Poll of the Day > Honestly I think banks and law enforcement should start giving more attention...

(+) Yeah! (+)

...to the efforts of scambaiters.

In years past the usual advice was "we're not going to intervene on the tips of vigilantes, just ignore scam attempts and do not engage."

But in recent times scams have accelerated grossly and there are more domestic components to these scams. Letting scambaiters submit tips to investigate things like money mule accounts is genuinely disruptive to these scam attempts. With how many stories I see of people succumbing to scams on the news involving people who volunteer their own time to occupy, investigate, and disrupt scammers could have genuinely beneficial results. It's clear just relying on official channels isn't slowing the surge of digital scams so take the help where you can get it, I say.

All money sending apps like zelle or venmo tell people not to send money to people they don't know and yet every day I get calls from people wanting the bank to reimburse them for stupidly not following those instructions.

Ten years of banking experience has taught me that most people who fall for scams are warned and proceed to do it anyway.

BADoglick posted...

All money sending apps like zelle or venmo tell people not to send money to people they don't know and yet every day I get calls from people wanting the bank to reimburse them for stupidly not following those instructions.

Ten years of banking experience has taught me that most people who fall for scams are warned and proceed to do it anyway.

It could happen to anyone. I don't know the name of the channel, but there is a youtube hacker that specializes in catching scammers that lost access to his youtube channel because he fell for a phishing scam. It turned into an Elon Musk fan channel.

Yeah some old people are more vulnerable, but so is everyone else.

I don't think there is much that law enforcement can do since most of the scammers are in other countries (mostly India and China). Outside the jurisdiction of all but international courts (which really don't have any power in the first place).

Banks already have anti-fraud divisions. There's only so much they can do legally and with finite resources.

Especially in the face of the infinite vista of human stupidity.

Dikitain posted...

I don't think there is much that law enforcement can do since most of the scammers are in other countries (mostly India and China). Outside the jurisdiction of all but international courts (which really don't have any power in the first place).

The biggest thing that could be done would be to require some form of authorization for any international money transfers that would let scam transactions be screened out. That would, however, have pretty substantial effects on global commerce, even with some kind of system whereby some entities could be pre-authorized to not need to have every transaction checked, so I'm not sure it's a worthwhile tradeoff. It also wouldn't do anything to stop scams that get their money through gift cards, so odds are implementing such a measure would just shift most scammers to those instead.

banks and police have in common: when they make a mistake it's YOUR fault somehow

I read a story about a bank that got compromised and didn't tell their customers until 1 year later which is when they supposedly "finished their review" of the incident.

Solid_Sonic posted...

It's clear just relying on official channels isn't slowing the surge of digital scams so take the help where you can get it, I say.

what is frank the police officer for a town of 2000 people gonna do about grandma Ethel getting scammed by a dude in Nigeria over facebook

Lokarin posted...

banks and police have in common: when they make a mistake it's YOUR fault somehow

Banks accept liability for fraud but not for their customer's stupidity. If there's a data breach, or an employee failing to comply with kyc protocol, etc, they are legally required to pay for your losses. If you initiate a zelle payment to someone you don't know for a puppy on Craigslist, or use your debit card to buy gift cards for the 'irs', they aren't going to reimburse you when you realize you been had.

BADoglick posted...

Banks accept liability for fraud but not for their customer's stupidity. If there's a data breach, or an employee failing to comply with kyc protocol, etc, they are legally required to pay for your losses. If you initiate a zelle payment to someone you don't know for a puppy on Craigslist, or use your debit card to buy gift cards for the 'irs', they aren't going to reimburse you when you realize you been had.

I meant more stuff like "Bank accidentally deposits $900k into person's account, they spend it" and such

Considering nations like China actively profit from the international criminal enterprises happening within their borders, they aren't going to shut that down. Most of the big criminal gangs usually have some government employees on the payroll, plus the countries prosper from the ill-gotten gains entering their borders.