Tag Archives: warning

Phishing for your money

On Tuesday I received this almost real looking letter in the mail:

It’s a rather simple scam. First, tell me in a letter that someone has changed my personal information, and get me scared that someone has already gotten into my bank account. Second, have me phone them and ask for my reference number, so that they can call me by name before I even tell them who I am, making me believe that I’m talking to the fraud department of the bank. Next, ask for me to confirm who I am ‘for security reasons’ by asking information that they want to learn about me, so that they can pretend to be me and access my bank account.

I don’t know how these people live with themselves? They make an occupation out of tricking and stealing from innocent people. These scammers disrupt people’s lives, and some of them even break people‘s hearts. And it seems to be something that is getting more rather than less common.

It was after hours and so I contacted the bank via a Twitter direct message. Then through a rather painful process that took way too long, I finally sent a link to a digital copy of the letter to them (the person seeing my Twitter message was seeing it in a chat format with no images, despite my sharing the image in the original message). I got a thank you and a generic warning about how not to be scammed from them. The thing is, although it didn’t fool me, I’m sure this will fool someone who is panicked enough to share too much information with the scammers, thinking they are talking to their bank.

Why wouldn’t the bank immediately be in touch with the phone company to cancel the phone numbers? Why wouldn’t the police be involved too, tracking the phone number? I bet a disproportionate number of elderly are fooled by these scams. I bet the number of these scams that work are greater than we would guess.

Be aware of scams like these. Sign in to your account and check the information rather than calling. Call phone numbers that you can find on bank websites rather than in letters. We unfortunately need to start out cynical rather than trusting when we receive phone calls, emails, and letters like this… and not like this, because the next scam is probably going to be more elaborate, authentic looking or sounding, and tricky.

Be careful out there

If you want a lesson on overconfidence you need not look farther than Vancouver Lower Mainland drivers in the snow: Speeding, tires spinning, cars fishtailing, passengers pushing… and parked cars stuck on angles or with hazards flashing. A good snowstorm out here means mayhem on the streets.

However, if you ask people if they are a good at driving in the snow, probably 85% will say better than average, and at least half would say they are better than most. Do the math, that’s a lot of cocky, overconfident people! This reminds me of the ‪Dunning-Kruger effect:‬

‪In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.‬ (Wikipedia)

I’m not a perfect driver by any means, but in snow I slow down, I might gear down, and I look around… I’m far more aware of other drivers around me. I’ve hit black ice before, and for those that have never experienced this, it’s scary at any speed. It’s a humbling experience driving a car that you have no control over. It wakes you up to the potential danger.

Today I share a caution. Slow down! Be cautious. Be defensive. A few years ago I lost a dear friend, (who was the safest driver I knew growing up), to a snowstorm accident.

Be careful out there!