š¹Early to RISA š§Well deary, I wouldn't want to get in any trouble
FUCKRedditModsThis is more depressing than it is funny
I had a moment with one of these around 2010. Car insurance scam and these werenāt 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.
Captain AggravatedIām kinda convinced Dell sold my details to Indian scammers. I didnāt have my laptop long before I started getting calls from āDell Apple Microsoft tech supportā about the computer sending them virus reports. Iām 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 doesnāt bind anything to Ctrl+Alt+R by default. Last thing I heard him say was āListen, you fucking guyā¦ā
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.
tryptaminev šµšø šŗš¦ šŖšŗThe 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.
This is fineš„š¶āš„Next time when youāre 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?
Because itās unexpected?
starman2112I know it clearly works, and old people do definitely fall for it, but Iāll 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?
They make it sound like they are only notifying you that you are about to be arrested. They donāt 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 itās harder to think when you are panicking. So something like āour payment system is down so we cant take payment with cards right now. You need to pay within 30 minutes or I canāt reverse it. I guess I can pay out of pocket, but you need to get me the equal amount of gift cardsā or some shit like that.
Iām convinced itās because a shit load of old people have committed, and so far gotten away with, serious crimes at some point.
Random calls from āauthorityā decades later stun locks their brain in a memory loop.
HauiThats equally dark and intriguing. Can you elaborate how you arrived at this conclusion? What serious crimes have you ābelievablyā heard of so far?
Worked in a call center once connecting terminally Ill old people to nurses (a specialized aska nurse line essentially).
My job was just to call people who needed a call back and then hand them off to a nurse when they answered the phone. Iām talking like 15 seconds of phone time with these people on average.
The shit I heard in those 15 seconds was wild.
āCanāt talk, Iām on the other line with Jesusā was one of my favorite dark replies from a person with essentially terminal COPD.
Jeez! Thats really something. I would still assume they just didnāt go to church enough and thought this was their reckoning or so. In any case, you have guts my friend. That would have ruined my mental health.
I used to hang out with hippies and artists and the age range is quite large there. There was this dude in his 70s who would casually talk about the time he helped get rid of a body after a murder acquaintances of his did in the 60s or 70s or something. He was actually put on trial and got convicted in the 80s when one the people who did the actual murder couldnāt live with the guilt and confessed but managed to get it overturned when he appealed and got acquitted, in part because they never found the body because like 5 years after they disposed of it they put a new highway right over it. Old people are fucking wild lol
along with other replies generally you become more gullible/less able to think of alternative explanations as you age, so even some āobviousā scams look legit
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 āher bankā 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 ātransferred her to another departmentā with hold music and everything. Luckily, she didnāt fall for it.
Gullible, scared, lack of critical thinking, blindly following authorities, there are many reasons. Itās not only old people, thought.
Donāt forget pathological problems like forgetfulness, dementia, and Alzheimerās. Scammers have no qualms with stealing from people with disabilities.
Itās 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. Thatās yearly. So every successful scam for these scam companies pays up to 5 peoples yearly salary
If itās important, theyāll leave a message so I can call them back. Thatās my policy if I donāt recognize the number.
I get unexplainable joy watching scammers get scammed on YouTube.
My favourite scam scammer is kitboga.
YourFavouriteNPClol, I literally read the title in his āold woman voiceā š
Me too!
Kitbogaās work is just epic. With all the programs he develops, sound effects, other people to help him, etc he uses itās just like a modern day version of a radio hear play.
It isnāt just entertainment, itās art.
And heās literally doing good! Every minute a scammer is being baited is time they canāt try to scam innocent peopleā¦
I just want you guys to be aware of how weird and sad this sounds as someone outside of all this.
āI 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.ā
daisy lazarusYes, youāre outside of all this. So youāre missing the point.
ZMonster
āWHY DID YOU REDEEM IT??!?!?ā
Classic.
I donāt get how scams work. Every time I get a scam call I stay on the line or press 1 or whatever to find out what the scam is, but no one ever tries to scam me. They just act like a normal business till I hang up. Can they tell by your voice you arenāt gullible or something?
Been thinking about it and my theory is itās a plausible deniability thing.
Company A runs the robocaller which says āYou owe $250ā, then forwards the call to Company B. They ask what you want and you say āI need to make a payment of $250ā. If you say anything else they pretend they donāt know what you mean. Company B can record their calls and prove all their money came from people volunteering to pay. They might have to return it but they can act like itās an honest mistake.
This would only work if they were liable for anything, anything at all.
These people are based on countries that say āGood on you for tricking dumb Westerner. Fuck themā. Nobody is ever going to intervene to stop them.
But then I donāt get why they never ask me for money? When I get through to the scammer they just ask what I want. Iāll say āthey said something about me owing moneyā, and they act like they donāt know what Iām talking about and get annoyed with me for wasting their time.
If the deal is āthey take your money and will never get in troubleā then whatās the downside to just running the script on everyone who calls?
pH3raYet they still have the courage to say āmy generation was smarter than kids these daysā
HolzkohlenDumb people are the most courageous, no?
ThekingoflordaGive it a few decades, weāll all be just as stupid.
Iāve 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 thatās not where most of the money is now.
Weāve seen kickstarter, bitcoin, mlm scams and what not. Thereās enough out there that have not been properly identified, too.
Also, no matter who you are, thereās a way to get you. Some might be too high effort to try but if you AI impersonated my wifeās voice, spoofed her number and said the right things, you could probably scam me if you called when she was at work
People only think theyre smarter because there wasnt social media to show how stupid they really were.
If only they did their own research
God, my mom just got nailed by one of these this weekend. Itās easy for people to be like āhow could you be so stupid?ā 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, canāt you just say āI need to discuss this with my lawyerā and cut the call? Or start asking information from them so you can share it with your lawyer?
You can literally 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.
It would be really nice if a certain someone went to jail over a certain phonecallā¦
LoL ok so likeā¦ I think a long history will show phone calls can be a big deal, but Aunt Toottie isnāt gonna send swat for you hanging up and neither would the IRS if you said āNo, I want to hang up and go through the whole queue for hours just to make sure you are real.ā If you get called by a number claiming to be them.
Dr. CoomerGod where did you find this image?
Quick OP, answer! So that I can never ever visit this site!
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 Iād hassle them with whatever persona I wanted to use that day. Iām 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 āneedingā a larger (five-figure) amount.
As an Indian, I would like to congratulate everyone here, you 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.
If weāre apologizing for national issues that arenāt our fault, Iād like to say sorry for mass-shootings, exploiting poor people and the widening wealth-gap, and (worst of all) obnoxiously loud Americans abroad!
Renny ProtogennyAs a dutchie, iād like to be sorry for not stopping slavery earlier, the NSB, and Auschwitz!
I should say something about apartheid
I am waiting š š
I would also like to apologize for Indian tiktok videos. Thatās a crime on humanity no oneās speaking about. We were so tired of tiktok that we banned it :')
Indian Jokar was Godās gift to this earth and you canāt convince me otherwise.
Spliffman1The obnoxiously loud American touristsā¦ They are beyond obnoxious š
, itās really incredible. Maybe you guys could have a qualifying exam or training course for the ones that travel to other countries as tourists. They are not good ambassadors at all lol