3 ms·

There is so much wrong with the faked Red Cross invoice 1) A German date is always written DD.MM.YYYY 2) PLZ not ZIP 3) „Wir danken für ihr Unternehmen“ is a

by hilti 2y ago

There is so much wrong with the faked Red Cross invoice 1) A German date is always written DD.MM.YYYY 2) PLZ not ZIP 3) „Wir danken für ihr Unternehmen“ is a bad translation for „Thank you for your business“ … but it means a complete different thing -> „Thank you for your company“ But I‘m still impressed how much effort this guy put into all this. And I‘m sure my friends would have bought me this badge, because they had no idea it‘s fake.

yumong 2y ago
And the locally used abbreviation for the currency at the time was DM, not DEM. For close to $1000, a little bit of effort is not unexpected. (Also, why assume this was a guy?)
- s0fasurfa 2y ago
  Another red flag: this invoice was issued just days before the EURO was introduced in Germany (1st of January 2022). Invoices issued in these times would have surely shown the amount in EUR as well.
- serf 2y ago
  'guy'/'guys' is used without a gender context in certain regions, more like synonyms of 'folks '. I hear "hey guys" routinely in SoCal said without intention of labeling people.
  - pixiemagic 2y ago
    Only in the plural form though, right? I'm in the UK, where the usage you describe is common too, but reading "this guy" like in the comment above, I would assume they're talking about a man.
    - germinalphrase 2y ago
      Your understanding is common in the US as well. Singular “guy” would read as “man” or “boy” while the plural “you guys” can read as gender neutral (though some argue that “you guys” should be avoided in mixed gender groups for being inadequately inclusive). I would expect there are some regional US differences in usage and reactions.
    - kibwen 2y ago
      Even then it's highly context-dependent. Ask any heterosexual man "how many guys have you kissed in your life?" and not a single one of them is going to consider this instance of "guys" as encompassing women.
raverbashing 2y ago
Even funnier is that when googling I see some examples of actual invoices/receipts by the German Red Cross. But of course they would need to know what to actually google ;)
tomaskafka 2y ago
Thank you! So, to paraphrase a Cunningham's Law, "the best way to make a good fake on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong fake." Future defrauders will love both Cabel's post and this discussion :)
- nativeit 2y ago
  I’ve seen this suggested elsewhere, and I’m not sure I buy into this logic. He’s using deductions based on a broad set of otherwise well known facts and conclusions that would be available to anyone who thought about it enough, and paid close attention to detail. Nothing in this article is arcane knowledge, or even especially esoteric. It isn’t even exhaustive, as additional imperfections have been identified by commenters on the article and in this very thread. That it’s collected in this one post might be somewhat useful to someone specifically seeking to produce a counterfeit ID badge made to appear as if it had been created circa mid-1970s, but only to a limited extent as the processes used at the time for such things varied much more widely than they would today. There’s also the fact that the person who performed this fraud was successful, despite this being reported to eBay by multiple sources before the auction concluded. So there’s not much motivation to expend the additional time and energy drilling down farther on tiny details, if their inaccuracy hasn’t caused them to fail thus far. If anything, I’d imagine this will be useful to prop designers and miniatures hobbyists, who will exert substantial effort to achieve maximal accuracy just for its own sake.
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
I mean I appreciate the effort put into it and to the untrained eye this looks good enough for e.g. movie props. I wonder if the creator is just a professional scammer or works in the movie / reproduction industry?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
MgB2 2y ago
- Germans use commas as the decimal separator, while periods are only used to separate thousands. - As stated in one of the linked mastodon posts, the abbreviation for the Deutsche Mark was DM, not DEM Also, I have no idea how the seller thought the German Red Cross would emboss their paper with a circle of stars. If anything, embossing the cross itself would make the most sense. Probably they had the tool on hand from another forgery where it may have made more sense.
- achow 2y ago
  > I have no idea how the seller thought the German Red Cross would emboss their paper with a circle of stars Perhaps because of European Union flag? https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/symbols/european-flag_en https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor...
  - eapressoandcats 2y ago
    That’s probably what it is but there isn’t any reason for the German Red Cross to be embossing with the EU flag.
    - turquoisevar 2y ago
      To say nothing of the fact that embossing a document in Germany, and Europe in general, is extremely rare and certainly not common on your garden variety receipt or invoice (basically never). They were a bit more common pre-90’s though. Without the aim of trying to insult anyone, frills like that are more common in the US when trying to emphasize the official nature of documents (e.g., notary public embossing). Even so, on top of all that, it would make exactly zero sense for the embossing to be the EU stars.
      - ttepasse 2y ago
        It isn’t even the European stars – the Flag of Europe always had 12 stars, whereas the embossing has 16 stars. “Ah, 16 stars, because Germany has 16 federal states”, you'd say at first thought. But while the German Red Cross organization has sub-organizations, the Landesverbände, those only partially mirror the modern 16 federal states. Some Landesverbände predate the modern federal states and are instead for more traditional German regions. Instead of a single Landesverband for the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen [1] there are two Landesverbände, one for Nordrhein, one for Westfalia-Lippe. In Lower Saxony there is an extra Landesverband for Oldenburg, in Baden-Württemberg there is an extra Badischer Landesverband. That makes 19 regional sub-organizations, but there aren’t 19 stars. And all of these 19 regional subs predate 2001. I can’t really see a reason for the DRK in 2001 to use 16 stars. [1] Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine Westfalia) was created forcefully by the British Military Administration in 1946 out of the former prussian provinces of the Rhine and parts of Westfalia (and small Lippe!) in the creatively named "Operation Marriage". Nobody thought a union between the lively Rhinelanders and the laconic Westfalians (and the Lippians!) could work given the differences – but it seems to work mostly great. Nobody thinks of seceding. Must be the first time in history.
tauchunfall 2y ago
Also "Rechnung #" instead of "Rechnung Nr." or "Rechnungsnr.".
sgt 2y ago
Also note the Rechnung #: 45968L59 So if you type 459 on a keyboard, a natural jump to something in the middle would be 68. 4-5-9, then 6-8 quickly. Right hand finds another letter "L" and then jumps back into the usual 59. This is not definite but adds slightly to the suspicion.

by hilti 2y ago

yumong 2y ago

And the locally used abbreviation for the currency at the time was DM, not DEM. For close to $1000, a little bit of effort is not unexpected. (Also, why assume this was a guy?)

s0fasurfa 2y ago
Another red flag: this invoice was issued just days before the EURO was introduced in Germany (1st of January 2022). Invoices issued in these times would have surely shown the amount in EUR as well.
serf 2y ago
'guy'/'guys' is used without a gender context in certain regions, more like synonyms of 'folks '. I hear "hey guys" routinely in SoCal said without intention of labeling people.
- pixiemagic 2y ago
  Only in the plural form though, right? I'm in the UK, where the usage you describe is common too, but reading "this guy" like in the comment above, I would assume they're talking about a man.
  - germinalphrase 2y ago
    Your understanding is common in the US as well. Singular “guy” would read as “man” or “boy” while the plural “you guys” can read as gender neutral (though some argue that “you guys” should be avoided in mixed gender groups for being inadequately inclusive). I would expect there are some regional US differences in usage and reactions.
  - kibwen 2y ago
    Even then it's highly context-dependent. Ask any heterosexual man "how many guys have you kissed in your life?" and not a single one of them is going to consider this instance of "guys" as encompassing women.

raverbashing 2y ago

Even funnier is that when googling I see some examples of actual invoices/receipts by the German Red Cross. But of course they would need to know what to actually google ;)

tomaskafka 2y ago

Thank you! So, to paraphrase a Cunningham's Law, "the best way to make a good fake on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong fake." Future defrauders will love both Cabel's post and this discussion :)

nativeit 2y ago
I’ve seen this suggested elsewhere, and I’m not sure I buy into this logic. He’s using deductions based on a broad set of otherwise well known facts and conclusions that would be available to anyone who thought about it enough, and paid close attention to detail. Nothing in this article is arcane knowledge, or even especially esoteric. It isn’t even exhaustive, as additional imperfections have been identified by commenters on the article and in this very thread. That it’s collected in this one post might be somewhat useful to someone specifically seeking to produce a counterfeit ID badge made to appear as if it had been created circa mid-1970s, but only to a limited extent as the processes used at the time for such things varied much more widely than they would today. There’s also the fact that the person who performed this fraud was successful, despite this being reported to eBay by multiple sources before the auction concluded. So there’s not much motivation to expend the additional time and energy drilling down farther on tiny details, if their inaccuracy hasn’t caused them to fail thus far. If anything, I’d imagine this will be useful to prop designers and miniatures hobbyists, who will exert substantial effort to achieve maximal accuracy just for its own sake.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

I mean I appreciate the effort put into it and to the untrained eye this looks good enough for e.g. movie props. I wonder if the creator is just a professional scammer or works in the movie / reproduction industry?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

MgB2 2y ago

- Germans use commas as the decimal separator, while periods are only used to separate thousands. - As stated in one of the linked mastodon posts, the abbreviation for the Deutsche Mark was DM, not DEM Also, I have no idea how the seller thought the German Red Cross would emboss their paper with a circle of stars. If anything, embossing the cross itself would make the most sense. Probably they had the tool on hand from another forgery where it may have made more sense.

achow 2y ago
> I have no idea how the seller thought the German Red Cross would emboss their paper with a circle of stars Perhaps because of European Union flag? https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/symbols/european-flag_en https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor...
- eapressoandcats 2y ago
  That’s probably what it is but there isn’t any reason for the German Red Cross to be embossing with the EU flag.
  - turquoisevar 2y ago
    To say nothing of the fact that embossing a document in Germany, and Europe in general, is extremely rare and certainly not common on your garden variety receipt or invoice (basically never). They were a bit more common pre-90’s though. Without the aim of trying to insult anyone, frills like that are more common in the US when trying to emphasize the official nature of documents (e.g., notary public embossing). Even so, on top of all that, it would make exactly zero sense for the embossing to be the EU stars.
    - ttepasse 2y ago
      It isn’t even the European stars – the Flag of Europe always had 12 stars, whereas the embossing has 16 stars. “Ah, 16 stars, because Germany has 16 federal states”, you'd say at first thought. But while the German Red Cross organization has sub-organizations, the Landesverbände, those only partially mirror the modern 16 federal states. Some Landesverbände predate the modern federal states and are instead for more traditional German regions. Instead of a single Landesverband for the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen [1] there are two Landesverbände, one for Nordrhein, one for Westfalia-Lippe. In Lower Saxony there is an extra Landesverband for Oldenburg, in Baden-Württemberg there is an extra Badischer Landesverband. That makes 19 regional sub-organizations, but there aren’t 19 stars. And all of these 19 regional subs predate 2001. I can’t really see a reason for the DRK in 2001 to use 16 stars. [1] Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine Westfalia) was created forcefully by the British Military Administration in 1946 out of the former prussian provinces of the Rhine and parts of Westfalia (and small Lippe!) in the creatively named "Operation Marriage". Nobody thought a union between the lively Rhinelanders and the laconic Westfalians (and the Lippians!) could work given the differences – but it seems to work mostly great. Nobody thinks of seceding. Must be the first time in history.

tauchunfall 2y ago

Also "Rechnung #" instead of "Rechnung Nr." or "Rechnungsnr.".

sgt 2y ago

Also note the Rechnung #: 45968L59 So if you type 459 on a keyboard, a natural jump to something in the middle would be 68. 4-5-9, then 6-8 quickly. Right hand finds another letter "L" and then jumps back into the usual 59. This is not definite but adds slightly to the suspicion.