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135 sats \ 7 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 8 May \ on: Knowing what you don't know mostly_harmless
Good friend (late 60s) has been scammed out of his life savings (except his house) by online scammers and he is struggling to accept it- they used bitcoin and crypto extensively to cover their tracks.The police here do not have the resources to seriously investigate.
I tracked some Bitcoin transactions, part of the scam, to HTX exchange but neither HTX nor the NZ police would help trace the funds further.
More recently the scammers demanded a 'final payment' of $20k, which he refused and does not have anyway and they then impersonated a friends facebook profile and extracted from him his home address. They then posed as buyers of things he was selling on facebook marketplace and asked him to arrange shipping via a fake website where they gained his current credit card details and once gain cleaned out his credit card- this time the bank was onto it and called him to check the card use was legit.
The scammers are persistent. He now faces having to go offline or seriously reduce online use. They now have his home address. He is understandably concerned.
Another friends father (93) calls her from the ATM to ask her birth date as its the pin number for his bankcard. Hes been taking out large sums of cash lately but family don't know what for.
Seems to be a lot of it going on.
Wow, that's heartbreaking. I have had so many talks with my parents in an attempt to stave off something like this. It makes you realize how delicate it all is, and the limits of what you can and can't control.
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Yes, these scammers are becoming very skilled in finding and targeting their victims.
When you think of how increasingly we conduct more and more of our lives and financial transactions online it is a huge problem.
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Sheesh that's sad.
I've heard similar stories, but that's really bad...
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Yes, he was retired but now faces going back to work and or selling house to downsize.
Since the last scammers attack I really worry if he sells house or gets more money they will be lurking to scam it off him.
How do you get rid of them?
You need to completely delete all tracing data and they are clearly very cunning, persistent and skilled at what they do.
They know the law is unlikely to catch them.
Online scamming is a major growth industry.
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Are they always contacting him on the phone? Could their phone numbers be blocked, and only known numbers (in the contact list) be allowed?
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They did previously mostly use phone contact as I understand it but using multiple numbers which appeared to originate from multiple origins.
I don't know how they do this but apparently it can be done. More recently I think the contact was mostly via them posing as others via email and facebook messaging.
In the more recent events I think there was also some contact was via his phone as he mentioned the need to change his number to prevent the same happening again.
Screening incoming calls is a good idea if it can be done might be one of the ways of reducing the risk, but as the facebook attack shows they have multiple vectors via which they can approach an established target.
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Yeah, it sucks. I hope there's a special place in hell for these folks.
I know on Andoid, there's a way to limit phone calls to ONLY those on the contact list. Prune the contact list, and you're good.
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