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Unfortunately, all of the text spam I get is of the scammy misrepresentation variety, and is going to fail on the "identify the other party" step. Edit: for in

by kemayo 4y ago

Unfortunately, all of the text spam I get is of the scammy misrepresentation variety, and is going to fail on the "identify the other party" step. Edit: for instance https://imgur.com/D780jAX https://imgur.com/D780jAX -- after I naïvely responded to the first few like this and got their pivot, I started to recognize the style.

sethjr5rtfgh 4y ago
I get those as well. Did you find out who's sending them?
- TonyTrapp 4y ago
  There was an article about this phenomenon not too long ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31949731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31949731 Just a plain old scam attempt.
splitrocket 4y ago
If you spend a few minutes and get them on the phone and say "I want to wire you funds right now!", they will give you a bank account.
- sethjr5rtfgh 4y ago
  Do you know that or are you guessing? Because my guess is it won't be that simple.
  - paulgb 4y ago
    Yeah, my guess is they would say “oh, we can just do an ACH debit and save you the trouble. What's your account number?”
    - filoeleven 4y ago
      Spitballing here: You can place ACH blocks on accounts, at some banks anyway. I don’t know if the bank will give you the transaction information if a transfer is attempted. If they will, shouldn’t it be possible to set up a honeypot account in order to get the ACH info? Is that info enough to trace back to the spammers? This opens up other legal questions though. It’s entirely possible that you could then be on the hook for non payment or something.
      - paulgb 4y ago
        Oh yeah, I forgot that some banks allow that. Maybe an even easier thing to try is telling the scammer you need their ACH so you can whitelist it with your bank own bank?
- eli 4y ago
  Maybe you’d get a bank account but it wouldn’t actually be theirs.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Yeah, you’ll get the bank account of some other person who has been scammed into a “no experience necessary work-from-home job” transferring money

by kemayo 4y ago

sethjr5rtfgh 4y ago

I get those as well. Did you find out who's sending them?

TonyTrapp 4y ago
There was an article about this phenomenon not too long ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31949731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31949731 Just a plain old scam attempt.

splitrocket 4y ago

If you spend a few minutes and get them on the phone and say "I want to wire you funds right now!", they will give you a bank account.

sethjr5rtfgh 4y ago
Do you know that or are you guessing? Because my guess is it won't be that simple.
- paulgb 4y ago
  Yeah, my guess is they would say “oh, we can just do an ACH debit and save you the trouble. What's your account number?”
  - filoeleven 4y ago
    Spitballing here: You can place ACH blocks on accounts, at some banks anyway. I don’t know if the bank will give you the transaction information if a transfer is attempted. If they will, shouldn’t it be possible to set up a honeypot account in order to get the ACH info? Is that info enough to trace back to the spammers? This opens up other legal questions though. It’s entirely possible that you could then be on the hook for non payment or something.
    - paulgb 4y ago
      Oh yeah, I forgot that some banks allow that. Maybe an even easier thing to try is telling the scammer you need their ACH so you can whitelist it with your bank own bank?
eli 4y ago
Maybe you’d get a bank account but it wouldn’t actually be theirs.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Yeah, you’ll get the bank account of some other person who has been scammed into a “no experience necessary work-from-home job” transferring money