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My uncle almost drove two states away to give a stranger $10,000 because he was duped into believing his grandson had gotten into an accident and killed a pregn

My uncle almost drove two states away to give a stranger $10,000 because he was duped into believing his grandson had gotten into an accident and killed a pregnant woman. The only thing that stopped it was that he first needed to borrow the money, which led to my involvement. We made some calls and were quickly able to confirm that the grandson in question was at home and nowhere near the "accident" in question. My parents have had to cancel their main debit card twice in the past year because they've given out the number to someone they thought was with their bank. My neighbor (in her 80s) almost gave her SSN to somebody who claimed to be with Social Security. I knew a guy who lost his entire retirement to scammers and had to give up his dream of retiring to Florida. I'm sad to say it, but it's more dangerous than ever to be old or naive. In the old days, the scammers had to come to you. The internet has made it trivial to carry out scam operations from the other side of the world, and everyone who COULD do something (especially the FCC and telcos) seems to be indifferent and apathetic.

grimgrin 4y ago
similar story for me a year ago. grandpa got a call that i was in jail for hitting a car and the driver was pregnant. lost her baby. they even had “me” talk to them briefly which really got em believing. he went to bank and mailed $9500 in cash, to what ultimately appeared to be an airbnb was v sad because he felt supreme humiliation over the matter.
- shockeychap 4y ago
  I'm sorry to hear that. It was almost the exact same thing with my uncle. When I first started asking questions, he tried to assure me it was legit because he had heard his grandson talking in the background. My guess is that they had somebody sobbing hysterically while talking so as to make it hard to recognize that the voice is "off". When you're stressed, it's easy to miss that kind of thing, and they exploit it.
- codezero 4y ago
  Airbnb must be a hotbed for these sort of things. I had a friend in the 90s who would squat at unfinished or unoccupied homes while he ran fraud scams, renting an Airbnb seems much easier, since these scammers almost certainly rented it with a stolen identity.
  - blisterpeanuts 4y ago
    A friend?
    - codezero 4y ago
      Lots of people do bad things, most bad people have friends, many of whom are either too naive or too lonely to be picky. He treated me well and taught me a lot about tech in the 90s. It was not easy to find mentors/like minded people (tech, not fraud) where I lived at the time, so the criminal aspect was regrettable. As an adult I look back and am so disappointed that he didn't do something legitimate, he was a top notch sysadmin, and was great with customers (I mean, that's how scams work) - he could have been much more enriched by going legit. He rightfully ended up in prison for about 14 years, maybe more? But yes, a friend.
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  Happened to my uncle, he records all calls so he was able to show us. When they let him speak to "his son" he sounded just like him and even used the same greeting his son normally does with him. Was very creepy. And his real son had his phone turned off during that time. The really weird bit is they didn't ask him to send any money out. They knew his address and some "police" showed up an hour later demanding he write them a check. This is in Canada. They've apparently found the guy, but there's some difficulties because he's in a different province.
  - tsol 4y ago
    That sounds so strangely elaborate. I wonder how they fake the voice and why they bother to have a second person come to the house
Mistletoe 4y ago
It scares me very much that these people vote and the terrible state of American politics largely reflects that. If you can’t have the forethought to call your grandson to see before giving someone $10,000, do you have the brain capacity to make an intelligent voting choice? I know this is a tangent to your comment but after seeing my parents and others their age do similar things to what you describe it makes me wonder about voting and driving with no age limits or proof of non-dementia.
- supertrope 4y ago
  Yeah there's something off about the person's competence. This is not a corrupt country with bag men and personal connections trumping law. Anything important is in writing. Even if this were a real personal injury tragedy $10K in blood money won't make legal problems go away. That's barely enough for an ambulance ride, ER examination, and some imaging. Just like email phishing educating the public is very laborious but it is the ultimate solution. There will still be a few people who fall for scams no matter how extensive the PSA campaigns.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    The problem is, education alone won't help. Dementia, alzheimer's etc. are horrible, and ffs even experts on scams can get scammed like one of the scambaiter Youtubers (iirc Jim Browning?). You need to fix scams at the source: sanction India and other countries until they kick up efforts to neutralize scammers, and replace insecure systems like SSN.
- dylan604 4y ago
  I'm much much less concerned about senior citizens casting their vote than I am about the number of people that get their "news" from opinion shows under the banner of news programming. Doesn't matter the network, but if you're providing opinions, a giant opaque 288pt Impact font overlay of the word OPINION should be mandated to be on the screen. As long as people are duped into thinking opinions are news, we're never going to get a better electorate.
- elboru 4y ago
patrec 4y ago
> I'm sad to say it, but it's more dangerous than ever to be old or naive It will get orders of magnitude worse once all this can be fully automated by AI (including a completely realistic video or voice call by the grandson where he talks about killing the pregnant woman).
- shockeychap 4y ago
  Yes it will.
- tim333 4y ago
  We may be able to get good AIs to fight the bad AIs? I guess in this case something that pops up saying maybe call the grandson back?
  - patrec 4y ago
    It seems much easier to build an AI that helps less bright people to scam others than one that helps them to not get scammed. One needs to provide clear instructions for a single good scam when explicitly asked to do so, the other would need to provide good defenses to any number of scams and be more or less self-activated. There's also the matter of risks entailed by having large swathes of the population increasingly under the direct supervision of artificial minds (controlled by who?). I suspect something like this will happen though, and that one of the key uses of artificial intelligence will be as both an offensive and a defensive weapon for deceit and manipulation. Indeed the offensive part would seem to be a natural continuation of the enormous resources poured into ml-driven engagement maximization and the quest for sufficiently politically correct AIs. As an example ChatGTP is evidently explicitly designed to lie about some things, including its own capabilities. I'm not sure what, if anything, currently exists on the defensive front.
    - tim333 4y ago
      At the moment online if I try going to a scam site / get scam email, Google tends to put up a warning which I imagine makes use of machine learning plus some other stuff. Yeah for voice calls nothing yet though the likes of Google/Apple could probably do something. Against your point that bad AI is easier, you have that Google/Apple have more resources than the scammers.
spaceman_2020 4y ago
It's nightmarish in India too right now. The spam is relentless, but they now target Whatsapp messages. Older people in India treat Whatsapp as the gospel and believe that anything that pops up on Whatsapp is "official". I've got my parents to essentially keep just the bare minimum in their bank accounts, to cancel all debit cards, and keep all extra funds in fixed deposits that you can't withdraw from online (have to visit the branch).

grimgrin 4y ago

similar story for me a year ago. grandpa got a call that i was in jail for hitting a car and the driver was pregnant. lost her baby. they even had “me” talk to them briefly which really got em believing. he went to bank and mailed $9500 in cash, to what ultimately appeared to be an airbnb was v sad because he felt supreme humiliation over the matter.

shockeychap 4y ago
I'm sorry to hear that. It was almost the exact same thing with my uncle. When I first started asking questions, he tried to assure me it was legit because he had heard his grandson talking in the background. My guess is that they had somebody sobbing hysterically while talking so as to make it hard to recognize that the voice is "off". When you're stressed, it's easy to miss that kind of thing, and they exploit it.
codezero 4y ago
Airbnb must be a hotbed for these sort of things. I had a friend in the 90s who would squat at unfinished or unoccupied homes while he ran fraud scams, renting an Airbnb seems much easier, since these scammers almost certainly rented it with a stolen identity.
- blisterpeanuts 4y ago
  A friend?
  - codezero 4y ago
    Lots of people do bad things, most bad people have friends, many of whom are either too naive or too lonely to be picky. He treated me well and taught me a lot about tech in the 90s. It was not easy to find mentors/like minded people (tech, not fraud) where I lived at the time, so the criminal aspect was regrettable. As an adult I look back and am so disappointed that he didn't do something legitimate, he was a top notch sysadmin, and was great with customers (I mean, that's how scams work) - he could have been much more enriched by going legit. He rightfully ended up in prison for about 14 years, maybe more? But yes, a friend.
squeaky-clean 4y ago
Happened to my uncle, he records all calls so he was able to show us. When they let him speak to "his son" he sounded just like him and even used the same greeting his son normally does with him. Was very creepy. And his real son had his phone turned off during that time. The really weird bit is they didn't ask him to send any money out. They knew his address and some "police" showed up an hour later demanding he write them a check. This is in Canada. They've apparently found the guy, but there's some difficulties because he's in a different province.
- tsol 4y ago
  That sounds so strangely elaborate. I wonder how they fake the voice and why they bother to have a second person come to the house

Mistletoe 4y ago

It scares me very much that these people vote and the terrible state of American politics largely reflects that. If you can’t have the forethought to call your grandson to see before giving someone $10,000, do you have the brain capacity to make an intelligent voting choice? I know this is a tangent to your comment but after seeing my parents and others their age do similar things to what you describe it makes me wonder about voting and driving with no age limits or proof of non-dementia.

supertrope 4y ago
Yeah there's something off about the person's competence. This is not a corrupt country with bag men and personal connections trumping law. Anything important is in writing. Even if this were a real personal injury tragedy $10K in blood money won't make legal problems go away. That's barely enough for an ambulance ride, ER examination, and some imaging. Just like email phishing educating the public is very laborious but it is the ultimate solution. There will still be a few people who fall for scams no matter how extensive the PSA campaigns.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  The problem is, education alone won't help. Dementia, alzheimer's etc. are horrible, and ffs even experts on scams can get scammed like one of the scambaiter Youtubers (iirc Jim Browning?). You need to fix scams at the source: sanction India and other countries until they kick up efforts to neutralize scammers, and replace insecure systems like SSN.
dylan604 4y ago
I'm much much less concerned about senior citizens casting their vote than I am about the number of people that get their "news" from opinion shows under the banner of news programming. Doesn't matter the network, but if you're providing opinions, a giant opaque 288pt Impact font overlay of the word OPINION should be mandated to be on the screen. As long as people are duped into thinking opinions are news, we're never going to get a better electorate.
elboru 4y ago

patrec 4y ago

> I'm sad to say it, but it's more dangerous than ever to be old or naive It will get orders of magnitude worse once all this can be fully automated by AI (including a completely realistic video or voice call by the grandson where he talks about killing the pregnant woman).

shockeychap 4y ago
Yes it will.
tim333 4y ago
We may be able to get good AIs to fight the bad AIs? I guess in this case something that pops up saying maybe call the grandson back?
- patrec 4y ago
  It seems much easier to build an AI that helps less bright people to scam others than one that helps them to not get scammed. One needs to provide clear instructions for a single good scam when explicitly asked to do so, the other would need to provide good defenses to any number of scams and be more or less self-activated. There's also the matter of risks entailed by having large swathes of the population increasingly under the direct supervision of artificial minds (controlled by who?). I suspect something like this will happen though, and that one of the key uses of artificial intelligence will be as both an offensive and a defensive weapon for deceit and manipulation. Indeed the offensive part would seem to be a natural continuation of the enormous resources poured into ml-driven engagement maximization and the quest for sufficiently politically correct AIs. As an example ChatGTP is evidently explicitly designed to lie about some things, including its own capabilities. I'm not sure what, if anything, currently exists on the defensive front.
  - tim333 4y ago
    At the moment online if I try going to a scam site / get scam email, Google tends to put up a warning which I imagine makes use of machine learning plus some other stuff. Yeah for voice calls nothing yet though the likes of Google/Apple could probably do something. Against your point that bad AI is easier, you have that Google/Apple have more resources than the scammers.

spaceman_2020 4y ago

It's nightmarish in India too right now. The spam is relentless, but they now target Whatsapp messages. Older people in India treat Whatsapp as the gospel and believe that anything that pops up on Whatsapp is "official". I've got my parents to essentially keep just the bare minimum in their bank accounts, to cancel all debit cards, and keep all extra funds in fixed deposits that you can't withdraw from online (have to visit the branch).