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Comment by hackerman123469 | Hacker News Reader

"Okay, let me just video call you because I also need to show you something" and then the scammer hung up and was to never be seen again.

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FYI, there's the following trick I read here some time ago:

The scammer starts a video call with the person they want to impersonate and record it. When that person takes the call, the scammer doesn't say anything. This creates a 5-10 seconds video of the person looking at the camera waiting for the scammer to say something, until they get fed up and hung up.

The scammer then calls the victim. They offer a video call as verification straight away, and they play that short video.

How is a 5-10 second video of someone either not saying anything, or saying, "Hello, who is it?" over and over convincing at all?

I imagine they say something like, "I couldn't see or here you. Did you see me?" through the other channel, and because modern tech messes up enough, it'll be believable to a lot of people. Especially the most gullible.

HN gets so caught up in logic. Has no one watched interviews of scammed people? Huge numbers of them report that they were suspicious it was a scam but they were so worried for a loved one they sent the money anyway because it was worth the risk to them just in case. Anything that helps push scams in the even slightly plailusible direction will make scams more successful.

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