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Cory Doctorow gets scammed (pluralistic.net)

submitted 8 months ago by 0x0@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

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I was tricked by a phone-phisher pretending to be from my bank, and he convinced me to hand over my credit-card number, then did $8,000+ worth of fraud with it before I figured out what happened.

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[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Good article as usual from Cory Doctorow. I was very surprised by the title, but reading what happened made more sense.

I had something similar happen while job hunting. I didn’t give away any useful info before I caught on, but it was a combo of two factors that caught me with my shields down:
• I was using my phone instead of my desktop, so it didn’t show the email address (just the person’s name)
• I had never heard of a recruiting scam before

I’m not sure, but I figure they’d have asked for my direct deposit info when I was “hired” and then use that to steal money.

[–] pixelmeow@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Edit: speaking from US banking, I think it’s probably different in other countries with updated banking practices.

Recruitment scams tend to involve the hirer sending you a large check to cover office setup purchases from the hirer’s “trusted vendor” and you keep the excess as your first paycheck. Unfortunately, the check is fake and the vendor is just the hirer behind a fake website. But the check “clears” in a couple of days, so you think you have the money, and you spend that money in the fake website, then your bank lets you know the check was fake and takes all the money back.

I’m sure there are other scenarios but they all involve a fake payment that eventually gets taken back. Glad you weren’t taken in.