A friend recently fended off the Emergency Scam, where a hacker hijacks an email or IM account and poses as the account owner. The hacker asks the account’s contacts for money, claiming to be in trouble in a foreign country.
A variant is the Grandparent Scam, in which the con artists calls an elderly person, claiming to be a grandchild in distress. The Grandparent Scam is huge in in Japan, with its wealthy elderly population.
These scams depend on the victim believing that a total stranger is actually a close friend or relative worthy of financial assistance. This enormous lie can be unveiled by just thinking up and asking a few simple trivia questions.
Verification Procedure
Let’s say I send you a message asking for monetary assistance. Here is how you can verify it’s really me. No advance preparation, like agreeing on passwords, is required. This will work with any two people who are well acquainted.
- Any appeal for help from me will include a few words about an experience or conversation we had together. This will prove the message really is from me.
- Even if my initial story about our past mutual experience is correct, reply to me with a few questions about another single memorable event we shared. At least some of the questions should have answers that no outsider could identify as being right or wrong.
- Assess my response:
- Correct answers to all questions prove that I really want you to take the requested action
- Correct answers combined with one or two outlandishly incorrect answers will prove it’s me and I actually do remember the event, but I purposely inserted obviously incorrect answers to tell you that I am under duress. In this unlikely event, contact the police and get their advice on how to proceed.
- Incorrect answers, or an effort to avoid answering, reveal that you are dealing with an impostor
- Send lawyers, guns and money
Do you have a suggestion for improving this procedure? Add a comment.
Photo Credit :Terraced fields above Kathmandu, Nepal by John McGehee
