Irish Times :"How a tech-savvy journalist was scammed"

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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Fair play to Fionn Davenport for going public on falling for a scam.

www.irishtimes.com

‘I suddenly felt this cold fear wash over me’ - how a tech-savvy writer and broadcaster was scammed

Pricewatch: Fionn Davenport’s experience of being scammed has left him feeling exposed and vulnerable
www.irishtimes.com www.irishtimes.com

But he did fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book.
He put a bike up for sale on Facebook.
Got offered close to the offering price almost immediately.
She said DPD would deliver the cash.
Then she said that DPD wanted €50 insurance and would he pay this to them.
And he agreed.
Then she said that they wanted another €50 and he realised it was a scam.

I don't agree with Conor Pope's excuse

As with so many people who have fallen victim to a scam, he is blaming himself. While understandable, the blame is entirely misplaced and the responsibility rests exclusively with the criminals behind the enterprise.

Brendan
 
not just a scam, an old one that anyone who has used FB marketplace has probably come across.
 
FB Marketplace is absolutely infested with scammers these days. Every time I try to sell something there I get someone saying they want to send a courier, etc, etc. I just block and report immediately but unfortunately a lot of them work. A friend works in machine learning and says that bots are good enough now to run these scams without a human.

I have no idea why FB doesn't do better. The usage patterns around scam accounts can't be that hard to spot.
 
NoRegretsCoyote said:
I've actually paid the odd time
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I asked a few people recently who so many Facebook accounts are being hacked and they maintained that the hackers are hoping to get details of cards used on Facebook payments. Just wondering if this is definitely the case?
 
Sue Ellen said:
I asked a few people recently who so many Facebook accounts are being hacked and they maintained that the hackers are hoping to get details of cards used on Facebook payments.
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I think it’s more likely they are hacking inactive accounts to launch the scams.

An attempted scammer a few days ago pretty much had a legit account (member aince 2015, some public photos, 200 friends) and so I gave the benefit of the doubt until the collection of package was mentioned.
 
NoRegretscoyot said:

I think it’s more likely they are hacking inactive accounts to launch the scams.



Perhaps some accounts but a few friends of mine despite being very active on Facebook have had their accounts hacked over the past few months.
 
Account cloning and hacking is absolutely rife on Facebook.

It's an amazing app - on one hand it will label an inane warning onto your posts if it contains something they don't like, and on the other it seems powerless to stop hackers, identity thieves and scammers.
 
Early Riser said:
Its amazing the variety of people from all walks who fall for some scam or other. I suggest that stigmatizing them as the "gullible" only plays into the scammers hands. After all "I am not gullible" so it could never happen to me - or so we all think.
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Agree, every scam is obvious in hindsight. I read the piece and cringed when paying for insurance was mentioned but if you're not thinking 'scam' I could see it not registering as ridiculous.
 
Early Riser said:
Its amazing the variety of people from all walks who fall for some scam or other. I suggest that stigmatizing them as the "gullible" only plays into the scammers hands. After all "I am not gullible" so it could never happen to me - or so we all think.
Click to expand...
There's no stigma. We're all gullible to some extent and all have our blindspots. If we weren't and hadn't, there wouldn't be such rich pickings for the scammers.
 
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This morning I got this text message:
"Hi Dad, I have lost my phone, can you Whatsapp me at this number ##"
I have 2 earls so I wondered which it was. I duly Whatsapped ## and asked "is this the 1st Earl of Marmalade?"
Response was "yes, I have lost all my photos"
I replied "Maybe in the cloud"
Response "Yes, maybe but I must have lost some"
Just then the 1st earl phones the duchess by coincidence and I ask how can that be possible. The duchess spotted immediately that I was being scammed and so I deleted the Whatsapp chat and the ## contact.
I have no idea where the scam was heading and feel sure I would have spotted it once pleas for money arose, but maybe not.
I felt really stupid.
Please don't tell me they have already drained my Coutts bank account dry.
 
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