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The ROI on scams based in Indian call centers is already huge. They recently took my mom for $25k for what was a few hours of “work” over the span of two days.

The ROI on scams based in Indian call centers is already huge. They recently took my mom for $25k for what was a few hours of “work” over the span of two days. When I reviewed their communications and got the full story from my mom they’re in some ways laughably bad and in other ways very cunning. Turns out it all started with a comically bad initial e-mail, pop-up, and then remote access. Then follow-up calls and text messages (Bitcoin QR code with her bank logo) and multiple people impersonating banks, various government agencies, etc. The end to end pipeline to replicate this via AI would be very complex and difficult (today). I imagine the increased scale, additional opportunity, and reduced “payroll” that could be realized utilizing AI (given the initial level of development effort) just isn’t there. Yet.

dbspin 2y ago
I'm so sorry, that's absolutely awful. Hope your moms OK.
burningChrome 2y ago
Banks are actually getting much better at ferreting out these scams. My Mom got one of those calls where the guy said my son was jail and they needed to pay his cash bail to get him out. They never called me or him, just panicked and went to the bank to get the cash out and the bank refused to give them the money because they knew it was a scam. They started asking my parents questions and pointing out how the scam worked when they got agitated they weren't giving them the money. They called me from the bank and I texted my son and he was completely confused since he was at work and was just fine. I thanked the people at the bank profusely for their intervention. It was a great learning experience for my parents as well. They are way more leery about strangers calling and have already hung up on several scammers. They also filter out email messages and won't click on any links in emails or pop-ups. The whole experience really put their radar up for this stuff now.
- angry_old_man_5 2y ago
  I've read that even Target does this now, especially when an elderly person comes in trying to buy thousands of dollars worth of gift cards. Unfortunately too late for my grandmother. In her case, she'll know it's a scam and still participate just because she's bored.
  - tdeck 2y ago
    If she's bored there are other ways to have fun with scammers. Perhaps this YouTube playlist can inspire her: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk5KvJPikK02cQeWELmS-zh0MtNfwuh_e https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk5KvJPikK02cQeWELmS-zh...
- candiddevmike 2y ago
  Then you get the BTC folks arguing that all this regulation and safeguarding is a plot to prevent you from using your money. And once BTC takes over your mom can finally be her own bank.
  - Dibby053 2y ago
    So there's regulation. Until I read this I had assumed the bank branch was helpfully breaking the law by refusing to release customer funds. Do you know what's the law that forces (or allows) banks to do this?
    - candiddevmike 2y ago
      The terms of service when you open a checking account with them?
- kkielhofner 2y ago
  Her bank tried... She lives across the country from me and I flew to see her to help put her life back together. It was very involved: pretty much had to reconstruct her entire digital life. New phone numbers, e-mail addresses, online accounts, passwords, all banking, credit cards, recurring payments, bill pay - EVERYTHING. My concern was now that they had a fish on the hook where the scam worked once, they'd (of course) come back with a new angle. As part of that we went to the branch where she made these cash withdrawals. I had the opportunity to speak with the teller that was there both days. The teller's story (and I believe her) was that she was extremely suspicious of the overall situation and had an extended conversation with my mom about how unusual this was, often used for scams, etc. However, back to my original point the scammers were well ahead of this... My mom banks with Wells Fargo. Once the scammers discovered that they were able to capitalize on the news story from years back with the Wells Fargo fake accounts/fraud scandal. They even sent her links to news stories about it. They were able to convince my mom that her money wasn't safe at Wells Fargo because the government was investigating another Wells Fargo scam and that all of their employees are in on it. They had another scammer in the org impersonate someone from the Federal Trade Commission (ridiculous) who was supposedly investigating this. They prepared my mom with a robust script to dance around the teller's questions and skepticism that the cash she was withdrawing was for legitimate purposes. In this case the script was something about my mom doing construction on her home and paying laborers, contractors, etc in cash. The entirety of the scam is wild. Once they got remote access from the phishing e-mail they got opened up Windows Command Prompt and pasted in a bunch of echo statements with stuff like "Child pornography detected" and a bunch of other ridiculous stuff. However - let's remember that thanks to Hollywood any terminal interface looks scary and sophisticated to the general population (every movie ever "hacking" with CLI gibberish). They had her convinced she was being watched/followed, investigated for CP, her phones were tapped, etc, etc, etc. She was so freaked out she didn't know if she was going to be killed or go to jail. My sister happened to try to reach her and my mom called her back from a friends phone. Was sister somehow stumbled on this and of course knew it was a scam. My mom didn't believe her. Needless to say I have a lot of credibility in my family on this stuff (given what I do) so thankfully my sister was able to get my mom to call me. At the beginning of the call I was able to say to my mom "This is a scam. Let me guess: they did X, then did Y, told you Z, something with cryptocurrency, etc, etc". Only when I more-or-less nailed/predicted most of the details before my mom could even tell me her story did she realize that this was, in fact, a scam. It made me realize something: when we were growing up a saying was "talk to your kids about drugs". There needs to be an equivalent campaign for these scams. Like many here I follow this kind of stuff pretty closely but only thought of it as a curiosity because they're so ridiculous (to me/us). It never occurred to me that I should be regularly updating less sophisticated friends and family members on the scams du jour. HN Community: Talk to your friends and family about scams.
- Animats 2y ago
  > Banks are actually getting much better at ferreting out these scams. A friend of mine runs a retail bank branch for a major bank. The other staff refer customers to her if they suspect a scam. She sees a few of these each month. But those are just the people who personally come into a bank branch.
tennisflyi 2y ago
The “comically bad e-mail” is a test to see if you have a critical eye or not/willing to gloss over things/give the benefit of doubt

dbspin 2y ago

I'm so sorry, that's absolutely awful. Hope your moms OK.

burningChrome 2y ago

Banks are actually getting much better at ferreting out these scams. My Mom got one of those calls where the guy said my son was jail and they needed to pay his cash bail to get him out. They never called me or him, just panicked and went to the bank to get the cash out and the bank refused to give them the money because they knew it was a scam. They started asking my parents questions and pointing out how the scam worked when they got agitated they weren't giving them the money. They called me from the bank and I texted my son and he was completely confused since he was at work and was just fine. I thanked the people at the bank profusely for their intervention. It was a great learning experience for my parents as well. They are way more leery about strangers calling and have already hung up on several scammers. They also filter out email messages and won't click on any links in emails or pop-ups. The whole experience really put their radar up for this stuff now.

angry_old_man_5 2y ago
I've read that even Target does this now, especially when an elderly person comes in trying to buy thousands of dollars worth of gift cards. Unfortunately too late for my grandmother. In her case, she'll know it's a scam and still participate just because she's bored.
- tdeck 2y ago
  If she's bored there are other ways to have fun with scammers. Perhaps this YouTube playlist can inspire her: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk5KvJPikK02cQeWELmS-zh0MtNfwuh_e https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk5KvJPikK02cQeWELmS-zh...
candiddevmike 2y ago
Then you get the BTC folks arguing that all this regulation and safeguarding is a plot to prevent you from using your money. And once BTC takes over your mom can finally be her own bank.
- Dibby053 2y ago
  So there's regulation. Until I read this I had assumed the bank branch was helpfully breaking the law by refusing to release customer funds. Do you know what's the law that forces (or allows) banks to do this?
  - candiddevmike 2y ago
    The terms of service when you open a checking account with them?
kkielhofner 2y ago
Her bank tried... She lives across the country from me and I flew to see her to help put her life back together. It was very involved: pretty much had to reconstruct her entire digital life. New phone numbers, e-mail addresses, online accounts, passwords, all banking, credit cards, recurring payments, bill pay - EVERYTHING. My concern was now that they had a fish on the hook where the scam worked once, they'd (of course) come back with a new angle. As part of that we went to the branch where she made these cash withdrawals. I had the opportunity to speak with the teller that was there both days. The teller's story (and I believe her) was that she was extremely suspicious of the overall situation and had an extended conversation with my mom about how unusual this was, often used for scams, etc. However, back to my original point the scammers were well ahead of this... My mom banks with Wells Fargo. Once the scammers discovered that they were able to capitalize on the news story from years back with the Wells Fargo fake accounts/fraud scandal. They even sent her links to news stories about it. They were able to convince my mom that her money wasn't safe at Wells Fargo because the government was investigating another Wells Fargo scam and that all of their employees are in on it. They had another scammer in the org impersonate someone from the Federal Trade Commission (ridiculous) who was supposedly investigating this. They prepared my mom with a robust script to dance around the teller's questions and skepticism that the cash she was withdrawing was for legitimate purposes. In this case the script was something about my mom doing construction on her home and paying laborers, contractors, etc in cash. The entirety of the scam is wild. Once they got remote access from the phishing e-mail they got opened up Windows Command Prompt and pasted in a bunch of echo statements with stuff like "Child pornography detected" and a bunch of other ridiculous stuff. However - let's remember that thanks to Hollywood any terminal interface looks scary and sophisticated to the general population (every movie ever "hacking" with CLI gibberish). They had her convinced she was being watched/followed, investigated for CP, her phones were tapped, etc, etc, etc. She was so freaked out she didn't know if she was going to be killed or go to jail. My sister happened to try to reach her and my mom called her back from a friends phone. Was sister somehow stumbled on this and of course knew it was a scam. My mom didn't believe her. Needless to say I have a lot of credibility in my family on this stuff (given what I do) so thankfully my sister was able to get my mom to call me. At the beginning of the call I was able to say to my mom "This is a scam. Let me guess: they did X, then did Y, told you Z, something with cryptocurrency, etc, etc". Only when I more-or-less nailed/predicted most of the details before my mom could even tell me her story did she realize that this was, in fact, a scam. It made me realize something: when we were growing up a saying was "talk to your kids about drugs". There needs to be an equivalent campaign for these scams. Like many here I follow this kind of stuff pretty closely but only thought of it as a curiosity because they're so ridiculous (to me/us). It never occurred to me that I should be regularly updating less sophisticated friends and family members on the scams du jour. HN Community: Talk to your friends and family about scams.
Animats 2y ago
> Banks are actually getting much better at ferreting out these scams. A friend of mine runs a retail bank branch for a major bank. The other staff refer customers to her if they suspect a scam. She sees a few of these each month. But those are just the people who personally come into a bank branch.

tennisflyi 2y ago

The “comically bad e-mail” is a test to see if you have a critical eye or not/willing to gloss over things/give the benefit of doubt