Confidence tricks

Photo: Natee Meepian (Shutterstock)It’s nearly Black Friday and Cyber Monday—that beautiful time of the year when Americans forego their normal, sensible fiscal concerns and embrace the spirit of debauched consumerism that our great country is really all about. But before you bust out that credit card to needlessly splurge on a new 4K OLED or a Meta Quest Pro or, if you’re feeling extra bold, a Humane AI pin, it might be best to take a quick skim of some online safety tips. Just as you might be on the lookout for hot…

A deepfake scam in China has increased fears that artificial intelligence will allow hackers to easily obtain financial information. Hackers using advanced AI software reportedly convinced a man in northern China to transfer money to his friend, but instead directed it to a fraudulent account.How Conspiracy Theories and Disinformation Spiral Out of Control on the Internet | TechModoThe victim was based in Baotou, a region in inner Mongolia, and local police reported the hacker used AI to recreate the friend’s likeness in…

Image: NICOLAS ASFOURI (Getty Images)There were nearly 22,000 BEC complaints reported last year and the report revealed it accounted for a financial loss of more than $2.7 billion.You may have received an email from the company you work for warning against opening emails from unrecognizable addresses—the IC3 report shows why. Scammers can use this method to conduct unauthorized fund transfers by simply opening the email or clicking on the link within the unknown email.The scammers use BEC by any means possible, including…

Image: Leon Neal (Getty Images)Elon Musk is having trouble letting go. Twitter needed to reassure its own laid off employees that an email sent in the early morning on Saturday was “not a phishing attempt” after it went directly to their spam inboxes. The email, sent from [email protected] rather than from an @twitter.com address, contained former Twitter employees’ separation contracts and provided information regarding severance pay.Former Twitter employee Parker Lyons tweeted on Saturday, “If you were…

Ever since folks called my elderly mom and told her they had kidnapped me in order to extort her, scammers have held a special place in my heart. (I was not kidnapped, and thankfully, my mom was not conned.) Specifically, that small little part of it that wishes them eternal damnation and diarrhea.Read more... Ever since folks called my elderly mom and told her they had kidnapped me in order to extort her, scammers have held a special place in my heart. (I was not kidnapped, and thankfully, my mom was not conned.)…

Asylum seekers walk along Roxham Road near Champlain, New York on August 6, 2017, making their way towards the Canada/US border. Photo: Geoff Robins (Getty Images)Scammers posing as Canadian immigration experts exploited Facebook and WhatsApp groups to target migrants in a months long data harvesting scheme. In some cases, migrants wrapped up in the scam are convinced to recruit over a dozen more desperate people, allegedly in exchange for help applying and paying for a visa. That help never comes. Instead, users find…

Photo: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP (Getty Images)Cryptocurrency is rife with scams—we all know this to be true. Everybody’s heard the horror stories: “rug pulls,” “pump and dumps,” the typical “investment” ploy that leaves your bank account high and dry. But there’s a new type of fraud going around and it sounds pretty goddamn weird: it’s called “pig butchering” and you’re definitely going to want to steer clear of it.Also known by its Chinese translation “Shāzhūpán,” “pig butchering” is a bizarre mashup of a romance scam and an…

Western countries have been much more welcoming of refugees from Ukraine than refugees from some African countries. Photo: Evan Vucci (AP)Social media users are freaking out over a false news story claiming a ridiculous amount of African refugees are allegedly flooding European countries. A screenshot of a fabricated New York Post headline that reads, “UN Warns of Massive Refugee Movement from Africa: 500 Million People On Their Way to Europe,” began circulating on Facebook, and Twitter, but was later confirmed to be fake…

Photo: ARMEND NIMANI/AFP (Getty Images)Investing in Web3, the supposedly “transformative” environment of blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies, continues to be a revolutionary new way to lose a whole lot of money. A study from the Federal Trade Commission released Friday shows that Americans have lost over $1 billion to crypto-related scams since January 2021. In raw numbers, that’s over 46,000 people who say they have been ripped off—usually with the promise of a fake “investment opportunity” in some sort of…