• Ganesh Venugopal@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    As an Indian, I would like to congratulate everyone here, you tax returns are here, but there is a spelling mistake in your name and it would take $5000 to correct it, please call 1800420SCAM to get your refund.

    bad jokes aside, these are the scum of the country and I am sorry for this shit.

    • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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      10 months ago

      If we’re apologizing for national issues that aren’t our fault, I’d like to say sorry for mass-shootings, exploiting poor people and the widening wealth-gap, and (worst of all) obnoxiously loud Americans abroad!

    • EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de
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      10 months ago

      Hey! Someone from India!

      I watch lots of scambaiting videos and I know all about the public sentiment you guys have about scammers

      It’s a damn shame the police in India are so easy to bribe… not that American cops are any better

      American cops will rob you and then arrest you too.

      There’s normally at least one person waiting at the door to every scam call center waiting to give a big bag of money to the police to go away

      Sometimes the guy at the door will direct the cops to a legit call center to throw them off

  • npz@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    We’re all gonna get old and some of us are going to get dementia. I have a hard time pointing at vulnerable people whose brains are nearly expired and saying “Haha jeez what noobs, how could they be such idiots?”

    • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      It’s pretty easy when they do the same to younger people.

      Autistic? No you’re not you’re just an asshole.

      ADHD? No you’re not you’re just lazy and annoying.

      Fuck em. Not my fault they voted against their self interests to the point they can’t get medical assistance for their brain rot.

      • Carl@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        As someone who is autistic, I sometimes come off as brash. I try to hard to get everyone to like me, but I speak without a filter.

        • LukeMedia@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          As someone also on the spectrum, I’m sorry but I say what my mind says, I don’t fully understand all the dancing around statements that people do. Just tell me what you mean, and I’ll do the same for you.

  • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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    10 months ago

    I know it clearly works, and old people do definitely fall for it, but I’ll never understand how. What part of the script makes it sound reasonable that the IRS would want amazon gift cards instead of, you know, a cash transfer or something?

    • Kimjongtooill@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      They make it sound like they are only notifying you that you are about to be arrested. They don’t ask for payment and fake refuse the first offer if the mark offers. Then, when the madk is very worried they are about to go to jail, it is much easier for them to believe whatever because it’s harder to think when you are panicking. So something like “our payment system is down so we cant take payment with cards right now. You need to pay within 30 minutes or I can’t reverse it. I guess I can pay out of pocket, but you need to get me the equal amount of gift cards” or some shit like that.

    • hstde@feddit.de
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      10 months ago

      Gullible, scared, lack of critical thinking, blindly following authorities, there are many reasons. It’s not only old people, thought.

      • Hardeehar@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        Don’t forget pathological problems like forgetfulness, dementia, and Alzheimer’s. Scammers have no qualms with stealing from people with disabilities.

    • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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      10 months ago

      Scammers intentionally use typo’s to weed out the intelligent people.

      They pry on the lowest denominators, since they know they can convince them of anything.

  • LambChop@aussie.zone
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    10 months ago

    I get unexplainable joy watching scammers get scammed on YouTube.

    My favourite scam scammer is kitboga.

    • MrGerrit@feddit.nl
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      10 months ago

      Kitboga’s work is just epic. With all the programs he develops, sound effects, other people to help him, etc he uses it’s just like a modern day version of a radio hear play.

      It isn’t just entertainment, it’s art.

      • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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        10 months ago

        And he’s literally doing good! Every minute a scammer is being baited is time they can’t try to scam innocent people…

        • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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          10 months ago

          I just want you guys to be aware of how weird and sad this sounds as someone outside of all this.

          “I really like the people playing whack-a-mole with scammers, my favorite guy even makes it fun with colored lights and sound effects and gadgets he makes. It really makes me feel nice to know at least someone is punished for something I know is wrong but see little other efforts to solve. Ah fun catharsism.”

  • EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de
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    10 months ago

    People who fall for scams like those aren’t always stupid.

    They’re not always old people

    With the IRS scam, they usually use the remote desktop software they direct you to to lock you out of your device

    Then they’ll extort you for the thousands of dollars worth of gift cards

    After they have the codes from the gift cards they’ll exchange them for crypto currency and/or sell them for even more than what’s on them

    And after the scam is done they keep the connections on all the remote desktop apps open so they can spy on them for future scams

  • pH3ra@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    Yet they still have the courage to say “my generation was smarter than kids these days”

    • Dudewitbow@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      People only think theyre smarter because there wasnt social media to show how stupid they really were.

  • HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    Here in Canada we have tons of “your package is here and you need to pay fees/taxes to get it” scam calls and texts. It sounds reasonable enough if you are actually waiting for a package and aren’t too savy about these things. The worst part is real delivery companies do sometimes contact you that way, though they usually text you and direct you to their site which can be verified (always always check the URL of the site and also make sure it’s HTTPS). Still I once disregarded a real one asking me to pay taxes and ended up actually delaying my package.

    The most disgusting ones I’ve gotten are the immigration scam calls, basically “there’s a problem with your PR card or it’s expired or something and if you don’t pay a fee right now you’ll be deported.” In Mandarin too, really exploiting the fears of immigrants. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s actually targeted since I actually am a Chinese immigrant (now a Canadian citizen so don’t even have a PR card anymore) or if they just randomly call different numbers, but I’ve only gotten robocalls in English or Mandarin which I speak and no other languages, so IDK. Anyone know?

    • meatMech@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      10 months ago

      I’m also Canadian and I do get random calls in Mandarin sometimes. I didn’t know what they saying so I just hung up, but I guess it’s likely they were scam calls along these lines.

    • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      If you’re in Toronto or have a Toronto number they target Mandarin since it’s incredibly prevalent in the city. Those are also the only 2 languages I receive as well.

    • dandu3@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      HTTPS means nothing. All sites are HTTPS these days. If your only check for a scam is that then you’re fucked

      • HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        Correct, which is why you primarily need to check the URL and particularly the domain. I mention HTTPS because if you’re on the right domain and it’s not HTTPS when it should be, you’re most likely getting MITM’d or another such attack is being used.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    10 months ago

    I had a moment with one of these around 2010. Car insurance scam and these weren’t in the news all the time. Much lower pressure and I still had my card in my hand before I thought to ask what model car I had. He hung up.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      I’m kinda convinced Dell sold my details to Indian scammers. I didn’t have my laptop long before I started getting calls from “Dell Apple Microsoft tech support” about the computer sending them virus reports. I’m sure wanting me to let them remote into the machine, or run some other computer-based scam.

      They had to have gotten the info from Dell; they knew the model number of the machine.

      So I had someone who spoke with a thick accent wanting me to press Ctrl+Alt+R or whatever the run dialog hotkey in Windows is and run some commands. So I did exactly what he wanted me to do. And nothing happened. Because Linux Mint doesn’t bind anything to Ctrl+Alt+R by default. Last thing I heard him say was “Listen, you fucking guy…”

      I should have wasted more of his time, the parasite.

      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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        10 months ago

        I had the complete opposite experience with a client where the scammer kept telling me to click on the Start menu even after I goaded him by telling him we were on a Mac. No ability to shift the scheme.

        • The scams are run by professional call centers. Sometimes as a side business of an otherwise normal call center. The people working there are call center workers. They have a script and they follow the script. They could have no knowledge of the underlying tech at all.