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Comment by hoofhearted | Hacker News Reader

Correct.

A scam here in Baltimore that keeps occurring is that the squeege kids will run up on someone unsuspecting and start cleaning their windshield.

They will pressure the driver for a tip, and the driver will say they don’t have cash of course.

They will say that’s cool, you can send me a tip. They ask the driver for their phone so they can look up their cashapp for them, and bam the driver got scammed.

What’s happening is that the squeege kid is looking up his account on your phone, and then sending himself like $2,000.

People have complained that cashapp won’t help, and their bank isn’t letting them dispute the charge.

In my opinion, this is clearly an anti pattern on Cashapps end, and I would imagine at least one engineer would have spotted this vulnerability by now. I would think that Cashapp would build in a simple pin confirmation before a stranger could wire themselves a couple thousand dollars. This has bugged me for the last 2 years lol

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That is entirely on you if you give away your phone to those kids. I would think they would just run away with it

You’re minimizing major fraud being committed by juveniles, and it’s easy money for them lol.

It is not fraud, it is theft.

It has nothing to do with Cash app. It could just as well be Zelle, or PayPal, or Venmo, or physical cash.

Zelle, PayPal, and Venmo have more in place to trace or recover illegal transactions, or at least to make creating and deleting accounts to move illegally acquired money more difficult.

The link's whole thesis is that Cash App doesn't really care, which is why criminals prefer it. Being so radically frictionless for the underbanked also facilitates scams, including those that distinguish between theft and fraud.

I was born outside the US and we had local gangsters that would walk up to you in the middle of the street and try to “sell” you a brick. Like a brick that you build a house or wall with. They would show it to you, and tell you that it was a great brick and that you should buy it. If you told them you didn’t want the brick, they would assure you that yes you most certainly do want the brick. You then bought the brick from them. You can probably image what the brick was used for if you refused to purchase it.

I'm not familiar with this situation, but I'm assuming that whoever is doing this isn't there to "clean" your windshield, and that the entire "transaction" is imbued with the implicit threat of violence and intimidation. You're essentially being robbed through other means. If this isn't the case, then I'm happy to admit that I'm wrong, but that's how it reads to me.

This happened to a friend of mine in Atlanta.

Someone tried to sell her a rock at a traffic light. When she wouldn't buy it, they used it to smash her rear driver's side window and grab whatever they could from inside the car.

Risky move, given that Georgia is a constitutional carry state and castle doctrine extends to occupied vehicles.

Im pretty sure most guns are owned by hoarders sitting in a cabinet somewhere they aren’t likely to be in someone’s car who is ready to use it. Gun owners are a minority and they are just very enthusiastic individuals that they seem like a larger contingent than they are.

In 2020 this poll found 32% of Americans report owning a gun, and 44% live in a household with one. So not "most", but not insubstantial either.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/264932/percentage-americans-own...

there are over 400 million firearms in the US in the hands of an estimated 100 million individuals

over two million background checks for firearms purchases are performed each month, and this number is rising, and the number of people who are being background checked for the first time is rapidly rising (fastest growing group - black women)

by 2030 there will likely be a half billion firearms in the US

there are more fully automatic rifles registered to individuals in Texas (40k) than are in possession of many NATO armies...for semi-auto pistols and rifles, Texas residents outgun most NATO armies by a substantial margin

these are stats that both gun advocacy and opposition groups will be happy to validate (each believe the numbers support their position)

anecdotally, it is very common here in Texas to read of traffic altercations in which both parties involved in road rage incidents were carrying in their vehicles...it is widespread

Posted elsewhere but https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3937627 has numbers to back some of this up

Also according to the Small Arms Survey, Texas has five times as many guns as the US military.

Though the US military ones are more likely to have select fire and fully automatic but those are only particularly useful in certain situations.

Mine is in my truck. So that's 1 data point.

Risky move, given that Georgia is a constitutional carry state and castle doctrine extends to occupied vehicles.

Not really. By the time a seat-belted person gets to their gun, whether in a holster, under the seat, in a purse, or in the glove box, the thief is long gone.

Real life is very different from the movies.

You are asserting that it takes a long time to get a gun out.

I remember a few years back there was some controversy about how police are trained to shoot first and one of the things that bubbled up then was a video (I think produced by someone teaching the police) of a seated driver drawing a gun and having it pointed out the window in a fraction of a second. The gun was in a holster down by the seat belt buckle. And the next instant it was pointing out the driver's window.

Makes sense for a seasoned criminal, of the type who might shoot a cop.

Joe Lunchbucket isn't likely to be so agile.

Statistically speaking, Joe Lunchbucket, is likely a better trained shooter than the police, most of whom only fire their guns once a year to qualify and have to meet lower accuracy standards than CHL holders in 32 states.

Why risky? Assuming the person with the rock knows this and is armed, they're probably ready for a would-be Rambo and they're much better positioned to shoot first, or at least they'll have the draw and be able to take your gun right off of you.

> I'm not familiar with this situation, but I'm assuming that whoever is doing this isn't there to "clean" your windshield, and that the entire "transaction" is imbued with the implicit threat of violence

not in the US - millions of people keep loaded guns in their vehicles

Do you have a reference on that number? I’d love to know what the number actually is.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3937627 has some numbers:

> During the Coronavirus pandemic, the number of concealed handgun permits has soared to over 21.52 million – a 48% increase since 2016.

Given that some states are "constitutional carry" (21 states) and do NOT require a permit if you legally own the gun, the actual number of people who HAVE a gun and can carry it would be higher than 21 million. They even do the math:

> To summarize, the total number of permits in the US is at least 21.52 million. Add in people who legally carry without a permit, and the number clearly becomes much larger. While 8.3% of the adult population has permits, the percentage of Americans who say that they carry most or all the time is about 5.4%.

5.4% of Americans is about 17 million people, the majority of which will carry when in their vehicle. (Note that legally and technically you are "conceal carrying" in many states if the gun is IN the vehicle, not locked, even if it is NOT on your person - so if you're married and YOU carry, you will want your spouse to get a CCW also even if he or she never carries, because if you're both in the car, the gun is in the center console, and you step out to get gas, your spouse is now concealing).

Yes, don't give your phone away, but it's also on CashApp if they allow large transfers with no further authentication, even if we're not talking about literal scams and you just mistakenly fat fingered an extra 0...

Ah, yes, it’s the people who got scammed who are at fault. Everyone should always be ultra suspicious of everyone around them, no happiness or fun allowed. \s

I want to live in a world where I can trust a random stranger, not suspect them of robbing me. Justifying some extra protections like a pin or a fingerprint check to finalize a transactions should not be this big of a deal.

I think that most other people would as well. Unfortunately, there are enough people willing to take advantage of that good will that you are a fool if you are not somewhat suspicious.

You do live in that world. You can trust random strangers but not ones the look like “youths” in Baltimore. Use your brain to asses the risk level.

Can you give me more detail about what physical characteristics define a "dangerous youth" in Baltimore?

Ones who are under 16, but are smart enough to intentionally extort drivers on the main thoroughfare to T. Rowe Price and Legg Mason’s headquarters lol

They are all actually pretty intelligent individually, and they come up with some pretty clever things to get into. A bunch of them come from rough homes, and they are usually taking the cash home to support their family, even at 15. They are supposed to be in school, but they skip to go squeege because they don’t feel like the things in school are relating to their struggle. They have tried the regular 16 year old jobs, but that doesn’t pay enough to cover their struggling mom and siblings. Instead of losing out to low wages and income taxes, they find it much easier to pick up a squeege from a gas station, and start making some instant cash in tips.

These kids are super smart lol. Pressure breeds diamonds. They know how to hack the Lyme scooters and ride around and commit crimes. They know how to scam you out of your cashapp balance. And they really know how to download and build burner handgun kits from Defense Distributed :(

If you choose a stranger at random, you can likely trust them.

If somebody chooses you, you're not choosing at random.

Technically yes, because you’re not choosing at all but they’re still random to me since they’re not from my circle.

It's not random at all. They're selected from the pool of people who will approach you.

Let's simplify. Say that 1 in a million people pull the stranger needing help scam, and will approach you given the opportunity. Everybody else will only approach you if they actually need help, which is rare, say 1 in a million.

So in that scenario 50% of the people approaching you are criminals, compared to 1 in a million who are actually criminals.

> I want to live in a world where I can trust a random stranger

This is and always has been utterly delusional.

I disagree and I think it’s a matter of perspective.

Furthermore, even if they have a bad design facilitating street thuggery, that has nothing to do with the business itself being a fraud.

This reminds me of Brazilian banks which have introduced "Street Mode" to secure your banking app while out of the home:

https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/brazil/nubank-wil...

"Brazilianization" is a real phenomenon, isn't it? One wishes we weren't going that way in the West, but we are.

Maybe it is a bit too much, but in general, Western societies should work on educating people to greatly reduce their amount of trust in other people. Current Western trust levels are simply not reflective of reality: they were meant for a white society with a single, enforced religion, where everyone was shaking in fear of divine punishment. We live in a global world now and vast majority of it never had or expected a similar level of trust, they are taking advantage of you way too easily. Including billion strong nations that had no concept of God for millennia and no concept of conscience.

Reducing trust is better in some respects, but deeply harmful in others. What would be great instead is to increase accountability so that it's safer to trust. In the case of scam money transfers, a path to reversal would be a start.

Unfortunately, with the ridiculous level of trust people have in the West, that will be only a vehicle for more scams. Especially "path to reversal". Sure the world is overall low-trust and it creates a lot of friction. Only alternative to avoid the switch would be to never start globalisation.

The vast majority of commenters here vote to dismantle the methods of accountability. This proposition won’t happen as long as the PMC class remain insulated from rapidly rising crime.

I am not at all surprised that your name seems to be Russian. Before anyone accuses me of racism, I too am from the same region, and my mother is ethnically Russian.

Your mentality is typical of people from low-trust societies - "lol those naive Westerners" (lokhi[0] in Russian). But while individuals in high-trust societies can indeed be lokhi, everyone in a low-trust society is, collectively. They are giving up on the social development and institutions that only work well when trust in people you don't know is a societal value. They are defective at best, and nonexistent at worst, in a society where everyone treats each other with scepticism, disdain and distrust by default, until proven otherwise.

[0] https://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian-origin/lokh/index.html (sorry for RT)

I am not at all trying to present it as a positive development. SURE, living in a high-trust society is a blessing. Both emotionally - it is nice being able to trust people and be trusted by default - but also economically, because it vastly reduces friction in doing business. In Russia yes, main consideration is building a set of conditions (frequently with external checks, escrows, etc) to make sure you won't be duped - that frequently takes more energy than it takes to actually get the job done. For this reason, i don't deal with any Russian speaking clients, for example, it's simply not worth it. I am all on the side of high-trust.

Thing is, it's not the case. The world outside of a narrow circle of rich, white, Protestant countries has never been like this, and those countries too, are losing it because of changing racial composition, and immigration from low-trust cultures. And in a global world, high-trust groups are simply being taken advantage of.

I'm not sure why you are being downvoted. In my city in the US, police have basically said outright they won't respond to a host of petty crime offenses unless there is a severe injury. I was in a blatant hit and run, and police told me they wouldn't respond unless there was an injury, and to just contact my insurance. The obvious morale hazard to this is that there is literally zero downside to running, which basically has resulted in a level of traffic lawlessness that was unheard of 15 years ago. Even with clear dashcam video cops will do nothing.

I don't think you have anyone to blame if you give your phone with a logged in money app to a stranger who is begging for money.

It’s a high pressure situation in the middle of rush hour traffic. They like to target unsuspecting older white people, and unaware females.

If you get aggressive, they will spit on your window, break your wipers off, and hit your car.

Things can get really ugly if you get out of your car and try to confront them: https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/criminal-justic...

This is not CashApp's responsibility to fix any more than it would be the US Treasury's responsibility to fix if I hand them a $100 bill.

If they ask for $10 and you give them a $100 asking for change yes it is the police's job to fix.

Cashapp doesnt bear the responsability of highway robbermen

So you’re validating what Hindenburg research is saying correct?

A bunch of their transaction volume is scam money that is hard to reverse, and it’s not Blocks fault as you say.

> I don't think you have anyone to blame

It’s a negligent move for sure, but a crime is still a crime.

Having someone steal your money without your consent is still theft and they are still the perpetrator of the crime.

The victim-blaming mentality on the internet is wild. Being negligent or naive doesn’t shift 100% of the blame to the victim when a crime occurs.

And then you call them to complain that someone was able to drain your bank account, and they say “sorry, you’re on your own”

You're focusing on whether it's the phone owner's fault or the thief's fault, my point is that it isn't the app's fault.

It drives me nuts that anytime you indicate that a victim behaved unwisely and caution others to behave wisely to help avoid being victimized in the same way, somebody always gets their hackles up about “victim blaming”.

Two things can be true at once: the perpetrator of a crime is the one responsible, AND the victim might have avoided victimhood had they acted more prudently.

Humans communicate in stories. The “cautionary tale” or example of folly that led to woe is a pattern as old as our species could talk.

It is NOT true that cautioning people not to act imprudently, and providing an example, is “victim blaming”. I don’t hear anyone saying that we should not pursue and prosecute the perpetrator.

So just can it with the hair trigger “victim blaming” accusation.

> I don't think you have anyone to blame if you give your phone with a logged in money app to a stranger who is begging for money.

> caution others to behave wisely to help avoid being victimized in the same way

In this case though this is not a caution to others, it's literally a statement of victim shaming/blaming.

> The victim-blaming mentality on the internet is wild. Being negligent or naive doesn’t shift 100% of the blame to the victim when a crime occurs.

Nobody is claiming the criminals are blameless or that a crime is not a crime.

It's astoundingly dumb to hand a piece of electronics worth several hundred dollars to someone in such an interaction, even if they cannot use it to electronically steal your money.

The criminal is a criminal, and the person who hands their phone to someone under these circumstances is mind bogglingly naive. The former fact is tautological so it's natural to focus on the latter part, the one that boggles the mind. How could anybody possibly fall for this? Were they very young? Were they old? Were they distracted or drunk or lulled by the perpetrator? Were they out of towners? Were they intimidated? One wonders.

Roll up windows, lock doors, turn on windshield wipers. This scam was rampant in L.A. in the 1980s.

The states attorney for Maryland in Baltimore lost her re-election bid because she refused to prosecute kids running a racket on the busiest streets.

A guy did exactly what you said, and they snapped his wipers off his truck. He parked highly upset, and stepped out with a bat to confront the kids. One of them pulled out a handgun and shot the dude down right in rush hour traffic.

She lost her job, and the city started enforcing a no squeege ban.

I can’t imagine being willing to die for my windshield wipers. Go home, call your insurance company, and avoid that area in the future.

I mean, it's also an anti-pattern with wallets if you hand them your wallet full of cash and tell them to take a tip. A PIN is not a bad idea though.

I think this might be an actual generational difference; I feel weird letting someone else use my phone or using someone else's phone now. I can remember a time when phones were much more communal - the family shared a phone, and public phones existed, and I wonder if older folks are a bit more locked into that way of thinking. Obviously a phone is much more than a phone now however.

The vast vast majority of people don't go around with a wallet full of cash for obvious reasons. If having the application installed is equivalent of going around with such a wallet, then at the very least it points to flaw.

I answer my wife’s phone from time to time and I always feel weird doing it, and feel that I have surprised the other end.

On the other hand, my phone causes ringing on my phone, my IPad and my work laptop: for the love of G-d don’t just watch it or tell me it is ringing, answer the damn phone. U less it says likely scam of course.

I don't know if it's a scam but there's been guys hanging around the local greyhound station with stories like "my phone battery died while I was on the bus, can I use your phone to call my buddy to pick me up". And I don't want to be a jerk but something about it felt a bit too pushy, and if I give then my phone I was probably never going to see it or them again. Now just giving it unlocked to a squeegee kid? Hell no, that's just plain naive.

I thought so too, but then I actually once gave my phone to someone in need, and they... just called someone and returned my phone back to me. I was actually expecting a trick. I guess we need to be more trusting sometimes, and help each other more often (I mean, losing a phone happens to people and can be a real problem)

I've had people ask to use my phone a few times in similar situations. So I just dial the number on speaker for them and don't hand them my phone.

Been seeing some tiktoks on this exact scam being run in bars, too - a man/lady will chat the victim up, ask for their phone to put in their number, and then go to cashapp and send themselves money, and disappear into the night. And yes, no recourse for the victim at all.

Banks siding with Silicon Valley firms and not the bank customer is common. Try blocking a vendor that tricked you into signing up. Bank won't help.

In India, apps like Google Pay (which runs on UPI platform) require you to first unlock the app using your screen lock method and then also require entry of a pin to confirm any kind of money transfer.

not only that, the pin entry page very clearly shows the recipient, the amount and the option to see technical info like refids. moreover the ui is exactly the same whichever app you use to initiate the payment (as opposed to the dumpster fire that is zelle). this has been the case since day 1 of upi.

Honestly the fact that some govt employee in india got so much right that all the sv startups could not is truly baffling.

CashApp -> Settings -> Privacy & Security. Top option is to turn on PIN or biometrics to open the app, or to move money. This has been there for many, many years.

This is the 12th reply to your post and first one to point this out. I think this report is trying to ride well-off people's lack of awareness of CashApp. Kinda what they're accusing Block of doing, which is funny.

A "time delay safe" function in the app could accomplish the same thing. I'd certainly want to take 30 minutes to think about it (or login and unlock large transfers 30 minutes ahead of time) if I was going to spend more than a couple hundred dollars.

Right now, muggers can't take $1000 out of my wallet because I don't have $1000 in my wallet. They cannot force me to use an ATM to empty my bank account because my ATM daily limits are set to $500/day.

But, in theory, they could empty it if I was on Cashapp.

Cashapp, like so many tech startups rushing to replace incumbent taxi and hotel and other services with phone apps, has missed Chesterton's fence on this state of affairs in its hurry to become the key part of "providing everyone with access to important financial services so they can fully participate in the economy."

>Right now, muggers can't take $1000 out of my wallet because I don't have $1000 in my wallet. They cannot force me to use an ATM to empty my bank account because my ATM daily limits are set to $500/day.

When I moved to california my debit card got skimmed at a Lucky grocery store. Ever since then I've made sure that my debit card, venmo, paypal, and all my other money accounts are linked to a checking account that only has $500 in it. If I need to transfer someone more than that I'll transfer money into that account from my real checking account.

It continually amazes how advanced yet also how backwards the US is.

I feel like there should be two levels of unlocked phones 1 which is full unlocked (access key apps, photos, settings, etc.) and like a guest mode (phone, web browser, weather app, calculator, etc)

Android has this, in the form of guest profiles. though i dont know about anyone who uses it this way and pixel for whatever reason disables it by default. some chinese oems have a good interface for this though

I learned recently you can do this with screen time on iOS.

Zelle has the same issue. Cannot unwind a fraudulent transaction.

So, just avoid CashApp and Zelle.

It's not that you can't unwind them, it's that you can't do so through normal channels. Complain to the Office of the Comptroller of Currency and it will get fixed. I'd still avoid those apps, but I don't want anyone who got scammed to read your comment and give up hope.

Didn't work for me.

How does this end if you don't have CashApp installed?

> squeege kids

And another euphemism.

They’re literally groups of teenagers with squeegees. What do you think they should be called? Nephilim?

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