
I know how scams work – but I still fell for one and was left penniless - DanBC
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10661470/scam-fell-left-penniless-bank/
======
DanBC
I'm submitting this because there's the idea on HN that all scams are
transparent and obvious, and that this is a deliberate choice by the scammers
in order to target the gullible.

Sometimes this is true, but not always.

We need to remember that scamming is an iterative process. A scammer will
spend all day every day on the phone to people trying to extract money from
them and will tweak the process until it works best.

This woman talks about the human factors involved and about why the scam
worked on her. She gives a lot of detail about what the scammer did.

~~~
thrwaway69
Sorry but I failed to see how this is different from any other normal scam.

1\. Banks specifically mention they wouldn't behave like this over phone. They
send notification every so and then about not giving in to calls along with
warnings and disclaimer everywhere.

2\. You should always check whether the number is banks or not. Simply ask
them to call from an officially verifiable number and hang up.

If it's important, you will get a call. If it's not, life goes on.

> Had the word PhoneBank not appeared on the screen when my phone rang, I
> would have hung up within the first minute. The trust I had invested in that
> nine-letter word took my breath away.

> I hadn’t known that fraudsters have devised software that can do that. And
> as a result of that ignorance, I was penniless

The problem is pretty clear to me - blind trust in tech and not knowing where
those names come from when you receive calls.

On my current phone, you can just report the number or add them for a company
so it will appear as spam/company on others. I guess she had a phone doing
something similar.

~~~
DanBC
It's not different from any other scam, that's the point.

Let's look at the thing you've said would be reassuring. The scammer calls
you. You say you're going to call them back on a number that you get from the
Internet. They give you the number, but you don't believe them. You hang up.
You double check that against some mail you happen to have, and the same
number is printed on that letter. You pick up the phone, get a dial tone, and
dial the number, and are connected to a receptionist who then transfers your
call to the person you were previously speaking to.

Is this genuine, or is this part of the scam?

> 2\. You should always check whether the number is banks or not. Simply ask
> them to call from an officially verifiable number and hang up.

This used to be used by the scammers, because in the UK phonecalls were not
cleared until the caller disconnected the call.

[https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/may/23/credit-card-
us...](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/may/23/credit-card-users-phone-
call-courier-scam)

> The fraudster suggests the victim hangs up in order to call the bank back
> and ensure the call is genuine. However, the fraudster stays on the line,
> keeping it open. They then play a recording of a dial tone so that when the
> victim picks up their handset again they think they are really calling their
> bank.

The entire point of the post is that people say "I could always spot a scam",
and maybe that's true, but it probably isn't which is why social engineering
is so powerful

