for questions about claims based on purported or real scams.
Questions tagged [scam]
7 questions
88
votes
3 answers
Have phone scammers recorded "Yes" statements to fraudulently authorise payments?
A number of sources claimed that phone scammers would trick people into saying "Yes" on the phone, record it, and use that to fraudulently authorise payments.
Here is a January 2017 Fortune magazine article:
Scammers are increasingly using this…
Oddthinking
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73
votes
4 answers
Can one purchase the title of "Lord", "Laird" or "Lady" in Scotland?
I have recently started receiving Youtube advertisements for "Established titles", claiming to sell you a square foot of land in Scotland, entitling you to call yourself some variant of "Lord".
Their website states:
Our Title Packs are based on a…
HAEM
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21
votes
1 answer
Do scammers intentionally use poor spelling and obvious mistakes to filter out non-gullible people?
There is a well known Microsoft research paper that claims that scammers state they are from Nigeria as a means of filtering out people who are too savvy to be useful to them. The theory goes that the people who remain who haven't spotted the…
Tom
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16
votes
0 answers
Are scammers using AI voice cloning to fake kidnappings?
There have been numerous news reports of scammers using AI voice cloning to trick people into thinking that their kid has been kidnapped:
NY Post
An Arizona mom claims that scammers used AI to clone her daughter’s voice so they could demand a $1…
joshuahhh
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- 2
6
votes
1 answer
Are scammers using social media fake-news sharing behaviour to identify and target gullible people?
In the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal I remember hearing - likely in an interview in a BBC Radio4 programme on the topic (unfortunately I don't recall more than that) - a claim that scammers were using past sharing behaviour on social…
timday
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4
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Can electricity be transmitted wirelessly over Zenneck surface waves?
Viziv Technologies claims that they are researching the ability to send and receive electricity using the Zenneck Surface Waves.
August 2019 press release
Viziv Technologies, LLC, and Baylor University announce a new research partnership aimed at…
Finesser
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2
votes
0 answers
Was the recent bust of 12 people in Florida the largest food stamp bust in history?
The United States Department of Justice, in September 2017 sent out the following press release.
12 Defendants Charged Federally with Collectively Receiving Over $20 Million from USDA by Fraudulently Trading Food Stamps for Cash
Twelve retail store…
user36356