
The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist - danso
https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=749135286
======
klenwell
_The victims didn 't come forward because they felt so ashamed about falling
for the con._

This is such an interesting essential part of scams. I guess it's a part of
human nature.

I remember tracking down a phone scam that caught my grandmother once (based
out of Montreal) and I eventually got to a point where I discovered that my
grandmother had provided a verbal consent over the phone that had kept it just
this side of being outright fraud. The scam company played a recording of it
for me.

I wasn't sure this wasn't fabricated, so I tried to confirm with my
grandmother and she was just like, "Well, thanks for all your help, honey, but
really this isn't that important. Let's just move on."

I recognized how pushing it would just cause her unnecessary pain. So I
dropped it and we moved on. Good to know there are people like Felipe around
helping to keep things in check.

 _Now when Felipe just lives his life or goes out in the world, he can 't help
but think everything can be a con, and everybody can be a mark._

Yeah, I guess I see the world more or less the same way. And I suppose it
makes me a little unusual. Hopefully not too cynical.

~~~
jansan
Long time (maybe twenty years) ago I read about a fascinating scam. The
scammers were announcing a totally cool sex toy (maybe early VR, don't
remember), but they never intended to deliver. Through clever marketing they
managed to find enough potential customers who were asked to prepay a certain
amount to finance production of the product (comparable to crowdfunding). When
delivery day arrived, the scammers sent out letters to the customers with an
apology that something went horribly wrong and the product could not be
delivered. The letters included a bank cheque with a full refund, but the
cheque said: "Refund for Sex Toy XYZ". As planned from the beginning, most
customers were too ashamed to cash the cheque, so the scammers kept most of
the money. Legally (?).

~~~
jimminy
I don't know if that was a real scam. It was a bit of a throw away joke from
the movie, 'Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels'.

The guys need to raise money to repay a debt, and one of them presents this
idea, which gets tossed out because it's gonna take too long for them to
receive the checks.

~~~
K0balt
It's much, much older than the movie reference. Embarrassing check scams are
an old, tried and true scam. They were more popular backnin the days of
physical chain letters.

------
gumby
One of the things I like about Plant money is that they have transcripts for
all their podcasts. I used to listen when I was a driver, but now I don't I
can just read the transcript in a few minutes instead of spending 20 minutes
or so listening.

~~~
giarc
Increase playback speed. You'd be surprised how your hearing can adjust. Just
work your way up in small increments. Just be prepared that if you ever go
back to 1x speed, it sounds really weird.

~~~
fencepost
Up to 1.4 is not a big deal, somewhere around 1.5 or starts to get a little
strange. Since I generally have technical or industry related podcasts going
while doing other things too high a speed becomes a hindrance.

~~~
liability
Try out rubberband. I find that with rubberband and mpv I can get close to 3x
and still understand many (but not all) speakers. It depends on their
particular accent/annunciation/cadence though. Some accents, like RP, are very
clear to me at 1x but degrade more rapidly (for me) than others at high
speeds.

[https://breakfastquay.com/rubberband/](https://breakfastquay.com/rubberband/)

~~~
OhneHerren
What is improved by using Rubberband rather than the internal playback speed
setting on mpv, which keeps pitch the same?

~~~
liability
Good question. By default mpv will automatically insert the 'scaletempo'
filter to adjust pitch when speeding up or slowing down audio, and it does a
reasonable job at modest speed changes. And it's fast; very little CPU load.
However at more dramatic speed changes it starts to sound choppy with parts of
words getting cut out which limits how fast it can go while maintaining
comprehensibility. Scaletempo sounds choppy at high speeds because the way it
works is by playing small snippets of the audio stream at 1x, skipping ahead
past some audio to keep pace with the sped up video. There is also some
blending of those snippets, but in principle it's a very simple approach that
generally works well enough.

How precisely rubberband works is something I've not looked into deeply, but
the end result is increased CPU load and less choppy audio at high speeds. If
you throw together a little script to switch back and forth between rubberband
and scaletempo in realtime, I think the difference is pretty dramatic.

~~~
OhneHerren
Ah thank you. Some good info here: [https://github.com/mpv-
player/mpv/issues/4418](https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/issues/4418)

------
danso
The radio version: [https://www.npr.org/2019/08/07/749135286/episode-931-the-
it-...](https://www.npr.org/2019/08/07/749135286/episode-931-the-it-guy-vs-
the-con-artist)

The climax of this story involves the belief that “Linux servers don’t just
crash”.

~~~
NikolaeVarius
I refuse to believe this wasn't just a way to add drama/tension. You can't
work in IT and actually believe this.

~~~
asdfman123
Well, he was afraid he was going to be murdered by criminals. Under those
circumstances even slight suspicion would be terrifying.

~~~
klenwell
And he'd been working there long enough to know that this wasn't a common
event. He even qualifies it, "You know, it's very hard for that to happen."

------
Ryleah
Just taking a look at the judgement, Emilio was sentenced to 84 months (7
years) around this time in 2012, followed by two years of supervision [1]. I
wonder if he was released. Super interesting read overall. Thank you!

[1] [https://www.docketbird.com/court-documents/USA-v-
Torres/JUDG...](https://www.docketbird.com/court-documents/USA-v-
Torres/JUDGMENT-as-to-Emilio-Jose-Torres-1-Count-s-1-84-mos-impr-2-yrs-
s-r-036-100-00-sp-asst-Count-s-2-3-84-mos-impr-to-run-concurrent-2-yrs-s-r-to-
run-concurrent-036-100-00-sp-asst-Restitution-Ordered-to-be-paid-jointly-and-
severally-Signed-by-District-Ju/ncwd-3:2011-cr-00275-64268-00017)

~~~
umvi
That seems... too lenient. What are the chances he just moves back to Costa
Rica and starts up another scam shop, this time refusing to leave?

~~~
gmanley
I dunno, maybe compared to what were used to but just think about it, 7 years
locked up not able to do anything you want, that's huge punishment to me. But
I also argue most sentences should be shortened and replaced with programs to
reintegrate them into society.

------
cosmodisk
We don't have IT scams like this in Lithuania,as nobody ever pays for IT
support,they just get someone they know to do it for free. However massive
prize scams used to be quite popular and still are to certain degree today.
Scammer calls a victim and claims he's calling from a radio show,some company,
events organiser, whatever.Then obviously comes the part where he saya that
the victim won x,y,z and all they. need to do is to buy some prepaid topup
cards for mobile( these usually have a code on them that needs to be used to
add credit) and tell the con artist those codes,for "verification purposes" or
whatever the reason of the day is. This was many years ago. One day,a friend
of mine gets home and his dad,a surgeon, shouts across the room: Anthony,we
won!!!!we won it all!!My friend: what? Yeah,we won!! HI-Fi system, a vacuum
cleaner and I think a washing masine as well!!!Yeah! My friend,still being
quite confused about his dad's instant gains: what are you talking about,
where's this coming from? Well,the guy called from the radio,they ran a game
and we won.Anthony, here's some money(it was at least a couple weeks wage),go
to the shop across the road and buy topup cards,will you? My friend looked at
his dad and said: dad, shut up and go back to bed.

~~~
intarga
> get someone they know to do it for free.

Because people with technology skills should perform free labour for people
without...

~~~
saint_fiasco
Labor is cheap in the third world, which is annoying when you are the labor,
but fortunately it cuts both ways. Dentistry, hair cuts, cleaning services and
excellent food are affordable even on low wages.

------
kevinguay
This was a great story.. thanks to Planet Money for re-broadcast it.

------
Smithalicious
I simply do not pick up unexpected phone calls. If it's actually important,
they'll leave a message saying who they are, and I will look up the number for
that organisation and call them back.

------
tm1265
"So his friends at the U.S. Embassy got him a visa and got him to the States,
where he works in IT."

This stuck out to me. Puerto Ricans are United States citizens and as such do
not require any kind of visa to live and work in the states. There isn't even
an embassy in Puerto Rico since it is part of the United States.

Makes me question the rest of the article.

~~~
dointheatl
Puerto Rico != Costa Rica, which is the country this story took place in.

------
homonculus1
>WARNER: Joe Healy is sitting in this conference room with Felipe, the IT guy
in his buttoned-up shirt.

>HEALY: He's a physically little guy...

>WARNER: He's 5-foot-4.

>HEALY: ...And not overly muscular.

Man, Planet Money's constant interruptions and hacked-apart quotations are
just as jarring to read as they are to listen to. It's entirely possible to
transition your narrative structure between accessible exposition and raw
firsthand accounts--but for some reason Planet Money tries to chase after
both, simultaneously, at every second. The result is a choppy, rattling
collage of thought fragments. Ugh!

What, you guys don't like style criticism? Complaining about a webpage is okay
so I don't see why this should be off-topic.

~~~
lkschubert8
That's my issue with RadioLab. It is just constant interjection.

~~~
mhb
Those guys are annoying AF. It really makes it a close call whether it's worth
listening to.

~~~
lkschubert8
Yeah, the content is just the right level of interesting/shallow to be great
for a commute or something of that nature, but they get annoying very quickly.

------
cryptozeus
What a crazy life ! Great read. So what know the guys is out and will scam
again?

------
grendelt
Great story but a little anticlimactic.

It's like yadda-yadda-yadda, he gets arrested and goes to prison. That's it?
The story is just an IT guy that tells US authorities before he takes on a job
with scammers and is then a mole? It's neat and all, but not a totally
captivating tale.

If you haven't heard it, this is a good one:
[https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-
all/6nh3wk](https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nh3wk)

~~~
jscholes
> We found these guys who live in Bradford, England who are setting up
> websites and companies so that they can process money for Accostings in the
> UK.

I'm from Bradford - this is not at all surprising.

