Wire Transfer Scam

[Mekaniks]

Right now there is nothing that supports crypto currency. Nothing except someone says how much its worth. Its not backed by anything tangible.....

I personally believe that crypto is going to be the future of International trade as soon as countries start to support it.
As an example a US citizen and a Namibian have a transaction. That transaction will occur in crypto and all the money will be supported by the respective countries treasuries. if it's bitcoin or something else who knows....
And we are still many years away from that happening IMO

Here is a link to a TIME article on crypto scams last couple years..

What Are the Most Popular Crypto Scams to Watch For in 2023

Crypto scams take on my forms, including phishing scams, giveaway scams and more. Find out which cryptocurrency scams are most prevalent so far in 2023.

time.com

 

[flatwater bill]

I will bow out of this discussion now. I don't fully understand the current changes. A fiat? I drove a Fiat once....an 850 Spider. I mined once....had four 20 acre claims called Watoomba one, two, three and four. All kidding aside, I don't understand Bitcoin: will study it some. As for South African banking, it is essentially Os Isley ...."A wretched hive of scum and villany" as per Obe Wan. Operators with an account in the USA will get my nod................stay vigiliant......FWB

 

[375Fox]

Not your keys not your coins. Exchanges being hacked have nothing to do with BTC itself. That's like saying the dollar in the bank caused the bank robbery to be successful

Isn’t the whole point of cryptocurrency to be outside government control and bank control? It makes it a unique target particularly before it had a more clear legal status.

 

[Royal27]

Right now there is nothing that supports crypto currency. Nothing except someone says how much its worth. Its not backed by anything tangible.....

Same can be said of the dollar. It is backed by nothing. There will never be more than 21M BTC. That's it. That can't be said of the dollar.

BTC is still new. No doubt. But it is here to stay and serves a purpose. It's going to be fascinating to see where it goes over the next 20 years.

Now most other crypto coins? They will die just like most auto manufacturers did.

 

[Royal27]

Isn’t the whole point of cryptocurrency to be outside government control and bank control? It makes it a unique target particularly before it had a more clear legal status.

Yes absolutely.

Not sure what you mean by unique target? If you're talking about exchange theft that is no different than any other theft. There was something of value that was stolen. The issue though was storage. Keep BTC in cold storage and it is next to impossible to steal. I mean someone could know you have it, come to your house and put a gun to your head and force you to send it to them, but that's about it. There is no way via the internet. The Blockchain is immutable and the keys are required.

If you haven't read the BTC white paper you should. It's fascinating. The entire idea of BTC is fascinating. I do think it will end up being similar to gold over time.

 

[DLSJR]

I’m a banker, so I will weigh in on this. Scams are more common, varied and sophisticated than most of you can imagine. I have clients who were victimized by scammers that involved wire transfers as well as Bitcoin. In every case, the fraud/scam was at the communications level between the bad guy and the victim. The bad guys induced the victim to make a wire transfer or withdraw cash and deposit it into a Bitcoin ATM, unknowingly putting it in the scammers BTC wallet. The scam was inducing someone to take a legitimate action, but for completely wrong reasons that wasn’t what they thought they were doing.

Our bank has a simple policy on wire transfers that precludes nearly all fraud. When a client opens a deposit account, they have to affirm whether or not they’ll be making wire transfers. Then, if they are going to be wiring funds out, they have to designate a person to verbally approve the wire and give us a phone number to call them at for verbal approval to send the wire. Unless specifically directed by a business owner or CEO to verify through someone such as their CFO, the only person we will accept verbal authorization from is the owner or CEO. Wires do not get sent unless that person verifies, and only by a call at the number we’ve been given to call. If the client does not sign up for wiring at account opening, they can only do it by appearing in person to do the wiring instructions.

As I mentioned above, most successful scams occur when the bad guys fool you into making a legitimate transfer to the bad guys without realizing it. We do everything we can to be vigilant with our clients, including extra questions when something is an unusual deviation from their normal practices or doesn’t make sense to us. We’ve stopped many scams by being extra vigilant.

Wheels, crypto scams abound and people get ripped off every hour of every day in crypto. That said, if one knows what they’re doing and are diligent in their practices, crypto can be an interesting alternative place to invest or speculate.

If anyone has questions about any of this, I’ll be glad to discuss, either here or by PM.

In closing, if your computer suddenly has a large red banner appear on your screen that says ‘Your Computer has been locked. Call Apple Security to have unlocked.’ at a number provided on the screen message… That is a scam. And, your computer is not really locked. I had a client who is an attorney fall for that one. It cost him $25,000 and he unknowingly placed it into the bad guys BTC wallet.

 

[Royal27]

Amen to the above !

 

[Royal27]

Crypto cold wallet security is basically impenetrable, or has been so far, using BIP-39.

What are BIP39, BIP32, and BIP44?

This article explains BIP39, the standard that defines how seed phrases are made, and summarizes how BIP32 and BIP44 standards allow wallets to supercharge seed phrases to support many more keys.

vault12.com

But give that seed phrase away or store it on your computer where it can be hacked, and all bets are off ...

 

[Mekaniks]

Same can be said of the dollar. It is backed by nothing. There will never be more than 21M BTC. That's it. That can't be said of the dollar.

BTC is still new. No doubt. But it is here to stay and serves a purpose. It's going to be fascinating to see where it goes over the next 20 years.

Now most other crypto coins? They will die just like most auto manufacturers did.

Yes it will be interesting to see how it evolves as a currency.

And you may very well be correct that it ends up becoming the new gold. Time will tell...

I also do not believe that the worldwide "powers that be" are going to let it continue unregulated....

 

[Royal27]

Yes it will be interesting to see how it evolves as a currency.

And you may very well be correct that it ends up becoming the new gold. Time will tell...

I also do not believe that the worldwide "powers that be" are going to let it continue unregulated....

I'm honestly surprised that those "powers" didn't try harder to kill it when they had the chance. Genie is out of the bottle now.

But agree that regulation in some form will happen. The US is being foolish by trying to make crypto technology unavailable and pushing it offshore. Why we'd want cutting edge tech to be elsewhere is beyond me.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

To do a wire transfer in my small town bank you have to go in person and they fill out all the papers. Then about an hour later I usually get a call from the one who actually is processing it to confirm everything. Love my small town bank where they know you by first name when you walk in.

@Mark Biggerstaff
Oh how I long for those days. Nowdays a lot of banks are even getting rid of ATM'S. They want a cashless society for the same fees and charges so the fat cats can get fatter.
Bob

 

[TheGrayRider]

“Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves.” – Norm Franz

 

[ftrovato]

Thanks for heads up!

I think I will set up a shell account for future wires and only put in that account what is to be wired retaining just enough $ in account to keep it open.

 

[flatwater bill]

@ftrovato That's what I have done....opened up a dedicated account at another bank solely for transfers.......lot of good info above.....but most cryptocurrency experts use undefined terms to define crypto.....making it unnecessarily confusing......FWB

 

[Mekaniks]

@ftrovato That's what I have done....opened up a dedicated account at another bank solely for transfers.......lot of good info above.....but most cryptocurrency experts use undefined terms to define crypto.....making it unnecessarily confusing......FWB

Having a dedicated “pass through” account for electronic transfers is a very good idea. I have done the same thing.
All direct deposit (payroll, retirements, dividend income ect, are received into one account and then distributed from there. I.e moved to savings acct, checking acct ect.
All electronic payments also come out of that acct. I just have to transfer funds from the other accounts first.
So it adds some additional work keeping track of the necessary transfers, but at the end of the day it provides another layer of protection that keeps other financial institutions or individuals out of primary bank accounts.

 

[geoff rath]

as a matter of interest, banks Down Under have all but phased out cheque accounts...

 

[Philip Glass]

I recently received a phone call from my banker. He said "Bill, I really need more documentation than a text message before I transfer $30,000 out of your account". Whoa! I said, What are you talking about? I never asked for $30K to be transferred out. So I went to the bank straight away, and he showed me a message, from me, that asked for a transfer to somebodies account......(swift code, numbers, etc), asking for $30K. Problem is, I didn't send it.
Here's the kicker: one week before I DID transfer $9K to Namibia, via South Africa, as a deposit on two hunts. Coincidence? Further, I had only $32K in the account....as if someone knew that.....I mean, if they had asked for $50K that would have sent up a flare. I am now, more than ever, reluctant to send a bank to bank wire transfer. (and BTW, the real transfer went thru fine)......is this a coincidence? Anyone else have it happen shortly after a legit wire transfer? ......FWB

That could not happen to me because I take a hard copy of the wire form to the bank in person. This along with using a local bank instead of the big ones like B of A is what I suggest others do,

 

[ActionBob]

@375Fox Is that true? I don't know anything about Bitcoin or the like. But I thought the purpose of it was to eliminate banks and governments. The fewest intermediaries the better.....@rem280 is that true? I mail checks all the time. I should stop doing that. And to those who trust their banks, ask them....what recourse do you have, how will they help you once your transfer has left the USA.?...none, that's what they will say......it is gone, girl, gone......FWB

As for mailing checks;
Get Positive Pay service through your bank. Without it checks are terrible.

And Law Enforcement is very lax to non existence in that space. It's criminal what they let criminals get away with.

We had an order of checks stolen out of a mailbox. So mail fraud. Then this young woman began writing checks all over the place and signing my name. Which I rarely sign checks anymore. This was a business account. The various banks cashed them until they made it back to my bank where the signature was obviously not mine. They easily found the perpetrator who was actually out on parole. However it was during Covid-19 so they would not arrest her!

And to top it all off, she passed a couple more checks down in the twin cities and the damned cops wouldn't do anything because they couldn't be bothered to even figure out which suburb she did it in.

We did not lose any money directly but you know we all lose when the banks cover those loses. They pull it from somewhere and I doubt its out of their profits.

 

[ActionBob]

My bank doesn't call me anymore to verify. I may open an account just to use for transfers and larger payments. I can make a deposit just prior to a wire transfer.

Yea probably at least 10 days before.....

 

[pajarito]

back in march we wired a down payment on a pilatus pc12 all through the process we were dealing with a guy on the phone who would call and say I'm sending you the wire instructions now and it would show up. we forwarded on to the bank and they wired it. money went to the wrong account FBI says its the most common thing now called business' email capture. we had been hacked and didn't even know it these yoyos were looking at my emails before I ever saw them they would then change the routing and swift code and when I did get the email it was on correct letterhead and all. our bank lady even called the 800 number on the instruction sheet and verified it. so these crooks were answering the phone "aircraft title services" and had all the correct answers. long story short we got the funds by straight luck no other reason. FBI tells me to never email wire instructions they say a big chief tablet and #2 pencil cant be hacked. so now we only call for wire instructions and write them down and then call the bank. if i initiate the wire some one else from within our outfit has to verify it. so with this new setup it has been working but it is definitely time consuming. If these dang crooks would work as hard at a job as they do stealing they would be rich!
we are trying to overnight checks when possible and do as little wire transfer as possible.