Why do even intelligent and cautious people get scammed over the phone?



The father of Zachary Crockett, a senior writer for the business magazine The Hustle, was a person who worked as an educator for 30 years, but he was victimized to steal $ 3,000 (about 300,000 yen) over the phone. I heard that. Mr. Crockett, who listened closely to his father's testimony, is analyzing the tricks of scammers and how to prevent them from happening.

How my dad got scammed for $3,000 worth of gift cards

https://thehustle.co/phone-scam-gift-cards/

Mr Crockett's father was hit by a fraud when he started a phone call at 2:30 pm one day. 'The FBI agent David White,' said to Crockett's father, 'We found that the car rented under your name was packed with cocaine and cash. Failure to do so could result in a frozen bank account and criminal liability.'



Mr. Crockett's father is from a region with a lot of low-income groups, and he grew up in the world where the living horses stand out. Also, although he was 66 years old at the time of article creation, he has already retired, but in the career that he was involved in the education of high school students for 30 years, he was cautiously said to ``see a lie from one mile (about 1.6 kilometers) ahead'' Was cultivated.

However, in the end I bought a gift voucher worth $3,000 (about 300,000 yen) and told the scammer the gift voucher number. At that time, Mr. Crockett's father said, 'The moment I was relieved when the call to the other party ended, it seemed that the spell had been lifted. At that time, my brain was switched on and I became a scam. I finally realized that it was there.'

Mr. Crockett's father who said that he did not usually deal with Robocall scams and completely ignored suspicious contacts was deceived by a scammer because the scammer was familiar with the psychology of people and on top of reality This is because he took the trick he pursued.


by

Cindy Shebley

'White David' who first threatened Crockett's father over the phone further forwarded the call to two investigators, 'Kyle Williamson' and 'Preston Grabs.' Of course, these two were also conspirators of 'David White', but the names and job names they gave themselves belong to real investigators, and the phone number left on the phone is the correct contact information of the investigative agency. It was a thing.

'I don't think I'm really responsible for the crime, because I'm pretty sure your social security number was just abused,' said a fake investigator who took over the phone from 'David White.' After reassuring his father, he told him that the bank account had to be frozen for nine years due to the investigation. Then, as a workaround to protect living funds from account freezes, we proposed 'changing the contents of a bank account into a government-approved gift certificate.' Mr. Crockett's father, who believed in this, bought the commercial gift certificate as told and told the number to the fraudster, the whole story of this fraud was.

From this case, Crockett summarized the following five points of the tricks of scammers.

・Obtain the telephone number of the fraudulent party from the information broker.
・Obtain information on investigations by government agencies and create elaborate scenarios while pretending to be real people.
・Impersonate a contact from a government agency by making full use of spoofing technology for caller ID.
Mind control and induce the emotions of fear and panic by inducing victims to logically think and purchase gift certificates, and find out the gift certificate code.
• Quickly cash gift cards using groups called 'runners'.

In addition, Mr. Crockett summarizes the following 4 'tips to prevent damage' that he got while visiting the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and police with his father.

・Because government agencies use written documents to contact citizens, they will never call from the government agency without warning.
Do not trust the telephone numbers of existing government agencies.
If you really need to check, call the phone number and make sure you're really coming from a government agency .
・Government agencies will never request money by gift vouchers or wire transfers.

Information on wire fraud (special fraud) in Japan and consultation desk for damages are posted on the following Metropolitan Police Department website.

Website for fraud measures by the National Police Agency
https://www.npa.go.jp/safetylife/seianki31/1_hurikome.htm

in Note, Posted by log1l_ks