SCAMMERS !

[OneHungLow]

The French Deception: Podcast reveals incredible tale of €38 million scammer...

https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/t ... on-scammer



All episodes are on YouTube...


https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Chikli

[Karearea]

A beauty just received with the subject heading (as spelt, and in caps)

SUBCRIPTION EXPIRED

I don't think so

[Karearea]

Getting ferocious now: "LAST warning"

and the casinos have started again,

and oddly, some from websites in the [dot]de domain

In total, ten received since I last posted.
I never open any of 'em.

[Hydromet]

Neighbour was just scammed out of >$2000.
He noticed a payment of $1.47 to Amazon on his bank statement but did nothing about it. Mistake #1.
Late on a Friday afternoon he received a call purporting to be from 'the head of Amazon on line security' asking if the payment was correct. When he told them that it wasn't, he was told that he would be transferred to the Australian Cyber Security Hotline. They then managed to keep him hanging on for 2 hours. The 'ACSH agent' then told him that they would have to act quickly and kept him tied up for a bit longer, then tried to talk him into going on a further wild goose chase by talking to Western Union, by which time he started to smell a rat.
By the time he checked his account again, money had been transferred from the first account to another of his accounts, and more had been take from that account.
Only after all this did he contact his bank.

This guy is an intelligent person, a retired lawyer who has spent his life dealing with criminals, and is healthily cynical, but obviously not cynical enough. He has no idea how they got into his accounts in the first place, but his personal info may have been stolen in the Optus heist earlier this year. He didn't change his passwords when it was announced. When he had his computer cleaned they found a number of trojans and viruses. I suspect that he's clicked on a dodgy link somewhere along the line.

[Karearea]

Text received at 3:36am this morning:

NzPost: We missed you and we will not be back to deliver your parcel. To schedule a redelivery, please visit: [enzed]-post-redelivery[dot]com

Useful link, I will forward the text to the Dept. of Internal Affairs as advised by NZPost:

https://www.nzpost.co.nz/contact-suppor ... -and-fraud

[Karearea]

I don't usually open them, but did look at this, just received:

Good Day,

Your email has been randomly selected among many other emails,and you have been selected to receive a donation sum of $1,000,000.00. Kindly reply to this message for more information on how to apply for these funds.

Please reply to: johnnietaylor [at a gmail address]

[OFSO]

A phone call today "from" Three offering me Black Friday phones and phone rates. Indian lady having trouble with English (typical with the real Three).. My phone tells me the origin of the call was Mr Politos Barber Shop in Cambridge.

[Hydromet]

Reports of a large number of fake web sites mimicking real ones being set up for the black Friday sales. Many of these are based in the Virgin Islands (British or American was unclea)r according to one report I saw.

[Woody]

I’ve never heard this story before

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- ... d-67291088

[Rossian]

#1409 There was a shortish documentary about him a couple of weeks ago (maybe BBC Scotland ). Interesting reactions to him from the local populace. Some of the jobs he created are still operating. The analysis of how he managed it, from a forensic accountant, were particularly revealing. I'm sure iPlayer will have it.

The Ancient Mariner

[llondel]

Got a text supposedly from our CEO today, asking me to reply if I was available to help with something confidential. As I don't buy giftcards (or whatever else I might have been asked to do), I just took a screenshot and forwarded it to the CEO and IT.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Not sure if this fits here.
Sports Illustrated magazine has been caught out using fake journalists - that is, AI generated copy with fake bylines.
They are trying to blame it on a third-party source, but the rabbit-hole runs deeper, and it appears the new management company has been pulling the same trick on other publications.
Shares dropped 21% overnight

https://futurism.com/sports-illustrated ... ai-writers

Some interesting points.
Within the media industry, sports commentators have long been the butt of the 'most stupid' jokes.
This probably makes them, along with entertainment commentators, the ideal start point for putting in AI-generated content.
It is the remaining 'human' sports commentators who appear to be adding to the whistle-blowing.
It does not appear that the average reader of their content noticed.

How easy, in some areas, would it be to put in mindless regurgitation of published articles and twitter comments thereon (which is how most AIs are trained) in place of intelligent human thought?
One thinks of political manifestos

[jimtherev]

How easy, in some areas, would it be to put in mindless regurgitation of published articles and twitter comments thereon (which is how most AIs are trained) in place of intelligent human thought?
One thinks of political manifestos

Are you saying that political manifestos are actually written by *real people*?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

It seems my sarcasm was a little more concealed than usual this time.
I wonder if one can actually find a real person in politics these days.

[talmacapt]

Had to smile, the Finnish government are warning people not to answer phone calls from Botswana.

Apparently they are scams.

Stop phoning me mrs ex ascot, i shall not believe what you are offering me.

[OFSO]

If bats are mentioned, it's a genuine call.

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

If bats are mentioned, it's a genuine call.

Only if the daily bat count is included along with the current location and number of hippos.

[talmacapt]

Don't get many telephone scammers in Finland, probably can't speak the language, which is why I was surprised to get one yesterday.

+923 no.

Pakistan mobile google tells me and it is a known scam.

I don't know anyone in Pakistan, maybe it is the old BOAC resthouse and I forgot a laundry bill in the early 1970s.

[OFSO]

No I don't want to invest in a charity fostering orphan hippos. "For £3.95 a month you can have your own hippo....presentation certificate and a photograph..."

[tango15]

No I don't want to invest in a charity fostering orphan hippos. "For £3.95 a month you can have your own hippo....presentation certificate and a photograph..."

One particular TV channel in the UK is pushing this to the limit at the moment. You have a choice of penguins, polar bears, brown bears, elephants, snow leopards, hippos, and pangolins...