A redditor gets caught up in a triangulation scam and investigates | Hacker News Reader

A redditor gets caught up in a triangulation scam and investigates

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110 pointsstarwind21 comments

Damn interesting read, but it just doesn't pass the smell test. A seasoned security professional and an antifraud higher up(at AMEX, no less) selling 5 gallon buckets on ebay? Perhaps more likely they are victims as well, if of nothing else identify theft.

If not pure larping, it may just be a case of scammers getting ever more creative. I sold a device on Swappa once, got payment, everything seemed fine. Before I shipped it, luckily (or not), I received personal emails threatening me and telling me I was going to jail and such. I still don't understand the scam completely, but someone apparently used a person's name, email, and finances to pay for something, and that person was able to get my info from Swappa so assumed I was playing a part.

If true, will be interesting to see how this shakes out.

Side note: My brother works fraud for a huge national bank. The stuff he tells me both amazes and horrifies me. I swear, if some of these scammers used their ingenuity for legitimate business, they could go far.

I'm with you. The story progressed way too smoothly. He called the two eBay buyers and both actually talked to him!

I’m more amazed the local police even talked to him.

I’ve done stuff like this. It doesn’t always work, but people are often happy to help, especially if they already believe something is amiss.

I imagine that "open source intelligence" means pay-to-play surveillance databases that are generally out of the public's eye. If you call someone directly and sound like a reasonable person, most people will talk to you.

To give you an anecdote about how comprehensive these databases are - I signed up for Oracle's free VPS, just to see how it was. I gave one of my vanity VOIP numbers rather than my direct number (it looks like a made up number, think 222-333-4444). Since they have such a high touch sales process, this apparently got personally reviewed and flagged as fraud. Rather than getting an email or call from my card company, an Oracle rep ended up calling the landline of one of my past residences to try and get in touch with me. The number had never been given out as a contact for myself, but seemingly came up on the list all the phone numbers associated with me.

You say that like "Legitimate Business" and "scam" are really all that different in our society. For some reason we tolerate a significant amount of bullshit designed to sneakily or forcefully separate us from our money when it's some corporation doing it instead of some Nigerian or whatever.

I don't know your situation, but every single dollar I give to corporations is voluntary and without deceit. I suspect this is blind rage out of jealousy for the rich, but if you do truly live somewhere where it's common for businesses to deceive you and steal your money I'd want to hear more about it.

The US. Even our healthcare system largely exists just to squeeze us.

I think you have a rather naive view of how corporations and business actually work. Sure, you technically "voluntarily" use their services, but this is often because you're not given a choice either by the reality of economics, monopolistic practices, or even the law. My internet company oversells and underdelivers and doesn't really give two shits that they have terrible quality because they know our only other choices are even worse and they've lobbied themselves into a position to keep real competition out. Go to buy a car and the salesmen will absolutely push you to get your financing through them even if you don't actually need any financing. My sister has been threatened 5 times now by a collection agency for a loan she already paid off years ago. Funeral homes try to guilt you into buying caskets and flowers and shit through them rather than through third parties who are an order of magnitude less expensive, oh, and they have financing too! Cereal and toy companies advertise to children and coach them on effective ways to annoy their parents into buying their product for them. Pharmaceutical companies advertise directly to consumers to pressure their doctors into prescribing them stuff.

I can hear your response now, something along the lines of "It's their fault for falling for it". Capitalism as it exists today optimizes for sociopathy and people like you are so entrenched in that culture that you can't even see it anymore.

You've failed to show a single example of a corporation deceiving you out of your money.

Your doctor didn't lie to you, the funeral director didn't lie to you. The salesman didn't lie to you.

Obviously they aren't trying to make the best decision for you, but it takes an awfully selfish person to believe it's everyone else's responsibility to spoon feed them optimal market information.

If you want data, prove your opinion.

> You've failed to show a single example of a corporation deceiving you out of your money.

You just have a conveniently narrow definition of "deceive". Funeral homes use guilt to manipulate people into believing that they are somehow doing their loved ones a disservice by going with "inferior" (hint: they're not) third-party coffins and the like. Saying that isn't deception is a child's argument.

> Obviously they aren't trying to make the best decision for you

Yeah, in other words: "It's their fault for falling for it". Victim blaming is built in to our increasingly sociopathic culture.

I've bought a coffin and an urn outside of the funeral home that provided us with their services. Neither times was I told our decision was inferior. The point you seem to have latched onto as the most representative of your argument doesn't appear to hold water.

Do you know why the The Funeral Rule exists? It wasn't because this sort of thing was rare.

Where is the triangulation happening? This is really confusing.

DEFCON speaker on this type of attack:

https://youtu.be/2IT2oAzTcvU

Reads well but scarry how seemingly intelligent people can be so stupid to risk everything for couple hundred dollars.

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