prepaid debit card with the Apple symbol on it".
>I guess a fool and their money are soon parted, but this is a pretty unbelievable level of gullibility.
It's not being a fool, these scams target vulnerable people. Often times fear of being shamed the way your post does only furthers the harm as people stay in denial they're being scammed so they can avoid that shame.
Reminded me we hired an indian android developer (contractor) through a phone interview (in US). When “he” showed up for work, it wasn’t him. The contractor who actually showed up couldn’t answer the same questions.
While we dint exactly hire but we had an even worse situation. A particular developer from our team was conducting "real time" training outside office. He referred two guys for a particular job opening. While interviewing the first guy, in-person interview, we asked about process flows at his last job. The answer was uncannily similar to what we were doing. We were intrigued and dug deeper. It became apparent to us t…
Reminded me we hired an indian android developer (contractor) through a phone interview (in US). When “he” showed up for work, it wasn’t him. The contractor who actually showed up couldn’t answer the same questions.
you don't require id the proves the right to work in the USA. In the UK I have had to take passport/birth certificate even to register at agencies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
you don't require id the proves the right to work in the USA. In the UK I have had to take passport/birth certificate even to register at agencies.
They had ID. They were the person they said they were. The person on the phone was not.
I'm always shocked that these IRS scams ever work, let alone consistently enough to make them viable businesses. Someone with an Indian accent and really bad phone connection calls you up and tells you they are from the IRS and you need to pay them "taxes" with an Apple gift card, and people fall for this?? First off, the government will never contact you by phone. I thought everyone knew this but if not the FTC is h…
Though scammers can also contact by mail.
Reminded me we hired an indian android developer (contractor) through a phone interview (in US). When “he” showed up for work, it wasn’t him. The contractor who actually showed up couldn’t answer the same questions.
Had the same thing happen at a startup I was at. We had a .Net developer get hired. First week he showed up and was asked to do some remedial stuff like update some tables on a database and then refactor a few controllers in one of our apps. First day he sat at his desk browsing the internet all day. Second day, the senior dev asked if he needed help and by the third day he was bringing in several .Net programming bo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is clearly not true. Democracies often plan for the future, but only less so sometimes, such as when populism abounds and the democracy is too direct. Don't fall down the fallacy hole of 'authoritarianism like China or Singapore must be better.'
> Don't fall down the fallacy hole of 'authoritarianism like China or Singapore must be better.' I never said that. And besides, "authoritarianism" isn't the opposite of democracy, as evidenced by authoritarian democracies.