Block Party

Makes sense, thanks for sharing!

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Compromised accounts can make scams feel WAY more legit. Do you remember if the messages included any personal details that made them more convincing? We’re trying to understand how scammers use public info to craft these attacks.

Very sweet of your team! How did they target your intern?

If you're comfortable sharing... how were they targeted? We're hoping to raise more awareness around these types of scams.

That is INSANE. How did they make initial contact?!

Same, i have a sophisticated and wealthy client who lost $500k in a fake real estate deal where there were five or six people on the other side of the transaction pretending to be real estate agents, lawyers, court clerks etc.- NOBODY is prepared to be personally targeted in that way.

oh, yeah--it's way easier to fall for a scam than people usually think

ngl my first reaction upon discovering our intern had fallen for a gift card scam in her first week (an impersonation attack based on details from linkedin, literally the kind of problem that @blockpartyapp.com is solving, an actual example we use in our marketing) was

OMG how could you be so dumb

bsky.app/profile/exar...

Being on LinkedIn is relatively unavoidable in my experience, but I don't list my current employer until/unless I'm looking for something new and that means I don't get the gift card scams because that's how they find you.

since then I've always said I provided real value by being foolish enough to fall for it, but wise enough to realize I'd been had. the middle path.

at my first job I fell for a fake fedex email targeted to a team@company distro list, started downloading an attachment that was [long hex string].js

A father is warning others about a new AI ‘family emergency scam’ Philadelphia attorney Gary Schildhorn received a call from who he believed was his son, saying that he needed money to post bail following a car crash. Mr Schildhorn later found out he nearly fell vic...

Have you seen this case? The scammers used a combo of AI voice impersonation/a crypto ATM to get the funds. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

Scammers have gotten really really effective, sadly. You might think it would be nearly impossible to just call a person and get them to pull thousands of dollars cash from the bank, learn how to use Bitcoin, and feed it bill by bill into an CryptoATM in a few hours, but it happens daily.

General rule of thumb is that cops don't call. They knock.

It makes sense from their perspective. If they called, someone else could answer and pretend to be you. Or you could claim someone did that, after lying to them. That wouldn't work in person.

Very similar! How did the scammers contact you? And what pieces of info did they have to make it seem legit?

Had a similar experience a few years ago after I started a new job and the scammers pretended to be from HR. I didn't give them my info, but very nearly did.

Would have been really embarrassing bc the job was claims handler for insurance for exactly this kind of scam.

Hate to say, but any hosted PBX can do number and caller ID spoofing. I can do it with my office phone system. It’s easy.

Oh shit, that's right; these guys also showed up on caller ID as an official city number, in fact the *same* number that when I called it back connected me to the *actual cops*. So, number spoofers are very much a thing

Fun fact, when the FBI calls you the caller ID does in fact say "Federal Bureau of Investigation" and when you call the number back you get a recording that says "no this is not a scam, we are the real FBI", which is of course what a good scam would say

A friend said later they were lucky to have found someone who thought he'd had jury duty. Without it, I'd have hung up.

In the end, when they started going on about me sending them money in some sketchy account I wised up & hung up. But I had like a literal hour of deep panic/terror. Fuck scammers

I was taken in entirely by scammers recently pretending to be cops who claimed I had missed jury duty. They had my address & a couple of other publicly available pieces of info but the kicker was that I vaguely thought I had indeed gotten a jury summons & it was totally plausible that I'd forgotten

Then it's good to spread the word about these things

I have an elderly mother... I've seen some stuff

Somebody claiming to be from The electric company it showed up at the house and she talked to them... I called the electric company had them send security out lol

Moira Stuart says bank cashier saved her from scam Broadcaster recounts that she was ‘embarrassed and angry with myself’, having thought she was very aware of ripoffs

The shame and loss of confidence is real

Moira Stewart is a broadcaster and smart and I am glad she told people about it because she wants to help others

This whole thread is excellent, but this is the heart of it.

thanks for sharing this stuff. I feel for your intern, the scamming is very sophisticated and they target the best parts of ourselves. (they took $200,000 of my mom's retirement as she went into dementia, and ngl, if I had the chance I'd leave em on a landing during a wildfire in cougar country.

Say it louder for the people in the back!

Great instincts to confirm! Scammers are definitely preying on remote workers who don't have access to quickly check-in with someone in person. Did the message you received seem legit/convincing?

bsky.app/profile/exar...