Ancestors

Written by Márton Salomváry on 2024-10-15 at 12:14

Online scammers stole 10k EUR from my father’s bank account, which was all his life savings. I know the chances of any recovery are very low, still wonder if it’s worth hiring someone to investigate (already reported to the police and the bank). Anything else one can/should do? (He lives in Hungary).

[#]scam #theft #cybersecurity

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Written by Márton Salomváry on 2024-10-15 at 18:33

So it was a classic phone call with "we are the cybersecurity authority and we blocked your account for suspicious activity and you need to act now" scam.

He went to the cops and they pretty much laughed at him. Went to the bank which of course was also not able to promise anything but at least those did not humiliate him.

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Written by Márton Salomváry on 2024-10-16 at 07:48

This sucks big time, I'm already literally loosing sleep over the incident. With close to zero hope of money recovery, I keep think of the following:

• How can I prevent this from happening to him again.

• How can I prevent this from happening to other elderly family members/friends.

• How can I prevent this from happening to myself.

One of the reasons I am scared of getting old is becoming vulnerable to online scam.

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Written by Márton Salomváry on 2024-10-19 at 07:27

Done a bit of private investigation into my father's #scam case. Listened to his detailed personal account, poked around in his desktop computer and smartphone, Gmail, onlikne bank.

Unfortunately, at the peak of the panic realizing what he has done, he destroyed some evidence. Deleted Viber from the phone, "cleaned" the computer including deleting the browser history.

The attack appears to be very low tech. Found now evidence or hint that they gained access to his devices at all.

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Written by Márton Salomváry on 2024-10-19 at 07:32

The only thing they made him install was Viber and only to call him and send him a picture of fake identity card/badge from the "authority". Apparently Viber allows a sender to completely delete messages and all history from the recipient's device. (According to the victim account, these disappeared before he deleted Viber.)

All phone numbers and bank accounts were domestic, and the attackers did not have foreign accent.

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Written by Márton Salomváry on 2024-10-19 at 07:36

I even found the Facebook profile of the owner of the receiver bank account (at least the name they made him put on the transfer), with family pictures, as well as their home address and their house on Google Street View.

Now I really wonder how far the police and bank will get. And I still wonder if there is anything else I can do to (other than supporting my father emotionally and financially).

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Written by Márton Salomváry on 2024-10-19 at 07:38

The question of how they got his identity is still open. My theory is that it was some classic email/web phishing or a leak from a webshop or a package delivery company or a shady delivery person.

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Written by Márton Salomváry on 2024-10-19 at 08:50

Now if I was the police investigating, I would have a domestic bank account and several domestic phone numbers controlled by the attackers at my hand, none of which can be registered without proving one's identity. The bank likely has the attacker's IP address, Viber must have several IP addresses and phone numbers.

Some of these might belong to innocent victims and stolen or controlled by attackers, but these at least would be good first round leads.

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Written by Márton Salomváry on 2024-10-19 at 08:52

There is also cell information from the mobile carriers, potentially giving a more-or-less accurate information about the physical location of the attackers.

Will the police do anything like knock on doors, look at bank transaction logs?

I have doubts.

Still thinking of hiring a private investigator...

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Toot

Written by Yves Van Goethem :firefox: on 2024-10-19 at 09:33

@mrc If you are serious about retrieving the money, get compensation etc, I’d suggest finding a lawyer specialising in online theft, they’ll probably have the means to creature pressure where needed and care for the stupid paperwork this requires

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