Don't say "Yes"

[Darcy]

I'm sure you guys have seen those warnings to avoid scammers trying to get you to say "Yes" on those annoying calls. So today I maybe had too much to drink, and I got an obvious scam call, and was completely annoyed that I actually answered, and I was thinking the entire time I'm chatting to this pleasant Indian fellow -don't say Yes to anything- but I was thinking about it so damn hard, I think I said yes at least three times.....

Waiting to watch my bank account bleed away

[Kurt]

I'm sure you guys have seen those warnings to avoid scammers trying to get you to say "Yes" on those annoying calls. So today I maybe had too much to drink, and I got an obvious scam call, and was completely annoyed that I actually answered, and I was thinking the entire time I'm chatting to this pleasant Indian fellow -don't say Yes to anything- but I was thinking about it so damn hard, I think I said yes at least three times.....

Waiting to watch my bank account bleed away

What they used to do is keep you on the phone for a period of time so they could claim they made a "sale" and extra annoying was that Banks would say "whomever can sell this credit card service for us will get a commission.

So they used to call and they would (correctly) claim they were calling from the Credit Card company, ask you if you wanted to buy their new service. You would say No. Then they would say "Could you please confirm your address and spelling to make sure our records are correct?" Then they would submit a call log and say "Kurt wants blah blah service and he lives at blah blah etc. etc. and here is the log that shows we were on the phone with him long enough to make a sale."

That is probably what the "yes" is.

The trick is this:

Don't fucking talk to anyone even if they are legit.

Even legit people are giving scammers an "in" when they call. These days people are used to getting a call, getting told something and then drudgingly going about doing the work to correct a problem with (in the US) a medical bill, an insurance issue, an online order. But if you don't talk to them even if you owe them money they will eventually figure out a way to get the money you owe them. ....That should not be our work anyway.

A company I worked for had an Investment group my 401k is with. Then they switched providers after I left. So I get a call, they mention my former employer, they mention that my former employer switched to them for 401k and they called to "tell me that I had 2 weeks" to switch to them as well.

So I said "OK, fix it."
"What?"
"Sorry, please fix it"
"Well, YOU would have to transfer.."
"Fix it please"
"Sir, I cannot.."
"Sorry, why can't you fix it? Is there a problem?"
"Uh, well, yes but .."
"Fix it please"

So because they are in the middle of a sales pitch they cannot say "There is a problem" because that would be financial fraud since there is no problem. They don't want to say it is a sales call because people fucking hate sales calls. So you say "Fix it" until they give up or admit to you that there is no problem.

With scammers that works too. Just "fix it" over and over again. Every reply is neither yes or no but "fix it" The scammers just tell you to fuck off and call your mom a whore and hang up.

[rickshaw92]

I just hang up on anyone with a South Asian accent.

[Kurt]

I just hang up on anyone with a South Asian accent.

AI voice is accent free.

Also since I enjoy tracing the things no one thinks can be traced I have trace scams to call centers that actually run legit tech support / customer support as well.
So legal "offshoring" of labor has lead to illegal scams.

I worked with an Indian woman who got her job offshored to India. So she decided she would "offshore" accent reduction and American elocution classes from India to The US (her)
The Indian officials blocked her website because it was illegal to offshore services away from India.

[ROB]

Do you do your cyber tracking skill professionally?

[Kurt]

Do you do your cyber tracking skill professionally?

Yes.

Oddly it is something that no one thinks can be done for some reason even though everything is out there.

I made the New York Times a few years ago.

I mostly use that skill for asset discovery now since I work for the MTA in NYC (officially I am in charge of Train control system cyber security and ventilation and pump system cyber security) but we have network assets on 1600+ miles of train tracks and sometimes people lose them. They exist and are active but no one can remember where they are. So I triangulate using network latency and digging in boring ass paperwork.

Most of my tracking stuff is now Pro-Bono.