You have got to be kidding.

Tantalum said:
True.. and that's a very hard thing to plan towards. Combine people's general willingness to help and the "appeal to authority" fallacy you have a perfect storm. Honestly that's why I like the fingerprint or 2FA stuff (factor authentication, not flight attendants, lol). It makes the whole "I need to confirm your password" thing much harder if you need a fingerprint or to have a random key generated that expires in 30 seconds
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Unfortunately too many places rely on SMS 2FA which is relatively easily defeated with sim cloning. It's also amazing to me how far behind financial institutions are with 2FA. I can use google authenticator or other cryptographic hash based 2FA for facebook but my main bank only offers email 2 step or SMS 2FA. Another bank I use only offers SMS 2FA. The stuff you want the most secured often offers fewer security options than social media...
 
When you get on an “elderly” list, the Phishing emails flood your inbox. Last week I got an email from Amazon that my account was blocked. Click here and verify your password. Three times. Yesterday I got one that my email account would be terminated April 30 unless I opened the attachment and resubmitted my personal data. Most are easy to spot, but I get some with the name of two EAA chapter members that must have fallen. Others from companies I do business with. Also of course from acquaintances sending me jokes, pictures, videos... earlier this week from AMEX Customerservice. So far so good.
 
I had a call from a medical billing company today marked “possible spam” by Verizon. Because all the work from home has phone systems completely jacked. I answered it for some reason and it’s a medical billing company which wanted a payment.

Now I knew they want payment but the paper mail has instructions to pay via their website which is completely snickered right now due to overload.

But when she wanted my personal info to prove it was me, I said no. Sorry. And explained I couldn’t do that. Either I call back to a well published number (well hell, anybody can make a web page and this wasn’t the hospital but I could use the paper mail company name) or we figure out something else.

She READ me all of my personal ID info. Without knowing I was me.

At that point I said screw it and paid with a credit card that I can easily fight if it was fake.

Thankfully as she did two transactions both my bank and my email from the hospital company immediately confirmed payments went to legitimate places.

What a fustercluck. I didn’t have any more patience with trying to “do it right” for $600. Screw it.

Lots of people are going to get screwed by fake “creditors” calling for payment right now. We have so few outstanding bills of any sort, I knew exactly what the amounts were and could confirm those in my head.
 
denverpilot said:
I had a call from a medical billing company today marked “possible spam” by Verizon. Because all the work from home has phone systems completely jacked. I answered it for some reason and it’s a medical billing company which wanted a payment.

Now I knew they want payment but the paper mail has instructions to pay via their website which is completely snickered right now due to overload.

But when she wanted my personal info to prove it was me, I said no. Sorry. And explained I couldn’t do that. Either I call back to a well published number (well hell, anybody can make a web page and this wasn’t the hospital but I could use the paper mail company name) or we figure out something else.

She READ me all of my personal ID info. Without knowing I was me.

At that point I said screw it and paid with a credit card that I can easily fight if it was fake.

Thankfully as she did two transactions both my bank and my email from the hospital company immediately confirmed payments went to legitimate places.

What a fustercluck. I didn’t have any more patience with trying to “do it right” for $600. Screw it.

Lots of people are going to get screwed by fake “creditors” calling for payment right now. We have so few outstanding bills of any sort, I knew exactly what the amounts were and could confirm those in my head.
Click to expand...
And why do they take such offense when you don’t trust these unpublished numbers to be the real deal? “How do I know this is really (fill in the company type)?”
“Well, you called me!”
“Ok...you must be legit...you’re too stupid to be phishing.”
 
MauleSkinner said:
And why do they take such offense when you don’t trust these unpublished numbers to be the real deal? “How do I know this is really (fill in the company type)?”
“Well, you called me!”
“Ok...you must be legit...you’re too stupid to be phishing.”
Click to expand...

This lady didn’t take any offense, but some do.

More irony or just funny coincidence — she said she used to work in IT security and had switched to working from home for the billing company to be home with her kiddo well before the virus stuff.

She knew why everybody hated the call and the broken process. But she’s not the norm, at all. :)
 
denverpilot said:
Scott Adams was an ISDN engineer at Pacific Bell. It truly is.
Click to expand...

Back when he was still working for Pac Bell someone asked him why he didn't quit and devote all his time to Dilbert. His response said it all, "And leave my source of material?"

He did have an agreement with them that when one or the other party thought it best, he would leave. Pac Bell finally suggested that it was time. :p

Oh, and I was working in Silicon Valley when this happened. He's been writing and drawing Dilbert for a long time, I left the valley in early 1995.
 
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