And I want to share this secret, one might even say - expensive knowledge with you.
Welcome under the cut!
One not at all beautiful morning I called my father-in-law, on some, not very important, business, but his phone was busy. I called back half an hour later - it was still busy. The father-in-law is a former military man, always speaks on the phone as briefly as possible, and it immediately became clear to me that something had happened.
I called my mother-in-law's phone and an incoherent stream of words and sobs poured out of the tube. From the very first words, it immediately became clear what had happened - "the security service ... the account was compromised ... they took the money ... carried it to the ATM, put it on a secret account ..."
I tried to save the situation - interrupted her nonsense, said that they were scammers and that she should stop her father-in-law, in any way - for some reason nothing smarter came to my mind than to offer to pour water on him. It seemed to me that under the influence of NLP scammers, people become like a zombie and if you pour cold water on them, this will bring them to their senses.
But nothing happened. Mother-in-law got stuck on one phrase - "He does not listen to me ...", which she repeated in response to all my words. It took me a while, only after a couple of minutes, to realize that she was hysterical and she could not hear me at all. She is a very domineering person, her father-in-law does not usually make any serious decisions without her instructions, especially about an operation with a large amount of money, and this phrase of hers was completely unnatural, I had to understand faster that she was not adequate, but I was also on stress.
Stopping the useless conversation, I told my wife to dial my mother-in-law and try to explain something to her (she, of course, did not succeed), and I myself jumped into the car and drove to them, in the vain hope of having time to prevent my father-in-law from transferring money to the scammers, but Unfortunately, I didn't have time. My mother-in-law did not open the door for me - she was afraid that the bandits had come to kill her, and my father-in-law, with a surprised look, stood at the ATM, to which he had just fed 350,000 rubles at 15,000 at a time. Surprised because the scammers dropped the call and ... for some reason they didn't call back, and he would have stood so patiently and waited for further instructions if I hadn't come for him.
The divorce was classic - the "security service" called, scared him properly, then sent instructions on what to do by e-mail, he went to withdraw all the money from the pension account and put it on the specified phone number. Bingo!
The investigation, conducted by me, in hot pursuit, gave answers to the following questions:
- "How could you get caught so stupidly, I sent you a link about this type of fraud a month ago!"
It suddenly turned out that we speak with parents in different languages. My father-in-law sent me various nonsense via WhatsApp, which I deleted without reading - postcards for all, church and not so, holidays, Channel One news, various ufological crap, conspiracy theories, etc. And when I told him that I had sent him a similar story about a call from the "bank security" - he just blinked - it turned out that he also deleted, without reading, all my messages, including these very stories about fraud, counting everything I send is boring nonsense.
- "Why did they believe that it was really a call from the bank?"
Fraudsters competently intimidated pensioners with terrible and incomprehensible phrases - "the account is compromised", "I am recording information", etc. And the phrase SECURITY SERVICE had a magical effect on the former military man and his wife - the father-in-law then said that everything in his soul was cut short, like, well, everything is the end, they will be imprisoned or shot. And the mother-in-law fell into hysterics - "Run quickly, do what they say ...". At that moment they no longer thought about money - they would save themselves from prison or from something worse.
- "Why didn't you think to check their data - phone, email, etc.?"
It turned out, they figured it out, checked - at the moment when the father-in-law was sitting at the computer to receive "instructions" by mail, the call was interrupted and he had a few seconds to do something. He suddenly doubted and decided to check the phone number from which they called, but that either really looked like a bank phone or a father-in-law in a fever it seemed so, in any case - the chance to escape was missed. And the fact that the bank sends him letters not from the official mail, but from Yandex.ru and the money is required to be transferred to the left phone number - so who knows this official mail, and, probably, the security officer writes from a secret number, and the number that's why it's secret, so not +7 495, but +7 909 ...
When the father-in-law was withdrawing all his money from the bank, the cashier could, of course, suspect something when a pensioner with bulging eyes rushed to close the account, but firstly, this is not her job, and secondly, the father-in-law was instructed what to say, that the son is getting married and money is needed for the wedding; thirdly, knowing his father-in-law, he would not listen to anyone, he would have made a scandal, but he would have withdrawn the money anyway.
- And now the question for a million - "Why didn't you call the bank or me, you know that I work in this bank ?!"
- it turned out that the mother-in-law called, not only to us with the bank, but to the one whom she completely trusts and considers an EXPERT in everything and in banking too - the son of her friend. He really works in a bank (as a phone operator in a call center of some small semi-underground bank, but what's the difference, in a bank), and my mother-in-law considers him a super-duper connoisseur - whatever you ask him - hot news (Channel One) , TV series, talk shows - he has an authoritative opinion on everything (he lives with his mother, watches all this news, TV series and talk shows with her). It is useless to ask the bank and me about this, so she naturally does not trust our opinion.
The mother-in-law even in an ordinary situation likes to cast a shadow on the fence, and only then, when the whole Security Council called ... In general, the "expert" did not understand anything from what she was asking in half hints, but just in case he said that Security Council is the case serious, and if there is something wrong with the account - it is better to withdraw money from it - that's it, the last chance to get off the hook was missed.
A call to the real security service of the mobile operator, the fraudsters' numbers, as expected, did not give anything - "We cannot restrict our clients in the right to send and receive money, contact the police", and we called half an hour after the last money transfer, I hoped that it would be possible stop transactions or block the account during the proceedings, but no.
And the last question that interested me the most:
“Well OK, the account is compromised, okay, but you had CASH on hand! That's all - the money has been saved, why did you bring it to some secret account to the scammers? They would put them in the closet, under the bedclothes and be done. ”
Father-in-law and mother-in-law just blinked silently - such an idea did not occur to them. The scammers did not give them a minute to come to their senses, all 3 (THREE) hours, while the "special operation" lasted, they were CONTINUOUSLY hanging on the phone, constantly directing and monitoring their actions, and, along the way, continuing to intimidate. If the call fell through, they immediately called back, not giving a chance to jump off the hook.
Which conclusion follows from all this?
If the scammers found a weak spot and the person swallowed the bait - he got scared, panicked, then that's it - the chances that he will lose his money become very high. And it is not worth counting on the fact that he will do some logical and meaningful actions that will help him to be saved.
Unless, of course, some accident does not happen, as, for example, it happened to one of my acquaintances, when the SB of her bank called her and began to ask for the PIN code and so on - she was already beginning to dictate the number, but the subway train in which she drove, entered the tunnel and the connection was broken. She waited for a call for a while, and then she called back - only to a real bank. But here I was just lucky.
Therefore, give your parents an educational program on safety, try to simulate dangerous situations with them and show them how to react to them, where and who to turn for help if something goes wrong.
And please, this is extremely important, do not repeat my mistakes - do it personally!