Stupid Victim of the Day

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Normally we post "stupid criminal" stories but this story had so much stupid in it we just had to share. :eek:

He told Durham he worked for Hewlett Packard and had good news – Durham’s YouTube post had half a million hits and counting. "I don't even know what YouTube is, really,” Durham said. “I've heard of it." Still, the caller told Durham that Hewlett Packard wanted to interview him and give him a free shopping spree at HP's online store.
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I imagine that they just called a bunch of people claiming to be HP, it will work on somebody!
 
Actually, this happened to my mother. Someone pretending to be from Lenovo. My mother actually does own a Lenovo laptop so at first it seemed like it might be legit. But some of the things they said sounded fishy so she asked them to answer a few questions about her account. Which of course they couldn't and just hung up.

This sort of scam only works on one person in 1,000. But it's still worth their time to try it because the payoff is good enough.
 
Quix said:
Actually, this happened to my mother. Someone pretending to be from Lenovo. My mother actually does own a Lenovo laptop so at first it seemed like it might be legit. But some of the things they said sounded fishy so she asked them to answer a few questions about her account. Which of course they couldn't and just hung up.

This sort of scam only works on one person in 1,000. But it's still worth their time to try it because the payoff is good enough.
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Exactly, Lenovo, HP, Dell; all common computers. Just call someone and say you're from one of the three and every couple calls you'll get one right.
 
It's not surprising that the victim wants to believe that these scammer are good at what they do. But as others have said, they are just guessing rather than they actually knew what computer the victim had. In fact they got the Youtube guess wrong, as the owner turned out to be someone who doesn't use Youtube.

Too bad for the victim, that didn't raise any suspicion
 
what we have here is a failure to communicate :)

Anyway, that's what came to mind lol.
 
Sounds like an older guy based upon the guys quotes.

Although given the lack of protection with bank funds, banks should really be held accountable for not verifying the person who owns the account is the one who's emptying it.
 
There's got to be more to the story.

How did they get his bank account number or debit card number to empty his account?
My guess is that they told him they needed the card number or account number to pay for shipping.
They then used that information to empty the account.
 
he doesn't remember how they got his debit card but he does remember trying to order 4 computers. Doesn't take a PhD to know how they got it there.
 
nutzo said:
There's got to be more to the story.

How did they get his bank account number or debit card number to empty his account?
My guess is that they told him they needed the card number or account number to pay for shipping.
They then used that information to empty the account.
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they probably asked him to open a remote monitoring program and then had than run a key logger to record him typing in his credit card info, or they created a clone of the HP site and had him order from that.
 
A common phone scam in this area is someone calling a grandmother and telling them their grandson is in jail an needs bail. Bail is $2000, or whatever; you can give us a CC number.

I guess having a low life grandson is pretty common and calling an elderly woman to bail them out is not uncommon.
 
I got a call a few months back from someone claiming to be from the IRS...said I owed back taxes...actually sounded legit and the caller ID showed an IRS number from Washington DC...he knew the first few digits of my SS# and other personal details...I knew it was a scam but I was impressed with how professional it was :D ...apparently this is a common scam and lots of people fall for it
 
Exavior said:
they probably asked him to open a remote monitoring program and then had than run a key logger to record him typing in his credit card info, or they created a clone of the HP site and had him order from that.
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THIS^. It more than likely asked him to pay for shipping, so he had to supply a CC or DC number to complete the order. Knowing he had an HP....just a guess. If it's an elderly individual you can almost bet they bought it at Wal Mart, Best Buy, etc. What do they sell? HP, Dell, Apple for the most part. Apple is more of a younger person computer...so you can make a good guess by saying Dell or HP.

Very few companies call people out of the blue these days. I feel sorry for the guy, but come on.....you can't fix stupid.
 
Scythe said:
THIS^. It more than likely asked him to pay for shipping, so he had to supply a CC or DC number to complete the order. Knowing he had an HP....just a guess. If it's an elderly individual you can almost bet they bought it at Wal Mart, Best Buy, etc. What do they sell? HP, Dell, Apple for the most part. Apple is more of a younger person computer...so you can make a good guess by saying Dell or HP.

Very few companies call people out of the blue these days. I feel sorry for the guy, but come on.....you can't fix stupid.
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^this..
I happened to get one of those calls as I running Parted Magic
So..I DLed the client/server thingy :D
I'm telling him.."well it just won't run"
then he's telling me " hit the Windows key"
I said.."well that's going to do anything..I'm on Linux"
He said "have a good day" :p
 
He probably told them he had an HP before they even claimed to be from HP. I mean he doesn't sound exactly sure about how they got his debit card number and we all know how that happened: he gave it to them.
 
Commander FAT said:
Not cool man. This guy shouldn't be ridiculed for being a victim. Blame the pieces of shit that ripped him off.
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I remember reading some research that older people as they loose their faculties, they become more trusting. It's sad that people prey off of them.
 
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