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Mark Rober catching a scammer (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter gianmarco
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STEADYMOBBIN 22
Footballguy
that was great. Good to see people fighting back against that scammy stuff.
An old boss of mine once wired $150k to a scammer. (Email requesting his routing info was sent from the lenders computer which I assume the scammer had access to.) FBI got involved but he never got his money back.
Ron Swanson
Footballguy
Has anyone warned Tanner about these scams?
That sucks. I can’t imagine falling for it but so many people do and it’s really sad. Just seems like it should be relatively easy to stop these things.
NewlyRetired
Footballguy
The math was interesting they presented in the video.
Out of 500k calls a day, they get about 500 people to call back. Out of that group they can land around 5 a day that they then scam.
Yeah, seems like with all of the advances in AI that AT&T and others can’t identify that easily. I mean I get messages on my phone that will identify the caller as spam. Calls originating in India should be relatively easy to identify as cold calls. Yes, I know there are folks with relatives but still should be easy to identify.
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fruity pebbles
Footballguy
Surprised with all he info out there, people still fall for these scams. Nobody’s sending you money out of the blue.
NewlyRetired
Footballguy
as the video highlighted it is almost all old people. It sucks but old people who don't have the local support system can be vulnerable. The old lady who got scammed twice the same week her husband died was awful to hear :(
FairWarning
Footballguy
I had to put alerts on my mother's accounts. SHe gets those calls and the SS or tax fraud center calls claiming she was committing fraud. She's 86 with dementia, so its always a concern. Some of these scammers use local numbers so you think its someone you know and more likely to answer. I don't allow her to answer the phone unless she absolutely know who it is.
CletiusMaximus
Footballguy
Jim Browning, the Irish guy he's working with in these recent videos is also incredible. He's got several videos where he keeps a phone scammer on the line while he hacks into their system, including in some cases their live CCT video in their scammer call centers in India so you can see the scammers at work. In many cases he gets into their banking systems and starts refunding money to the people they've scammed, all in real time while they are talking on the phone.
https://www.youtube.com/c/JimBrowning/videos
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/magazine/scam-call-centers.html
Browning is not his real name. He guards his identity due to the nature of what he does. That was my concern with Rober when my son showed me this video. its one thing to spray glitter and fart juice on a porch pirate, but another to be getting involved in international crime rings. This guy puts his identity out there, and has family. I'm sure he's taking precautions, but its got to be a big concern now that he's taking on these scamming syndicates.
Galileo
Footballguy
My mom basically fell for this scam but fortunately freaked out enough during the process that it was never fully executed. After "accidentally" typing in the wrong amount, she effectively lost control of her computer...of course the folks were operating things remotely. This freaked her out and she shut her computer. The scammers called her demanding that she return the money. She called me crying all upset not knowing what she should do. She was 82 at the time. It is not very difficult to fool someone who is a bit naïve to begin with and also has very little technology skill/awareness. Fortunately, we got ahead of it. We immediately went to the bank involved, froze and eventually closed the compromised account, changed passwords on all her stuff etc... Fortunately, she caught on in time, but I definitely can see how vulnerable people can fall into such a trap. If it didn't work, the scammers wouldn't be doing it.
Sea Duck
Footballguy
Some of the newer scams aren't as easy to spot. The scammers can spoof your mortgage company (causing you to send money to the wrong routing #), or they can create realistic invoices (tricking large businesses into paying the scammers instead of paying legit vendors).
See my other post, I meant easy to identify and stop the calls. I see “spam risk” on my cell occasionally, but I would think if we wanted to, we could likely stop these scam call centers with some AI type review of patterns and call starts, etc. I can see how elderly could be easy prey, that’s why I’m shocked we have no one working to stop it.Galileo said:
Judge Smails
Footballguy
That sucks. $150K? WowSTEADYMOBBIN 22 said:
parasaurolophus
Footballguy
Pretty sure i told this story on here once before, but I really had fun with one of these scammers once.
They called while i was at work and tried to play the i have a virus on my computer scam. I played along for 20 minutes. Told them I was on far end of the factory and would hustle to my computer right away. Made that "walk" take forever by pretending to be out of breath. Complained about stairs, told a story about a guy that fell on them because he didnt have at least two points of contact at all times.
Then pretended my computer took forever to boot up and said omg I must have a virus it never takes this long. Then told him it crashed after i rebooted. Was begging him to fix it for me. I gave him a fake username and password and was like cant you boot up my screen? Told him I remembered our offsite IT guy controlling my screen to fix it once before. This guy was licking his chops.
Finally after 20 minutes i told him i had to go because I was trying to finish up something on my computer that i had been working on the whole time I was messing with him.
They called while i was at work and tried to play the i have a virus on my computer scam. I played along for 20 minutes. Told them I was on far end of the factory and would hustle to my computer right away. Made that "walk" take forever by pretending to be out of breath. Complained about stairs, told a story about a guy that fell on them because he didnt have at least two points of contact at all times.
Then pretended my computer took forever to boot up and said omg I must have a virus it never takes this long. Then told him it crashed after i rebooted. Was begging him to fix it for me. I gave him a fake username and password and was like cant you boot up my screen? Told him I remembered our offsite IT guy controlling my screen to fix it once before. This guy was licking his chops.
Finally after 20 minutes i told him i had to go because I was trying to finish up something on my computer that i had been working on the whole time I was messing with him.
NewlyRetired
Footballguy
If you watched the video, you will see that there is involvement from local authorities, to the FBI to homeland security all working on the problem.
Courtjester
The Town Drunk
I would mess with the scammers when they would call--you know pretend to cry when they would tell me my computer was infected and I would throw it in the trash can (I would use a phone book). I would tell them I am Amish and didn't own electronics. I would make up a foreign language and talk to them in it. I had fun, but I have learned you really don't want to go down this road. See they don't follow the rules about times they are allowed to call--pretty soon my phone would start ringing at 6:00 am on a Sunday or 9:45 pm on Wednesday night. Yeah, they got the last laugh.
I saw that and it was cool, but I’m talking about the calls. Do you think it really would be that hard to stop? I mean I'd have to assume that most people who have friends and family in India or work with people there are using Teams and other VOIP applications to avoid big bills. People calling land lines hundreds or thousands of times? I guess I’d have to assume that somehow AT&T and Verizon are somehow getting paid for each call, but it just seems way too easy to me to figure out and block spamming calls.
belljr
Footballguy
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Me too. That call originated somewhere and likely has characteristics that the phone companies networks can pick up. I’ve got AT&T and my iPhone says “Spam Risk” sometimes. I’m just saying that I think we could mass block these type of calls if we wanted to do so.
NutterButter
Footballguy
This is the chase online refund server also known as the command prompt 
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