My wife and I cared for her grandmother in her final years. This old woman learned to hand the phone to me when it was a scammer because I’d hassle them with whatever persona I wanted to use that day. I’m no Kitboga but she thought it was funny. And nobody got any money from her.
It seemed like they would try to get some small amount from her at first - like $250. She got caught out by it once, where she paid them the small amount, then they would come back “needing” a larger (five-figure) amount.
Here in Canada we have tons of “your package is here and you need to pay fees/taxes to get it” scam calls and texts. It sounds reasonable enough if you are actually waiting for a package and aren’t too savy about these things. The worst part is real delivery companies do sometimes contact you that way, though they usually text you and direct you to their site which can be verified (always always check the URL of the site and also make sure it’s HTTPS). Still I once disregarded a real one asking me to pay taxes and ended up actually delaying my package.
The most disgusting ones I’ve gotten are the immigration scam calls, basically “there’s a problem with your PR card or it’s expired or something and if you don’t pay a fee right now you’ll be deported.” In Mandarin too, really exploiting the fears of immigrants. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s actually targeted since I actually am a Chinese immigrant (now a Canadian citizen so don’t even have a PR card anymore) or if they just randomly call different numbers, but I’ve only gotten robocalls in English or Mandarin which I speak and no other languages, so IDK. Anyone know?
If you’re in Toronto or have a Toronto number they target Mandarin since it’s incredibly prevalent in the city. Those are also the only 2 languages I receive as well.
HTTPS means nothing. All sites are HTTPS these days. If your only check for a scam is that then you’re fucked
Correct, which is why you primarily need to check the URL and particularly the domain. I mention HTTPS because if you’re on the right domain and it’s not HTTPS when it should be, you’re most likely getting MITM’d or another such attack is being used.
We’re all gonna get old and some of us are going to get dementia. I have a hard time pointing at vulnerable people whose brains are nearly expired and saying “Haha jeez what noobs, how could they be such idiots?”
I had a moment with one of these around 2010. Car insurance scam and these weren’t in the news all the time. Much lower pressure and I still had my card in my hand before I thought to ask what model car I had. He hung up.
I’m kinda convinced Dell sold my details to Indian scammers. I didn’t have my laptop long before I started getting calls from “Dell Apple Microsoft tech support” about the computer sending them virus reports. I’m sure wanting me to let them remote into the machine, or run some other computer-based scam.
They had to have gotten the info from Dell; they knew the model number of the machine.
So I had someone who spoke with a thick accent wanting me to press Ctrl+Alt+R or whatever the run dialog hotkey in Windows is and run some commands. So I did exactly what he wanted me to do. And nothing happened. Because Linux Mint doesn’t bind anything to Ctrl+Alt+R by default. Last thing I heard him say was “Listen, you fucking guy…”
I should have wasted more of his time, the parasite.
I had the complete opposite experience with a client where the scammer kept telling me to click on the Start menu even after I goaded him by telling him we were on a Mac. No ability to shift the scheme.
The scams are run by professional call centers. Sometimes as a side business of an otherwise normal call center. The people working there are call center workers. They have a script and they follow the script. They could have no knowledge of the underlying tech at all.
Next time when you’re done with them, call them bhenchod. It means sisterfucker, very versatile swearing word in many Indian languages.
Why pay them the respect of insulting them in their own language?
I get unexplainable joy watching scammers get scammed on YouTube.
My favourite scam scammer is kitboga.
Kitboga’s work is just epic. With all the programs he develops, sound effects, other people to help him, etc he uses it’s just like a modern day version of a radio hear play.
It isn’t just entertainment, it’s art.
And he’s literally doing good! Every minute a scammer is being baited is time they can’t try to scam innocent people…
I just want you guys to be aware of how weird and sad this sounds as someone outside of all this.
“I really like the people playing whack-a-mole with scammers, my favorite guy even makes it fun with colored lights and sound effects and gadgets he makes. It really makes me feel nice to know at least someone is punished for something I know is wrong but see little other efforts to solve. Ah fun catharsism.”
Yes, you’re outside of all this. So you’re missing the point.
lol, I literally read the title in his “old woman voice” 😂
Me too!
If it’s important, they’ll leave a message so I can call them back. That’s my policy if I don’t recognize the number.
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Yes
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This would only work if they were liable for anything, anything at all.
These people are based on countries that say “Good on you for tricking dumb Westerner. Fuck them”. Nobody is ever going to intervene to stop them.
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Yet they still have the courage to say “my generation was smarter than kids these days”
Give it a few decades, we’ll all be just as stupid.
I’ve known stupid people my age no matter my age
I also defy anyone reading this not to have done something dumb in their lives
Scammers evolve to find new prey. While the phone scams and the different types of phishing might still work, I am quite that’s not where most of the money is now.
We’ve seen kickstarter, bitcoin, mlm scams and what not. There’s enough out there that have not been properly identified, too.
Also, no matter who you are, there’s a way to get you. Some might be too high effort to try but if you AI impersonated my wife’s voice, spoofed her number and said the right things, you could probably scam me if you called when she was at work
Dumb people are the most courageous, no?
People only think theyre smarter because there wasnt social media to show how stupid they really were.
As an Indian, I would like to congratulate everyone here, you tax returns are here, but there is a spelling mistake in your name and it would take $5000 to correct it, please call 1800420SCAM to get your refund.
bad jokes aside, these are the scum of the country and I am sorry for this shit.
Hey! Someone from India!
I watch lots of scambaiting videos and I know all about the public sentiment you guys have about scammers
It’s a damn shame the police in India are so easy to bribe… not that American cops are any better
American cops will rob you and then arrest you too.
There’s normally at least one person waiting at the door to every scam call center waiting to give a big bag of money to the police to go away
Sometimes the guy at the door will direct the cops to a legit call center to throw them off
I know Truecaller is a privacy nightmare, but that could still help old / tech illiterate people against being scammed. Is this not available in the US?
If we’re apologizing for national issues that aren’t our fault, I’d like to say sorry for mass-shootings, exploiting poor people and the widening wealth-gap, and (worst of all) obnoxiously loud Americans abroad!
I would also like to apologize for Indian tiktok videos. That’s a crime on humanity no one’s speaking about. We were so tired of tiktok that we banned it :')
Indian Joker was God’s gift to this earth and you can’t convince me otherwise.
As a dutchie, i’d like to be sorry for not stopping slavery earlier, the NSB, and Auschwitz!
I should say something about apartheid
I am waiting 😀 😂
If only they did their own research
People who fall for scams like those aren’t always stupid.
They’re not always old people
With the IRS scam, they usually use the remote desktop software they direct you to to lock you out of your device
Then they’ll extort you for the thousands of dollars worth of gift cards
After they have the codes from the gift cards they’ll exchange them for crypto currency and/or sell them for even more than what’s on them
And after the scam is done they keep the connections on all the remote desktop apps open so they can spy on them for future scams
Yeah it’s kinda stupid to give people access to your computer like that.
If you didn’t already hang up after a few seconds on the phone you are indeed stupid.
I know it clearly works, and old people do definitely fall for it, but I’ll never understand how. What part of the script makes it sound reasonable that the IRS would want amazon gift cards instead of, you know, a cash transfer or something?
Many real scams are not this obvious, plus a lot of old people are senile to some degree, which these scammers are exploiting. My grandma was contacted by “her bank” about verifying her identity, and after a few minutes of establishing a backstory they asked her for her debit card info including CVV. It all sounded very legit, and they even “transferred her to another department” with hold music and everything. Luckily, she didn’t fall for it.
They make it sound like they are only notifying you that you are about to be arrested. They don’t ask for payment and fake refuse the first offer if the mark offers. Then, when the madk is very worried they are about to go to jail, it is much easier for them to believe whatever because it’s harder to think when you are panicking. So something like “our payment system is down so we cant take payment with cards right now. You need to pay within 30 minutes or I can’t reverse it. I guess I can pay out of pocket, but you need to get me the equal amount of gift cards” or some shit like that.
It’s the amount of money that makes it worth it. If they are successfull the amount is usually something like $10,000-$30,000. If they are only successful once every 2000 calls thats still worth it. Now you would say 2000 calls with 50 people in a call center means they are only successful once every few days and you are totally correct. But you have to put this into consideration with what they are usually paid. If you work in IT for huge companies like Accenture or McKinsey you will earn around 8-10k if you are in upper management and 6-8k if you are a normal worker. That’s yearly. So every successful scam for these scam companies pays up to 5 peoples yearly salary
Gullible, scared, lack of critical thinking, blindly following authorities, there are many reasons. It’s not only old people, thought.
Don’t forget pathological problems like forgetfulness, dementia, and Alzheimer’s. Scammers have no qualms with stealing from people with disabilities.
along with other replies generally you become more gullible/less able to think of alternative explanations as you age, so even some “obvious” scams look legit
God, my mom just got nailed by one of these this weekend. It’s easy for people to be like “how could you be so stupid?” But the people running this shit are so manipulative and demanding, all they need to do is to be forceful and threatening. Protect yourselves and your loved ones, folks.
If they start threatening, can’t you just say ‘I need to discuss this with my lawyer’ and cut the call? Or start asking information from them so you can share it with your lawyer?
You can hang up at any time for any reason for every single phone call you participate in. Nobody is going to jail over a phone call.
God where did you find this image?
Quick OP, answer! So that I can never ever visit this site!
This is more depressing than it is funny
