Comment by qnleigh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by qnleigh | Hacker News Reader

I got sucked into reading this paper, and it has completely changed my perception of these scams. They are incredibly thorough and realistic. Here are some quotes that drove this home for me.

"The bond phase showed that scammers had tremendous patience; this phase lasted anywhere from 3 to 11 months before the scammer moved on to the next stage of the scam."

"When I spoke to her on a video call, it was the same person from the photos. She was even wearing the dress that matched a photo she had sent earlier in the day."

“She did not push me to invest, or ask for money. She seemed genuinely interested in me and we spoke for nearly 6 months before she even brought up investments; it all seemed so real and organic."

"It seemed legitimate, there was no reason to think that it could be fake – if she could be a scammer, so could any of my actual friends."

"[the site] was similar to what you would expect on an investment portfolio website; in fact, the prices of stocks and bitcoin also matched..."

"According to recent research [23], these scams have resulted in losses of nearly 75 billion dollars since 2020."

Definitely sympathizes the victims even more. I had been thinking that these were 1-2 month, ham-fisted operations: establish contact and rush to grab the cash from the gullible rube. To string along the target for a year shows dedication completely separate from the pedestrian scams you normally encounter.

That's the ones i've encountered

I mean a lot of the investment scams you see on places like Reddit - like the "testing the network" crypto scam - are pretty hamfisted. People still fall for them though.

> To string along the target for a year shows dedication completely separate from the pedestrian scams you normally encounter.

presumably this is where the name comes from, no?

you spend a year fattening the pig, before you butcher it, hence pig butchering schemes.

I never took it so literally. Just thought it was to develop a relationship with a mark and then put the screws to them as soon as possible.

Someone gullible, like a reality show contestant (90 Day Fiancé, Bachelor, etc). A person who can “fall in love” immediately and will do whatever to prove their affection because they believe they have limited alternatives.

A year investment…that is a meaningful (platonic or romantic) time for a relationship, where some sense of obligation/pity to the scammer could develop.

I happened across the "Tinder Swindler" video on Netflix the other day, and I was shocked at how elaborate these scams can get. Always thought I'd catch onto this stuff, but...

Imagine: you meet someone online. You talk for a while, and decide to meet up for dinner. They say nothing, but upon googling them (for safety, of course) you discover they're the son of a billionaire - a weapons or diamonds magnate or something to that effect.

Anyways, the day of the date comes around and a brand new Rolls Royce Phantom comes to pick you up, then drops you off at a private jet. You go to one of the highest end restaurants in the continent. You're experiencing a probably $20,000 night between tips, booze, food, and entertainment. You're showered in expensive gifts over weeks and weeks - honestly, where is all this money coming from, if not his pocket? He's a billionaire! You see him checking into hotels all around Europe, but you mention you miss him so he flies in just to get coffee with you for an hour. He's clearly head-over-heels for you.

tl;dr he has a scheme where he's got some photos of his guard roughed up, and a little blood on the "swindler", which aren't shown until the woman is deeply infatuated with him. It's a very urgent problem - some business competitors are out to get him, and they're tracking his cards. Can you please take out a loan for $50,000 and send it? It's okay if the bank won't normally approve that - I'll "employ you" and send over a paystub showing you make over $90,000/month! That loan gets approved instantly. You take out a few more because you want your boyfriend of 6 months to survive of course.

You're simply funding his night out with his next target. It's a rotating scam. Pretty insane to me.

That is an incredible scam . Easy to see how it could suck in some people. Lot of overhead, though. Wonder how many potential victims tap out early and never yield a return. I suppose the front man only requires a minimal amount of charm when they are an heir.

Oh, I should’ve been more clear - that’s fake. He has websites set up, etc., but everything he buys is paid for by another woman he tricked.

No I understood it was an “heir”.

It was a pretty wild ride, for an arvix paper lol. Easily as good as a provocative work of fiction, It had me questioning my marriage briefly until I rolled over and looked at my toddler, and briefly thought “holy shirt this runs deep!” (And then obviously broke out of the spell of the story lol)

Still, it’s a testament to the level of emotional damage that these scams must levy on their actual victims.

The wild part will be when you find out that the toddler is actually the mastermind.

Or simply that you're not the father.

That took a dark twist lol.

Fortunately, there are plenty of worthy partners in the world, even if there are lots of ones that are a waste of time and resources.

I saw a YouTube who had planted a mole inside one of these farms. Each guy ran something like 10 WhatsApp on his PC and when needed they had girls in a waiting room “on call” to do FaceTime.

Was it Jim Browning’s video? [0] (WhatsApp screencast starts at 5:42 [1])

[0]: https://youtu.be/vu-Y1h9rTUs

[1]: https://youtu.be/vu-Y1h9rTUs?t=342

Jim Browning is such a legend

Yes it was. I don't follow the guy, so I had no recollection of the creator. Thanks for sharing the link and name!

3 to 11 months is long enough. I wonder if higher level scaammers spend even longer for even higher rewards, years instead of months for the momey. At that point it should be a much higher purpose/agenda but I guess these timespans must be happening too.

I mean, Madoff spent nearly four decades building confidence.

Our clandestine services will spend years getting people into the right places. I mean at at certain point the difference between the two blurs, and the social engineering entirely overlaps.

Most motorcycle gangs require a 1 year hang around, plus the introduced person has to be known for at least a year.

The conventional wisdom is to wait 2 years to marry someone, and 1 year at the absolute bare minimum if you are old or at the edge of the fertility window or in some extenuating circumstance.

This seems somewhat confirmed by the fact it outlives the measure of these long-running scams. Perhaps the conventional wisdom is correct.

for the average person, the limerence phase -- where your brain produces dopamine instead of oxytocin when around your partner -- lasts around 20-26 months.

aka the honeymoon phase. wait until the dopamine hits stop and then see where you stand with that marriage...

I've never heard limerence described in physiological terms like this before, do you recommend any sources for more on this?

searching "limerence dopamine" will get you basically all of the info you need. skip the first 6-8 obviously AI gen articles and hit wikipedia or some of the more reputable Medium writers. that said, chances are the first links, even if AI generated, will link to some sort of research.

wait until you meet a real woman, bazinga

That was a tabloid page turner of an arxiv preprint. Really nice mixed methods research paper that conveys the depth of these scams.

the scammers had the best CRM software and "customer service" training.

If any of the scam farm worker failed they will get physical punishment or even capital punishment...

Is this for sure? I can imagine that even then, 99% of the attempts will fail.

There are token rewards for successes and punishments, sometimes extreme, for low productivity. If a slave is seen as having no worth to the endeavour and cannot be trafficked, they will sometimes be killed as a warning to the others that productivity is expected.

It’s a horrific and brutal scenario that pits victims against victims. In many ways, the targets have less to lose than the victims targeting them.

"...workers at KK Park are subjected to 17-hour workdays and are frequently spied on, tortured, and threatened with murder when attempting to flee the compound.[11][17] Passports and cell phones of workers were confiscated to prevent unmonitored communication with the outside world. The complex includes supermarkets, hospital, restaurants and hotels to form a closed community.[citation needed] Illegal organ harvesting was also reported to take place inside KK Park.[4] KK Park victims could only leave by paying a "contract termination" fee which is calculated by the inflated cost of transportation and how much money the victims earned for the scam companies."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KK_Park

Jesus. It had never occurred to me that the front-line people perpetrating these scams could be enslaved themselves.

Enslaved, having family members held hostage, or some other threat of violence. Once you start stealing amounts of money that other people will kill you for then it's likely for that group to use that level of violence against its own members to ensure compliance.

Sure, most attempts will fail. The cyber trafficking victims are punished if they fail to reach their quote.

many of the them are in heavy debt or commited crime and had no other jobs avaible.

> "It seemed legitimate, there was no reason to think that it could be fake – if she could be a scammer, so could any of my actual friends."

Which isn't that far from the truth, eh.

Tupperware and Amway might be legit MLMs (there is a product attached, after all), but there are sooo many "side hustles" preying particularly on women that are outright scams - and inevitably the victims of these lose almost all of their friends and even family because they're all sick sooner or later from them constantly attempting to shill whatever supplements, insurances, shitcoins or kitchen gadgets they're currently dealing. It's truly heartbreaking to see people you know fall for that bullshit and get sucked into the vortex with no way of pulling them out.

they're not legit, they're just scams. that real products are involved is irrelevant given the amount of financial and personal damage involved.

The podcast Scam, Inc details all if this and is very interesting and worthwhile. Talks about the big cases and the people who perpetrate the scams. It has surprising detail.

Eh. While it's surprising to see someone string along someone through the internet for so long, it's not a really a new thing in the physical world. It happens once in a while that someone marries someone much richer just to file for a divorce a bit later. Heck, it's actually socially acceptable to be nice to people just because you want something from them.

> "It seemed legitimate, there was no reason to think that it could be fake – if she could be a scammer, so could any of my actual friends."

Wow, this really makes me think. You see, I have this president that ...

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