Reminder to check in on your parents & warn them of the latest scams - your voice, cloned, claiming you’re in some emergency desperation need of lots and lots of money. They’ll fall for it. Discuss a plan with them BEFORE this happens!
Fun fact, a significant proportion of the people doing these scams are victims of human trafficking who are being forced into it with threats of violence
Some fake Telekom workers showed up at my grandma's place in person recently, wearing uniforms and all, saying they need to "perform maintenance on the TV connection". Luckily, grandma's still super sharp, recognized that something was off, and just shouted "Peter, the TV people are here" into her flat, even though she was alone and Peter had died decades ago. They made some excuses and left immediately when they thought they were no longer just prying on a single brittle old lady.
Super proud of her, but also so scary to think that a bunch of asshole scammers were so close to just walking around in her flat.
Ha, something similar happened to my grandmother, though they claimed to need to read her meters. My grandmother is in her 90s and has a lead a hard as fuck life, she takes zero shit. So she immediately thought it was odd that they didn't say which utility meter they needed to look at, nor did their uniforms have anything more than vague identifiers on it. So she said oh? which meter? What utility? She said they stammered a bit but said water, and she said, ok, the water meter is right there, pointing to the meter in the back of her car-port. Then they tried to come up with some BS about how they need to get the "other" meter readings at her water-heater. She knows that isn't a thing. So she said there isn't such a thing, you need to leave. They immediately started to argue and she said "I have no qualms shooting two men trying to rob me". They left, they were yelling they would tell the police, their utilities company, the department of public works, etc. She said she needed to take her heart medication right afterword, but was otherwise fine. Well guess what? Nothing came of it. Thing is, she keeps a small gauge shot-gun next to the door and would have, indeed, shot them if they tried to get inside.
I just say my name is Bigus Dickus whenever they call me. They usually hang up or insult me.
For the "car's extended warranty" I just tell them it's a 1969 Wayne Industries Batmobile. They usually just say they don't provide coverage for that car and hang up.
It's gonna happen to you and your grandkids are gonna be wondering how you managed to get scammed by such obvious AI mimicking government entities with it's own complex ecosystem running milliseconds behind reality.
My family member who I often lock horns over politics was almost scammed. Everyone eas giving him a hard time and he was anxious about me giving him shit. I told him, it wasn't his fault someone tried to steal from you. Theyre in the wrong, not you. He was very taken back and grateful. It can happen to anyone those Cock Dinosaurs try to induce fight or flight.
despite being tech savvy and knowledgeable about various scamming methods I once nearly fell for an obvious scam.
I was expecting a package and when I woke up in the morning I saw on my phone that there was a delivery attempt. Clicked the link to redirect/retry delivery and only when it asked me for my banking details it hit me- what the hell was the postman doing at 5am trying to deliver packages?
anybody can get scammed, hell, the famous "i troll scammers" youtube guy once fell for a scam and nearly lost his youtube account! Getting cocky is the worst you can do
I like that Cory Doctorow is pretty open about having been scammed despite being quite well informed, because it really can happen to anyone. It just takes the right convergence of factors.
