Most New Yorkers who have recently received unexpected messages instructing them to pay $2.50 for a “parking ticket” on an official-looking website probably knew right away that it was a scam, and we thank Mayor Adams for pointing this out .
Unfortunately, scams on this scale only need a small fraction of targets to fall into their hands for the effort to be profitable for the scammers, who might as well be sitting in Brooklyn as in the semi of the road around the world. That’s why they keep happening, and why they’ll only become more numerous until there are sharper consequences for cheaters.
Cheating has become the de facto background noise of our existence. People worry about how to stop elderly parents or grandparents from handing over their life savings to a fraudster pretending to be them, or posing as a Social Security agent or an insurance company or a bank.
Some no longer answer their phones, convinced that any unknown number will just be a scam. With the ease of spoofing calls, even well-known numbers are suspect. Peer-to-peer sales on e-commerce sites like eBay, Craigslist, or the Facebook marketplace are fraught with the risk that a seller or buyer is trying to pull a fast one. Scammers are also posting fake obituaries of living people to take advantage of their loved ones’ unnecessary grief.
The consequences are huge. People don’t know what information is official or if they are in trouble for something or not, such as fake parking ticket. People are more paranoid and have less trust in each other. Systems that depend on people answering unsolicited calls and messages—from public voting, which still operates largely through cold-calling registered voters or others, to emergency alert systems that can literally be a matter of life and death – become less and less effective as time goes on.
Overall, we end up with a society that, despite all the promises of technological openness, connectivity and freedom, feels less connected and more predatory.
Some of this is inevitable, and certainly the intent and ability to cheat people out of their property has existed for as long as people have had property. But technology has made it possible to target humans at scale, and technologies like generative AI will only make the problem exponentially worse. Allowing these frauds to proliferate in our society is also a choice, one that regulatory authorities move too slowly or are too narrow-minded to address.
That’s why we welcome moves like a recent Federal Trade Commission rule that allows the agency to more easily go after fraudsters who, among other things, spoof government or business stamps and credentials, and take more aggressive federal action to recovered the money of the victims. The numbers are staggering; just one recently unsealed FTC complaint alleged that two sets of fraudsters stole more than $200 million from consumers, and as such there are many such scams.
We need more. There needs to be real diplomatic pressure for the countries that disproportionately originate these scams to take action to shut them down. Those behind them should face not only civil but real criminal penalties when caught. Social media companies and phone providers should commit to helping shut them down. Let’s reclaim the promises of a connected world.
#Modern #Minefield #Internet #phone #scams #stopped
Image Source : www.nydailynews.com
Leave a Reply