He moved it from hardware to EE.
I posted it Hardware somehow? Maybe when doing an edit or something, I suppose.
My parents (in their 70s) just called me because they were on the phone with Amazon. The “rep” was saying that someone had hacked their account and ordered an iPhone. Even had them open a Command prompt on their laptop and run “netstat” command. “See, that Established word means they are connected to your Amazon account right now!”. The IP’s there all were Windows 10 related stuff.
After I had them hang up on the guy, we logged into the email (to see if Amazon did email them) & Amazon accounts (to verify that no iPhone was ordered through their account).
Mean while I repeatedly told my parents that 1) Amazon doesn’t call people and 2) Even if they did, how did they get your phone number since you’ve not given it to Amazon?
My mom has called me a couple of times when getting that robocall. Thankfully she wasn’t on the phone with someone.
I made her see that she’s never ordered anything from them, so how would she have an account?
I have been getting random e-mails supposedly from Amazon saying how I had reviewed products. Of course I hadn’t. But, just to be safe I went in and changed my password.
I received an email from “Amazon” reminding me that my debit card is about to expire (it’s not).
On my last year of needing to file US taxes, the IRS sent me a letter that they had received my taxes, but that I needed to pay up. I was confused, given that the check was in the same enveloppe. I got on the phone with them, where he confirmed his system indicated I needed to pay, so I asked how he got my taxes but not my check, considering they were in the same enveloppe, so he says hold, he clicks around, says oh yes, it does seem on this page we do see we have received payment, thank you! I’m like, great. That was a weird one.
My parents got hit with the “grandchild in jail” scam. I don’t know if they have a voice actor or used an AI, but it had them convinced up until they started trying to get money out of them, thankfully my parents are still pretty damned sharp and know how things work. They told them he had a bail around 10k, then tried to get them to send the bond. Dad has enough that he was just going to post bail and screw the bondsmen, I guess they weren’t counting on their victims having access to 10k, which is further infuriating.
Sadly the elderly are the prime demographic for scammers. A big one going around now is that they represent themselves as agents for social security or medicare and that they have covid masks and testing supplies to send you but need you to verify your SS account information, in order to send it to you. With enough info they can actually divert these people’s SS checks into a direct deposit account of their choosing. Disgusting people.
Payments are sometimes allocated for the wrong things. ES Payments, annual tax payment or perhaps a payment with a request for extension. Mistakes happen.
A woman who reports to me has an 18-year-old daughter whom she first fostered, then adopted. The girl recently revealed that she didn’t need to get a job because she had a sugar daddy, who lived far away and in exchange for paying her $1000 a week required nothing more of her than a few text messages a day. Not even any pictures. And then a sugar mama was added to the mix who wanted exactly the same deal. The girl was set for life!
Then they paid her — they sent pictures of cashier’s checks from some bank or other, one of which was deposited into the girl’s account and one of which they wanted deposited in her very elderly grandfather’s account. And they actually paid her more than they owed her, because they wanted her to pay the extra money forward to some other person to pay for something ordinary (repairs or something, I forget the premise).
And she was ready to do it when her mother stepped in. She called the bank that issued the cashier’s checks and forwarded them the pictures of the checks; they said the number was real but was a year old, from a check payable to a different person, and had already been paid. The daughter said at this point, “You mean it’s not REAL?” The idea was that she’d pay the additional sum forward before the cashier’s check bounced, and she’d be on the hook. The mother also notified the grandfather’s bank in case the scammers try something in that direction.
When the daughter informed the scam sugar daddy what had happened, he expressed his HURT that she didn’t trust him, and tried again to convince her.
You may (or may not) be surprised to hear how often this part works. A depressingly significant amount of the time.
Sadly, yeah. Different scam, but I have a friend from childhood that was obviously getting catfished and emptying his bank account at her behest. He should have known better, I told him over and over it was obviously a scam (and explained how/why). Unfortunately, when people really want to believe something it’s really hard to convince them otherwise. He was just going through a messy divorce and has serious health problems so he was especially vulnerable.
Fuck scammers.
Have I mentioned on Qt3 that I am actually a Nigerian prince…?
Was anyone around here named Kenneth Fung? Because GoFundMe just emailed that I donated $100 to his funeral expenses… :-/
I just got an email from a college I adjust for in Kansas warning that there has been a rash of scam unemployment claims there using community college and K12 teacher info from across the state including socials and birthdays. They claim the breach wasn’t from them.
Speaking of that kind of thing, get this: back in the day (‘88/9 and’89/90 school years), Portland State University, where I had a Graduate Teaching Assistantship for a couple of years, would send students’ grades in the US mail with the name and the SSN (which doubled as student ID number) on the outside of the envelope.
It’s a freaking miracle I’ve not yet had my identity stolen (that I know of).
WTAF.
One of my schools used SSN for student ID too.
I mean, it makes sense, there’s only so many numbers. Can’t risk running out.