Scary fishing scam

[Mr. Jelly]

And on a side note I still get snail mail for my deceased mother of two years, my daughter who hasn't lived with us for the last thirteen years and my son's ex-wife of fifteen years.

[brad4d8]

For a while I've been getting several calls a day on my cell, likely from the same source, but with the four last digits changed, sometimes by one digit, sometimes more. The few times I've answered, there's no response, not even a robocall announcement. The annoying thing is because they change the last part of the number, blocking it does no good.

[unimogbert]

..........

[Riverwolf]

Originally Posted by brad4d8

The annoying thing is because they change the last part of the number, blocking it does no good.

Well, I do, and it does.
A mathematical thing.
Patience, my friend, patience.

[rllink]

Mining, I think that is what it is called. Their computers start a file on you, or your phone number, whatever bit of info they can get. Just answering the phone goes into the file, number answered at 3:23 pm, stayed on for eleven seconds, said seven words and these are the words in their voice. Not answering goes in the file, number not answered at 3:23 pm. They might start with just a partial piece of info, the month and year of your birth, your street number. Then they keep scratching and putting little bits together to create a profile. Over time they get enough information that they can sell it. A guy that a co-worker dated back in the nineties was just starting a mining operation. He had a list of a hundred thousand individuals that he was mining information and building profiles on and he was getting rich selling it then. I wonder if he is in the business still and how many people his list has grown to. We wondered how anyone could make any money doing that back then. If I could get my hands on him now it wouldn't be pretty.

[M Sarad]

I get phake emails from Amazon, Apple, PGE, my bank, my wife's and friends' hacked emails.

The modern world is challenging,but no more than the old classifieds in Popular Mechanics and the comic books I read on the 60s.

[Conomor]

I've worked on back-end systems supporting online banking applications. I'm confident enough in our own systems to do all of my banking through them. We work to address vulnerabilities quickly, including those scenarios that could only arise through the malicious actions of an internal user (e.g. one with access to our production databases). Having said all that, I'm glad that there are people out there who still prefer to do their banking in person. The banks are keen to save money by shutting down branches whenever and wherever they can, and they are able to justify this by offering more and more features online. It troubles me to think of elderly customers, and others who are less confident with technology and more prone to phishing attacks, being left with no choice but to use online services that they are not comfortable with.

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by GroovyException

I've worked on back-end systems supporting online banking applications. I'm confident enough in our own systems to do all of my banking through them. We work to address vulnerabilities quickly, including those scenarios that could only arise through the malicious actions of an internal user (e.g. one with access to our production databases). Having said all that, I'm glad that there are people out there who still prefer to do their banking in person. The banks are keen to save money by shutting down branches whenever and wherever they can, and they are able to justify this by offering more and more features online. It troubles me to think of elderly customers, and others who are less confident with technology and more prone to phishing attacks, being left with no choice but to use online services that they are not comfortable with.

Yes, the end users' computing hygiene is more likely to be an attack vector than most business they use.

I still do a combo of bank branch use and electronic banking.