Indeed, the scammers are the bad guys. At the same time, what about people that still fall for Nigerian princes or go through their spam folder for "sex in your area" or "penis enlargement pills"?
> ...verified it would gather information from Google, Dropbox sign, the bank receiving the funds...
While I agree that our banking system should evolve past the high-trust model that it has organically grown out of, this sounds absolutely dystopian to me. I would much rather live in a world where the resolution is "sorry, you got scammed, that sucks, learn from it" rather than "our corporate overlords will collaborate to ensure your safety." Even if real-time 2FA of fund transfers existed everywhere, people (including everyone in the right state, sure) would still click those things. Technology doesn't solve social problems.
Those people are also victims.
Let's aim for a better middle ground maybe?
I was scammed about EUR 1500 some 7 years ago. It didn’t seem a scam: the price for an item was low but not too low, the identity of the seller I could verify. But the item ultimately didn’t arrive, and I didn’t know that for italian law it’s considered an “unfulfilled contract” rather than fraud, and requires a civil rather than a criminal case, which would turn out far too costly.
But the point is: I didn’t recognize some warnings because I just had my first kid and I was stressed, overworked and sleep deprived. Shit happens.
I once had something similar happen when I purchased Prince of Qin off Ebay (10-15 years ago I think?). Package never arrived.
That is in a wholly different class than these scams where they're asking you to cash a check and wire the money back, nigerian prince, etc.
What the other poster ISN'T considering is that there are still large segments of the population that are old enough that they're just not internet savvy. It's just the nature of life.
But their point stands as is, it's not reasonable for younger generations to be falling for these scams.
Of course proving a persons state of mind is extremely difficult. As a consequence it’s unlikely that police or prosecutors are going to take an interest in fraud that only involves small sums of money (less than a few million $).
However proving that a contract is unfulfilled is pretty trivial, and generally cut-and-dry. But failure to fulfil a contract obviously isn’t a criminal offence, so your only option is to file a civil suite. Thankfully most countries have small claims courts that cheap and very accessible, but with limits on how much you can claim. Just because the amount of money you’ve lost is above the small claims court amount, doesn’t prevent you from suing of an amount within the purview of a small claims court.
Beyond that, use a credit card. If credit card networks have provided any value in this world, it’s in the form of generally consumer friendly chargeback processes. It’s in there interest to make sure that people feel safe using their credit cards to buy stuff, more purchases means more transaction fees for them.
> I just had my first kid and I was stressed
I often think back to when my nephew was tiny and imagine my brother trying to work a particular interface with one hand while holding a crying baby in the other.
That's crazy, but the same binary outcomes also exist in US law. Some states make very clear (to civil litigants' chagrin) that closing a sale with no intent to perform is a fraud; others haven't made that so clear; and, always, it's how you explain your situation to the gatekeeper that determines whether you might qualify for one side or the other.
That's what it's called in the UK anyway. I assume Italy has something equivalent.
https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/enforce-a-judg...
Exactly. A point made over and over in "The Field Guide to 'Human Error'" [1] is that when looking at failure, you can't use your current knowledge and state of mind when evaluating the circumstance. You have to look at it with the actual knowledge and state of mind at the time. If you don't, you will fail to find the actual problems and correct them.
Take this, for example:
> You would think that by now every human being that walks the earth would know
I would not think that! That's an unevidenced assumption. It's less a statement about the world than it is a declaration of ignorance. It makes it hard to engage curiously with the reality of the circumstances. Even if it were true, it assumes that having heard something once is the same thing as being able to apply it in all circumstances and all cognitive conditions. If people just stop there, we will never improve things.
Indeed, I think it's worth asking why victim-blaming is such a common reaction to stories of scams. One part is the just world fallacy [2]. Another is the fundamental attribution error [3]. And one that I have definitely been guilty of is that it lets me feel smart. "I, a genius, recognize the specific scam pattern. They, those helpless fools, never see it coming. Ergo, I have once again proved my mental superiority." It's hogwash, of course. But satisfying, comforting hogwash. It took me a long time to realize that it was incorrect and that pursuing feelings of smartness often made me effectively stupider.
[1] A book I strongly recommend to everybody in software: https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
[3] https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/the-fundamental-attribution...
I interpreted the parent post as describing a mere "contributing cause", but you seem to be saying the post is assigning moral guilt to the victims. Why? And how can we discuss preventative measures that potential victims of any crime (or accident) can take, if the two are so often conflated?
E.g. is teaching people self-defense equivalent to blaming them for successful physical assaults upon them?
The root issue it archaic payment systems and banks where a check can take 7 days to clear. In this age a bank check should clean in seconds and funds should not be available in your account until it clears. It should be on the bank to not lie to you about funds in your account.
Let us use an example, Moldovian fraudsters using stolen credit cards and kyc docs online, this leads to chargebacks etc. None of these cards are issued in Moldova, they are issued by american, british, new zealand, spain etc.
These banks often have offices in the countries where the fraudsters reside and they will absolutelly go for the fraudsters, if the word is that their cards and products can be compromised without consequences, they will lose a lot of revenue, customers, trust and reputation.
The government will not tolerate them becoming a high risk jurisdiction because of some carder kiddies, they will totally look them up.
I have friends who know many russian(many are coming to southern europe and russian friendly countries like serbia) friends who tried some stuff like that out of pure desperation, none of them made big money, but all of them eent to prison.
I work in finance and had personal correspondence with some fraudster groups, if you explain to them how you are going after them preciselly, step by step, they will immediatelly offer a truce. I am talking about really highly sophisticated groups here.
They know to not fly too close to the sun.
There was a keyboard I really wanted but it was no longer being made. However, I found an online shop that had them in stock! I ordered, paid, got my confirmation, and waited about two weeks before complaining that it hadn’t shipped.
Ended up with some dude from the usual geography for this stuff, yelling at me and threatening me over the phone. At which point I realized it was all fake, told him where to stick it and hung up. It was only $100 or so and I was lucky they didn’t do anything creative with my credit card.
The point being, there are lots of circumstances that can make you let your guard down. Thinking you’re too smart to be at risk is probably not the safest position to take.
If enough people do chargebacks the payment processor will drop them because the ACH operator representing them will 100% fine the shit out of them if they don't. It's all contractual.
My point is, if you want to put a dent in stuff like this, do a chargeback. Like a union, the power isn't in your action, it's in the action of many.
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But also, this is why I'm very picky and have quite often refused to purchase something I wanted. I'll trust Walmart.com in a way I won't trust momandpop.com. Unless they're using a payment process that isn't handled by them (CC via paypal, for example) I just flat won't use them.
What's worse is most people don't even consider the risk to calling in an order from a local restaurant for delivery (chinese, for example). They may or may not save your CC information and you have no idea how well those systems are secured. They're probably using a 3rd party, but you don't know who that 3rd party is so you can't even begin to assess that risk.
I'm not a fan of doordash by any means, but they do offer a service here in terms of risk assessment.
if you review your monthly statement, the "risk" is the possible inconvenience of having your card replaced. I don't let it stop me from ordering my favorite takeout, but you do you.
I guess someone could probably treat themselves to their own monthly takeout order without me noticing for a while, but at least to me, this minuscule risk does not seem worth the mitigations you are taking.
Furthermore, many people use debit cards backed by an actual bank account and the vast majority of people can't afford to have those drained in any meaningful fashion without experiencing some severe consequences.
And thirdly, when the equifax breach happened I didn't bother doing anything. Why? Because I do NOT have the attitude that it's ok to be defrauded of money since someone else will pay for it. There was nothing for them to go after.
For $100-ish, and a good couple weeks since I made the payment, getting my money back wasn’t the main thing on my mind. Which, again, is an example of circumstances clouding your judgement. I was mostly just pissed I wouldn’t be getting the keyboard.
I did try a complaint to the BBB since the shop was (probably not really) listed there… from which I learned how useless the BBB is, so I guess in the end I got something for my money after all.
Guilt is not zero-sum. A killer gets 20 years, but a group of 10 people conspiring to a murder get 20 years each, not 2 years each.
It's perfectly possible the scammers are culpable to the maximum extent, while at the same time there is a smaller but consistent culpability on the part of the victim.
Suggesting people arm themselves with knowledge and use that knowledge for prevention is not really the same thing as assigning blame.
but the solution isn't on the scammers side only, there are a series of circumstances on both sides involved that cause these things to happen.
if people weren't desperate for money, running out of alternatives, they wouldn't need to perpetrate these crimes, nor would they fall for them as often.
It's naive to think only the destitute perpetrate or fall victim to scams. By that logic, people like Bernie Maddoff or (allegedly) Sam Bankman-Fried wouldn't exist.
that's fraud like an art form... maybe mr. bankster-"cooked in oil" should play that defense: "It was an art project that got out of hand"...
The problem is not victims, the problem is scammers. There should be better mechanisms to quickly clamp down on them. In this case, it would be really good if there was a mechanism or institution where the victim could report the scam and once verified it would gather information from Google, Dropbox sign, the bank receiving the funds, and other tools scammers use to build a case against the scammer in the relevant jurisdiction, and avoid them using the same tools for further scams.
My strategy to repel scams is to stay humble. Mo matter how much I think I'm prepared to identify scams, I am still vulnerable and I will continue to be vulnerable. Arrogance is your worst friend if your objective is to stay safe. No matter how many ceremonies you do when you're 16, in the right context and with the right words, you will still fall for a talented social engineer.