|
Namarrgon posted:Could just be a callcenter drone who is not allowed to disconnect the call for any reason. That is legitimately a rule that call people have to follow. I was a telemarketer for a while (holy poo poo loving hell never again that job is unimaginably awful) and we were told that the call only ended when the customer either ended it or asked to not be called again. The second was optional; we were also taught to apologize for bothering them too much and hey we have a special offer just for you as an apology! Note that this wasn't special at all and was identical to what we were normally selling. We were basically taught how to be con artists at that job. The saddest part (yes this contributed it to me leaving and never looking back) was that they said old people were the best to get on the other end specifically because confused old people with dementia would probably sign up for anything if you made it sound good enough. There was no "hey you should just sell the product and not take advantage of anybody" but rather "get every sale you can at all costs."
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2016 00:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2023 06:51 |
|
|
I worked at an inbound only Verizon cell phone service and we couldn't hang up even of they were threatening to literally kill us or bomb the place, the protocol was to put him on silent hold or keep talking to him if possible while supervisors called the cops, thankfully we never had to do that We couldn't even hang up on extremely obviously prank phone calls that had zero interest or even owned a verizon phone/account
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2016 15:09
|
|
|
When I started work at an office about a decade ago every new hire in the building was required to attend a phone safety seminar. Part of it had to do with what you're supposed to do if you get a bomb threat. The guy who ran it was ex-law enforcement or something and told us about an employee who'd received a bomb threat call and said, "Oh yeah!? We're not scared of you!" Then he left the building without telling anyone. Apparently the employee was caught, and I imagine very disappointed, because the person making the threat called back after he learned that no one had left the building.
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2016 16:46
|
|
|
How do those pages that pop up and tell you that "Windows has had an ERROR! and has been halted until you phone this number" work? I just got one and alt-cntrl-del'd out of it (scanning with Malwarebytes then AVG right now), but I know people who have been hit by them and have actually called. Like what does that page do to make your browser stop working? Also, how concerned should I be?
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2016 20:51
|
|
|
Professor Shark posted:How do those pages that pop up and tell you that "Windows has had an ERROR! and has been halted until you phone this number" work? I just got one and alt-cntrl-del'd out of it (scanning with Malwarebytes then AVG right now), but I know people who have been hit by them and have actually called. did u know, computer programs can have bugs sometimes
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2016 21:19
|
|
|
Professor Shark posted:How do those pages that pop up and tell you that "Windows has had an ERROR! and has been halted until you phone this number" work? I just got one and alt-cntrl-del'd out of it (scanning with Malwarebytes then AVG right now), but I know people who have been hit by them and have actually called. I have been called at least three times by my parents about those goddamned popups so yes, they work on somebody.
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2016 21:44
|
|
|
Professor Shark posted:Like what does that page do to make your browser stop working? Also, how concerned should I be?
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2016 04:18
|
|
|
I sell phones for a living and the number of people who come in terrified at a browser pop-up telling them they're going to prison for looking at child pornography unless they pay up is both hilarious and sad. Like yeah, they probably were looking at (legal) porn, but they come in freaked out about it, and I have to imagine most people who get that don't even try to get help but end up nuking their phones trying to factory reset them.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2016 04:24
|
|
|
WebDog posted:Lots and lots of javascripts that lock off mouse clicks and so forth. If you have something like noscript on then they'll not do anything or get hung up on the initial redirect.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2016 11:51
|
|
|
Professor Shark posted:How do those pages that pop up and tell you that "Windows has had an ERROR! and has been halted until you phone this number" work? I just got one and alt-cntrl-del'd out of it (scanning with Malwarebytes then AVG right now), but I know people who have been hit by them and have actually called. I've called the number a few times, just out of curiosity. It always goes to a call center in India where they try to get you to download some software to "fix the problem". I've never gone that far, but one day I'll set up a VM on an old laptop and do it just for fun.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2016 14:45
|
|
|
There's videos on YouTube of people doing that, it's never particularly fun. They just get you to download teamviewer or similar and they remote control in. One guy caught wind that he was being setup (the guy had full screened a DOS VM to pretend he wasn't even in windows) and proceeded to nuke the machine out of spite.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2016 15:16
|
|
|
"Hello, I am calling from the IRS about your back taxes, police are on..." "..." "Hello, this is the police, you were being scammed." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/huge-phone-scam-targeting-americans-leads-to-750-arrests-in-india
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2016 17:37
|
|
|
As a general rule if the police are coming to arrest you nobody will call you ahead of time. If somebody is calling you that's actually from the government it's something they want to clear up without getting the legal system involved. Why people fall for that is a mystery to me.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2016 18:42
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:As a general rule if the police are coming to arrest you nobody will call you ahead of time. If somebody is calling you that's actually from the government it's something they want to clear up without getting the legal system involved. Why people fall for that is a mystery to me. Because it's not as obvious as you might think. People that were never arrested or have zero experience in law aren't necessarily going to draw these conclusions. Theres a subtle fear among many people that they might accidentally break some law- scared their computer downloaded child porn by mistake, screwed up on their taxes, something. They're going to be so overwhelmed and scared they are going to just want the problem to go away. The Internet opens up a lot more potential for scams.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2016 18:54
|
|
|
JiimyPopAli posted:I've called the number a few times, just out of curiosity. It always goes to a call center in India where they try to get you to download some software to "fix the problem". I've never gone that far, but one day I'll set up a VM on an old laptop and do it just for fun. Someone else does this along with a bunch of interesting digging into the bits behind this, it's really neat.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2016 19:00
|
|
|
Lutha Mahtin posted:This is already happening. Your grandma is never going to update the firmware on the "smart" lightbulbs and digital picture frame that your little cousin set up for her. Many of these devices will never receive proper security patches from the manufacturer, or the company will go out of business. And bugs will be found, because bugs are always found. It is a disaster just waiting to happen, and I have not heard of any industry or regulatory initiatives to try and prevent it from happening. Internet of Things Working Group Established at Cable-Tec Expo The SCTE/ISBE standards program is the only ANSI-accredited forum for the development of technical specifications supporting cable telecommunications. Corporate membership in the program is open to any organization in the cable telecommunications industry. Member organizations develop standards and recommended practices through their technical representatives who serve on committees and subcommittees. Info about the SCTE/ISBE Standards Program, including how to become involved as an SCTE/ISBE Standards Program member, is available in the Standards section of the SCTE/ISBE website at https://www.scte.org/standards or by emailing standards@scte.org. so that just happened, finally
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2016 09:45
|
|
|
Yeah, a day or two after I wrote that post I also came across this article about the Linux kernel but forgot to post it here: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/09/linux-kernel-security-needs-fixing/
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 04:59
|
|
|
I work at a petrol station. We sell itunes vouchers, phone credit etc. Someone rang the station saying they were from the head office of the company that provides the hardware, at 6pm, on a Saturday. They asked if we'd got a new machine from them yet. I tried to string them along but they hung up on me, they hadn't even got to asking to print off a voucher and read the code to them to 'verify it' 
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 06:15
|
|
|
In a French airport today, had a guy come up to me and pull out his wallet. Showed me his id, and said he needed 20 euros to get a plane ticket home. He had a couple suitcases with him, so I walked away. Figured if he's only 20 euros short and it's a monday he can get the drat bus.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2016 22:45
|
|
|
Shortly after me and my wife moved into our new house we had one of her old work friends get very friendly again and want to come see us, so we invited them over for a drink, they turned up with binders full of marketing for an "opportunity" that was very basic energy/utility/insurance MLM. "Buy everything through our club and it's cheaper! No I can't give you specific values for energy prices, tariffs etc but if you sign up for 6 services there's an extra discount" I said we'd find the cheapest ourselves thanks, they got a bit grumpy and awkward and my wife was upset I was being rude to her friends, until it was clear after an awkward silence that was all they wanted to talk to us about. Didn't want to ask how the kids were, see around the house, didn't even talk about what had happened in the last couple of years since they'd spoken, just MLM and gone. Years ago I fell for the "I'm from your energy supplier can I see your meter, sign here to say we've inspected it". I was stoned and realised about ten minutes later, luckily the bills were included in the rent so I had no authority to change them in the first place  I also have a really nice fake watch I was hassled into buying at uni, I had £10 on me and wouldn't go to the cash point to get more so the guy kept dropping his price, starting at a bargain £250. It kept good time, I didn't have a watch before and it still works 15 years later so I think I got my money's worth for £10  I have to say I miss getting the terrible Kleeneze and betterware catalogues around Christmas, it was always entertaining seeing what astonishingly lovely crap people were buying. cakesmith handyman fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Oct 12, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2016 14:57
|
|
|
Re: USB chat, I saw this on facebook the other day. https://deaddrops.com/
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2016 22:33
|
|
|
There's apparently one near me, I'm almost tempted to flatten my laptop to see what's on it and then flatten it again once I'm done.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2016 23:00
|
|
|
From the comments on that site.joe posted:this is the nerd equivalent of glory holes
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2016 06:44
|
|
|
Slime posted:There's apparently one near me, I'm almost tempted to flatten my laptop to see what's on it and then flatten it again once I'm done. You could still end up with a boot sector infection that way, I think a live ubuntu or similar CD would be best
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2016 10:58
|
|
|
Before her eventual death my grandmother suffered from a gambling addiction and dementia, as you would expect this was a lethal combination especially because the family had no idea how deep both ran until about 2 years before her eventual demise. This coupled with her attitude of "buying" people made her a great target for scammers. By the time she died she was totally off her rocker and had no friends left in the world as most had died before her, faded into obscurity or been essentially extorting her for cash before we found out and put the word on them to cough it back up  . Apparently there was this one couple of 'friends' she had, whose names I can't remember thus we will call them Frank and Jane, who she would talk to us about occasionally. Normally it would be "Oh yes Frank, Jane and I had lunch together down at the club" or "Frank and Jane picked me up and we went shopping together," which for a year prior to her being properly diagnosed with dementia and moved to an aged care facility (loooong story there) sounded like a nice ray of sunshine and social interaction in the old birds life to us. Of course when things came to a head and we became more aware of her mental state and addiction questions started getting asked about her financials. Turned out she had been burning money at a steady pace for quite a while, with most of it disappearing into the pokies at the local sports club. There was a particular time I recall where we found out she went to the bank and withdrew about one thousand dollars in cash on one day, then came back the next day and did it again and the day after that; couldn't tell us where'd it had been spent or what she'd done during those days except "Oh I was probably at the club"). We eventually pieced together that old mate Frank and Jane, who ever the gently caress they were, would turn up/send a taxi up to her (we found some of the local cabbies knew her by name because one time my mother ordered a taxi from her place and was greeted with a "Hello Mrs. NAME, bit late for you today isn't it?" when the cab pulled up in the driveway) get her to withdraw some cash then go to the pokies with her for the whole day where dear old granny would pay for the drinks, the meal and the fun. This was happening up to 3 times a week! We tried in earnest to find out who these people were, but couldn't despite being a fairly well connected family in town. Frank and Jane had no surnames, none of her neighbors (one who was barely ever there, and the others behind a very big fence who kept to them selves) ever saw enough details to use, the bank staff never saw anyone with her/motivating her to get money at least inside the bank, and there are that many people flowing in and out of the sports club that it was a lost cause there. The theories was had were they were either another old couple fleecing her cause they could, that maybe they were real friends who also had gambling issues and they egged each other on or that they were even some younger, potentially middle aged people who just found a soft target to fleece for some cash on a regular basis. The moral of this long post is keep an eye on your old folks mental capacity and act upon it sooner rather than later; it makes them prime targets not just for telemarketers but also enterprising con-artists.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2016 14:45
|
|
|
Gridlocked posted:Before her eventual death my grandmother suffered from a gambling addiction and dementia, as you would expect this was a lethal combination especially because the family had no idea how deep both ran until about 2 years before her eventual demise. This coupled with her attitude of "buying" people made her a great target for scammers. While this is pretty scummy, did your grandmother ever mention if she actually enjoyed/hated interacting with these people? Was her money going to pass on to your family after her death? I'm not saying this sort of thing is always OK, but it does sound like your grandmother got a pretty fair amount of social interaction with these people. They may actually, like you said, have been actual friends of hers. Do you know if they ever spent their own money too? Maybe they're a bunch of olds who said "gently caress it, you can't take it with you" and decided to spend their remaining time balling out with fancy meals and drinks and gambling and poo poo. I don't know how bad her dementia is, but if she was lucid enough to actually remember that the 3 of them got lunch at a club or went shopping together, it could be that all 3 of them were just throwing money left and right. I've seen similar situations, TBH.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2016 17:27
|
|
|
Gridlocked posted:The moral of this long post is keep an eye on your old folks mental capacity and act upon it sooner rather than later; it makes them prime targets not just for telemarketers but also enterprising con-artists. This is good advice, however conservatorship is easier said than done, especially when you are dealing with stubborn olds who waver between good days and bad days.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2016 17:36
|
|
|
Skinnymansbeerbelly posted:This is good advice, however conservatorship is easier said than done, especially when you are dealing with stubborn olds who waver between good days and bad days. There's also the fact that it can be hard to tell when they're demented. If you're not spending a lot time with someone, they can tell you about what they did, the places they went to, etc., even though none of it actually happened.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2016 18:54
|
|
|
Skinnymansbeerbelly posted:This is good advice, however conservatorship is easier said than done, especially when you are dealing with stubborn olds who waver between good days and bad days. It also tends to be a long, slow slide. It can take time to kick in and get noticed by anybody. The old person them self probably doesn't realize it and will fight you on it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2016 19:33
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:It also tends to be a long, slow slide. It can take time to kick in and get noticed by anybody. The old person them self probably doesn't realize it and will fight you on it. Now imagine trying to get a conservatorship over a retired litigator who strongly values independence.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2016 20:40
|
|
|
Kelp Me! posted:While this is pretty scummy, did your grandmother ever mention if she actually enjoyed/hated interacting with these people? Was her money going to pass on to your family after her death? I can't say for sure whether or not sure truly enjoyed or hated interacting with the mystery people because no one ever saw them. We asked multiple times if we could meet them and she would always forget their phone number or say they turn up when its time to go or that they meet her down at the club. We tried waiting with her for them to arrive, but never saw anyone. Hell they could have just been people in her head; she was fairly demented by this point. It took a long time to finally get her to move out of the house. And full disclosure, yes the money was to pass onto her 3 children; my father, his sister and brother. ToxicSlurpee posted:It also tends to be a long, slow slide. It can take time to kick in and get noticed by anybody. The old person them self probably doesn't realize it and will fight you on it. Oh yeah, she went kicking and screaming all right; especially about us wanting to move her into a supported living area (very nice place, roomy for one person, great view and literally 2 blocks from my home so I could visit her easily on weekends). The big issue was she hadn't done any power of attorney documents so it was hard to be able to sort things out for a while. Gridlocked fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Oct 14, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2016 01:04
|
|
|
Gridlocked posted:I can't say for sure whether or not sure truly enjoyed or hated interacting with the mystery people because no one ever saw them. We asked multiple times if we could meet them and she would always forget their phone number or say they turn up when its time to go or that they meet her down at the club. We tried waiting with her for them to arrive, but never saw anyone. have you considered the fact that perhaps your grandmother rediscovered her party animal side and was going out and having a roaring good time on her own, and didn't want her kids/grandkids cramping her style/worrying about her? e: or maybe she hated you guys and wanted to spend her life's savings on booze drugs and the pokies instead of leaving it to you
Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Oct 14, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2016 02:37
|
|
|
Kelp Me! posted:have you considered the fact that perhaps your grandmother rediscovered her party animal side and was going out and having a roaring good time on her own, and didn't want her kids/grandkids cramping her style/worrying about her? Considered, quickly realized that it was not the case, moved on. Have you considered that we were her family who loved her and knew what and who she was. Granted as a human being she wasn't someone I liked but she was still my dads beloved mother and my grandma. And perhaps I'm not giving you the full rundown on her mental/health issues beyond the scam/con related stuff as is the point of the tread because frankly your implications of caring more about the money then her happiness can gently caress right off.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2016 06:53
|
|
|
i think people were just gooning it up for a laugh. oh tee hee granny got big into drugs and sex parties hoo hoo
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2016 07:13
|
|
|
Lutha Mahtin posted:i think people were just gooning it up for a laugh. oh tee hee granny got big into drugs and sex parties hoo hoo I was mostly joking, especially about the "she hated you and didn't want you to get her money part" (I guess the smiley didn't make it obvious enough), but the scenario of "old person rediscovers zest for life; uses life's hard-earned savings to have some fun" isn't exactly a rare occurrence, and aside from "she spent a looot of money" and "we never met her supposed BFFs" there's not a ton of evidence that granny was getting scammed and not indulging in some late-life hedonism and wanting some privacy about it. I'm just sayin'
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2016 12:37
|
|
|
That got whiny real fast.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2016 16:20
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:As a general rule if the police are coming to arrest you nobody will call you ahead of time. If somebody is calling you that's actually from the government it's something they want to clear up without getting the legal system involved. Why people fall for that is a mystery to me. Yeah the government loves to send snail mail to get in touch with people. I've received a grand total of one phone call from a government agency and that was to confirm my address to they could send me a piece of mail. It was for something only they could have even known about, so it wasn't out of no where.
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2016 06:35
|
|
|
I got a call from some government office one time when i was self employed and declared very little loss that year, the dude thought i made a mistake and told i could just send in the forms again if i wanted to. He was probably just being nice though i think. Thats pretty much the opposite of a scam
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2016 12:41
|
|
|
Checked my old university mailbox, and what do I find? (bold and italics in the original) Subject: Follow up Invitation to be a Honorable Guest at Atomic Physics 2016 Dear Dr.AA , Greetings! Thank you for your time and consideration. As a program manager I am taking the immense pleasure to invite you to deliver a talk at the “International Conference on Atomic and Nuclear Physics” which is going to be held during November 17-18, 2016 at Atlanta, USA. Atomic Physics 2016 provides a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners and educators to present and discuss the recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of Nuclear and Atomic Physics. Our committee believe this might interest you and we wish to have your eminence presence at this prestigious meet, so as an initial step; we kindly request you to go through the scientific tracks, choose a track of your interest and submit your abstract as per the attached template. Considering your prominence our committee would like to provide you certain privileges on your registration and accommodation prices. • Speaker Registration $ 399 • Delegate Registration $ 199 • Student Registration $150 (Participation + Poster slot) Group Registration for 5 students cost $800 We look forward for your presentation. Kindly drop us a mail regarding your participation. Do not hesitate to contact me for any queries regarding the conference. Kindest Regards, Some name or another
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2016 16:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2023 06:51 |
|
|
Reply with "please do the needful" and see what happens
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2016 17:20
|
|