12 ms·

Sadly, my daughter got scammed earlier this year. She is a recent college grad from a liberal arts school, and had been working six months doing retail work aft

Sadly, my daughter got scammed earlier this year. She is a recent college grad from a liberal arts school, and had been working six months doing retail work after graduation. Looking to make use of her degree, she was excited to get a job offer doing remote work as an office coordinator. She has a dog so working from home was a plus, and $25/hr instead of $16/hr doing retail was a big raise. She not only lost $3000 from the scam check, she also lost her old job, having given two weeks notice and didn't realize it was a scam until she was gone. The thing that pained her the most was the shame of having been scammed. Although some red flags were there, her main blind spot was the disbelief that scammers would go to so much effort to (a) set up an entire website for the fake company, (b) were willing to spend hours in the fake interview, and (c) having her do two weeks of "training" courses while they waited for the laptop and other things she bought made it it cross country into their hands.

spoonjim 4y ago
There is no punishment that I would not hand down as a juror for people who exploit the trust of good people and poison society. Very literally, no punishment I would veto as too harsh.
silisili 4y ago
Sorry that happened to her. There's also some mental concept where people already got started or went so far, and subconsciously don't want to believe they've been had, so keep going. I'm sure there's a name for it, I can't be bothered to look up. It's why romance scams are so common, and also why that McDonald's manager undressed that employee, for example. Fascinating, but sad.
- puffoflogic 4y ago
  It could also explain the actios of some people who are "caught" going to the hotel room of 40 year old cops pretending to be 14 year olds online, but who only "reveal" their age at the last second. But no one likes to think about this version of confirmation bias/the bias you were talking about, somehow.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  The McDonalds manager story in question: https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3688563&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3688563&page=1 Which would be completely unbelievable if there wasn't security footage of the whole thing!
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - notch656a 4y ago
    Meanwhile if an actual police officer directs a private citizen to perform this kind of search, it's not only apparently legal but approved by the medical and nursing board. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.azd.985537/gov.uscourts.azd.985537.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.azd.985...
    - mr-wendel 4y ago
      More on this case can be found at https://holdcbpaccountable.org/2016/08/09/cervantes-v-united-states-et-al/ https://holdcbpaccountable.org/2016/08/09/cervantes-v-united.... The real life story is pretty sickening: an ~8 hour ordeal starting with the CDP saying "we think you have drugs" and forcibly sending an 18 year old girl to the hospital for an x-ray, in handcuffs, where she is instead invasively strip searched (with the CDP and hospital staff in audience). Nothing is found so they eventually let her go. The court basically ruled that: - The CDP did its job "correctly". They just need to think you did something wrong to detain you and force you to accept medical interventions. - This was the wrong way to sue: the plaintiff must seek state-law tort action against the doctor for malpractice. Most disturbing to me is considering just is how many people were party to whole affair, and how easily a routine, but ill-fated encounter with authority can go so wrong. I can only hope that additional legal remediation brought some kind of justice and relief. Maybe this is yet another example of how contorted US law practice can be. I'm not holding my breath.
  - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
    jfc, that manager should be criminally culpable.
- robgibbons 4y ago
  Sounds like the sunken cost fallacy
  - silisili 4y ago
    That's what came to my mind, but it's subtly different. Sunk cost is usually seemingly rational thinking about capital invested. Whereas this is rather irrational refusal to see a problem due to potential embarrassment, usually along with some type of investment.
    - trinsic2 4y ago
      Cognitive bias?
    - ghaff 4y ago
      It's more along the lines of you develop tunnel vision. You just look at the next step ahead and you never backup and ask yourself whether the whole thing makes sense. You see it with all kinds of things including solving technical and other problems. Once you've decided something is true, it's easy to dismiss all sorts of signals that maybe it isn't.
- noduerme 4y ago
  Speaking of McDonald's, what you're describing is the same impulse that makes me accept and consume a hamburger after I've watched numerous employees violating health codes before they hand it to me. Like, this is a major company, and I don't have enough time to question all the details...
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  I think it's because way too many people don't have firm boundaries. They don't recognize unacceptable behavior and so cannot put a stop to it before they are victimized. Someone tried to scam me once by taking over the Instagram account of a hotel and baiting me with a discount. That by itself is not a problem, it could be a legit offer. Their intentions became obvious when I randomly got a message with a 2 factor code and they asked me for the number. Criminals must necessarily violate social rules in order to carry out their crimes. A robber on the street must close the distance against the victim in order to get in attack range. In my case, the unacceptable behavior was asking me about information that was not only secret but also useless to anyone but me. Recognizing these violations of social norms and enforcing firm boundaries is necessary to defend against these people. People who don't understand what a 2 factor code is will not recognize that it is unacceptable behavior for another person to ask for one and will see no problem with revealing the secret.
jestarray 4y ago
I understand, I had that same belief. My thoughts were that faking checks and money is dangerous and stupidly hard, and since jobs pay you, the idea that it was a scam never came to my mind until way later when I was asked to wire...
- ghaff 4y ago
  I can go on Walmart.com (or many other places) and get a box of checks made for $15 with any name, routing number, and account number I care to provide them. That said, receiving a personal check from a company of any size should properly set off a lot of alarm bells.
donkeydoug 4y ago
I hope you let her know that she shouldn't be ashamed. These people take advantage of the good nature of others. It's also something they work at every day to improve their ability to take advantage of others, fix the mistakes that caused the last con to fail so that the next person will be at an even greater disadvantage. Learn the lesson & move on.
- tasty_freeze 4y ago
  Absolutely, we (my wife and I) did.
wccrawford 4y ago
For everything before the training courses, I was like "Eh, I could see it" but after that, it's pretty clear that it really did feel like a real job. At about that same age, I was pretty desperate for a decent job and I could totally see at least being very, very tempted to fall for it, too. I'd of course like to think I'd never fall for that, but you don't know until it happens to you.
newaccount74 4y ago
> The thing that pained her the most was the shame of having been scammed. I've fallen victim to a scammer as well (paid rent to a "landlord" who it turns out didn't actually own the place). It sucks, but I don't think it's something to be ashamed of. Our society is built on trust, and some people exploit that.
- fxtentacle 4y ago
  It can also go the other way. I was once asked to wire money to a person I had never met in a country I had never been to. They said I needed to pre-pay my holiday rental. It totally felt like a scam, but it turned out to be legit and the apartment was lovely.
- trinsic2 4y ago
  I'm sorry to hear that this happened to you. I almost got scammed by this as well. But it felt strange to me that there was no actual person I needed to meet to complete the rental agreement. And then when they asked me to wire the money I knew it was a scam.
jacurtis 4y ago
At least your daughter went through a full interview, which does add a layer of legitimacy. The most shocking element of OP's story is that he never actually got interviewed by a real person. He filled out a questionaire, received no feedback from it other than "You're hired at 12.5% more than you're asking". This to me is the biggest red flag of all leading up to the actual "ask" to cash the check and send funds. It seems odd to get a job for $90k /yr without ever meeting someone from the company. Even if that actually wasn't a scam, I would avoid taking a job for a company like that. How good are your co-workers going to be if they are just hired based on a text-based questionaire and a prayer?
- grepfru_it 4y ago
  why why why would you send money to someone who would ask you to send it back. why can't they just convert that money state themselves? i always wonder how people end up for these scams. unless its your very close friend or family, don't launder money. i think this is a life lesson we learn in middle school and grow up to think adults are more trustworthy
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    > unless its your very close friend or family, don't launder money. i think this is a life lesson we learn in middle school Sorry, what middle school child learned that? None that I know.
    - vba616 4y ago
      I think it was in high school, that I found out about the basic money-back scam, because I innocently tried to buy something in a store with a certified (bank) check for more than the right amount and they wouldn't give me change. Eventually they took it and said I would get a refund from headquarters, but they were extremely suspicious. This was before the internet was really a thing, too, so the same basic scam has been around for a long long time.
      - 4y ago

spoonjim 4y ago

There is no punishment that I would not hand down as a juror for people who exploit the trust of good people and poison society. Very literally, no punishment I would veto as too harsh.

silisili 4y ago

Sorry that happened to her. There's also some mental concept where people already got started or went so far, and subconsciously don't want to believe they've been had, so keep going. I'm sure there's a name for it, I can't be bothered to look up. It's why romance scams are so common, and also why that McDonald's manager undressed that employee, for example. Fascinating, but sad.

puffoflogic 4y ago
It could also explain the actios of some people who are "caught" going to the hotel room of 40 year old cops pretending to be 14 year olds online, but who only "reveal" their age at the last second. But no one likes to think about this version of confirmation bias/the bias you were talking about, somehow.
rippercushions 4y ago
The McDonalds manager story in question: https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3688563&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3688563&page=1 Which would be completely unbelievable if there wasn't security footage of the whole thing!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- notch656a 4y ago
  Meanwhile if an actual police officer directs a private citizen to perform this kind of search, it's not only apparently legal but approved by the medical and nursing board. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.azd.985537/gov.uscourts.azd.985537.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.azd.985...
  - mr-wendel 4y ago
    More on this case can be found at https://holdcbpaccountable.org/2016/08/09/cervantes-v-united-states-et-al/ https://holdcbpaccountable.org/2016/08/09/cervantes-v-united.... The real life story is pretty sickening: an ~8 hour ordeal starting with the CDP saying "we think you have drugs" and forcibly sending an 18 year old girl to the hospital for an x-ray, in handcuffs, where she is instead invasively strip searched (with the CDP and hospital staff in audience). Nothing is found so they eventually let her go. The court basically ruled that: - The CDP did its job "correctly". They just need to think you did something wrong to detain you and force you to accept medical interventions. - This was the wrong way to sue: the plaintiff must seek state-law tort action against the doctor for malpractice. Most disturbing to me is considering just is how many people were party to whole affair, and how easily a routine, but ill-fated encounter with authority can go so wrong. I can only hope that additional legal remediation brought some kind of justice and relief. Maybe this is yet another example of how contorted US law practice can be. I'm not holding my breath.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
  jfc, that manager should be criminally culpable.
robgibbons 4y ago
Sounds like the sunken cost fallacy
- silisili 4y ago
  That's what came to my mind, but it's subtly different. Sunk cost is usually seemingly rational thinking about capital invested. Whereas this is rather irrational refusal to see a problem due to potential embarrassment, usually along with some type of investment.
  - trinsic2 4y ago
    Cognitive bias?
  - ghaff 4y ago
    It's more along the lines of you develop tunnel vision. You just look at the next step ahead and you never backup and ask yourself whether the whole thing makes sense. You see it with all kinds of things including solving technical and other problems. Once you've decided something is true, it's easy to dismiss all sorts of signals that maybe it isn't.
noduerme 4y ago
Speaking of McDonald's, what you're describing is the same impulse that makes me accept and consume a hamburger after I've watched numerous employees violating health codes before they hand it to me. Like, this is a major company, and I don't have enough time to question all the details...
matheusmoreira 4y ago
I think it's because way too many people don't have firm boundaries. They don't recognize unacceptable behavior and so cannot put a stop to it before they are victimized. Someone tried to scam me once by taking over the Instagram account of a hotel and baiting me with a discount. That by itself is not a problem, it could be a legit offer. Their intentions became obvious when I randomly got a message with a 2 factor code and they asked me for the number. Criminals must necessarily violate social rules in order to carry out their crimes. A robber on the street must close the distance against the victim in order to get in attack range. In my case, the unacceptable behavior was asking me about information that was not only secret but also useless to anyone but me. Recognizing these violations of social norms and enforcing firm boundaries is necessary to defend against these people. People who don't understand what a 2 factor code is will not recognize that it is unacceptable behavior for another person to ask for one and will see no problem with revealing the secret.

jestarray 4y ago

I understand, I had that same belief. My thoughts were that faking checks and money is dangerous and stupidly hard, and since jobs pay you, the idea that it was a scam never came to my mind until way later when I was asked to wire...

ghaff 4y ago
I can go on Walmart.com (or many other places) and get a box of checks made for $15 with any name, routing number, and account number I care to provide them. That said, receiving a personal check from a company of any size should properly set off a lot of alarm bells.

donkeydoug 4y ago

I hope you let her know that she shouldn't be ashamed. These people take advantage of the good nature of others. It's also something they work at every day to improve their ability to take advantage of others, fix the mistakes that caused the last con to fail so that the next person will be at an even greater disadvantage. Learn the lesson & move on.

tasty_freeze 4y ago
Absolutely, we (my wife and I) did.

wccrawford 4y ago

For everything before the training courses, I was like "Eh, I could see it" but after that, it's pretty clear that it really did feel like a real job. At about that same age, I was pretty desperate for a decent job and I could totally see at least being very, very tempted to fall for it, too. I'd of course like to think I'd never fall for that, but you don't know until it happens to you.

newaccount74 4y ago

> The thing that pained her the most was the shame of having been scammed. I've fallen victim to a scammer as well (paid rent to a "landlord" who it turns out didn't actually own the place). It sucks, but I don't think it's something to be ashamed of. Our society is built on trust, and some people exploit that.

fxtentacle 4y ago
It can also go the other way. I was once asked to wire money to a person I had never met in a country I had never been to. They said I needed to pre-pay my holiday rental. It totally felt like a scam, but it turned out to be legit and the apartment was lovely.
trinsic2 4y ago
I'm sorry to hear that this happened to you. I almost got scammed by this as well. But it felt strange to me that there was no actual person I needed to meet to complete the rental agreement. And then when they asked me to wire the money I knew it was a scam.

jacurtis 4y ago

At least your daughter went through a full interview, which does add a layer of legitimacy. The most shocking element of OP's story is that he never actually got interviewed by a real person. He filled out a questionaire, received no feedback from it other than "You're hired at 12.5% more than you're asking". This to me is the biggest red flag of all leading up to the actual "ask" to cash the check and send funds. It seems odd to get a job for $90k /yr without ever meeting someone from the company. Even if that actually wasn't a scam, I would avoid taking a job for a company like that. How good are your co-workers going to be if they are just hired based on a text-based questionaire and a prayer?

grepfru_it 4y ago
why why why would you send money to someone who would ask you to send it back. why can't they just convert that money state themselves? i always wonder how people end up for these scams. unless its your very close friend or family, don't launder money. i think this is a life lesson we learn in middle school and grow up to think adults are more trustworthy
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  > unless its your very close friend or family, don't launder money. i think this is a life lesson we learn in middle school Sorry, what middle school child learned that? None that I know.
  - vba616 4y ago
    I think it was in high school, that I found out about the basic money-back scam, because I innocently tried to buy something in a store with a certified (bank) check for more than the right amount and they wouldn't give me change. Eventually they took it and said I would get a refund from headquarters, but they were extremely suspicious. This was before the internet was really a thing, too, so the same basic scam has been around for a long long time.
    - 4y ago