I think it would be amusing if one of them said “She’s in the next cubicle over, she got me the job!”
I should try that sort of stuff more; most of my recent baits have involved trying to deflect the scammer into various rabbit holes before we get anywhere near payment
I try the rabbit holes if there’s an opening. Or quibble over minor details.
Overall, though, I don’t get as many long term baits. And the amount of incoming has decreased significantly.
I have a list of fake credit card numbers that pass the first stage of checking but aren’t connected to an account (the intended purpose is to test card processing software). I once led a scammer through three different ones ("oops, that one got cancelled; let me try another one…) until he finally figured out that I was jerking him around.
I had one idiot who took nine different fake payments and was actually complaining about the fake payments that were preventing him from sending me my funds.
That’s why I have a handy card by the computer with helpful phrases in Hindi:
Chodu Bhagat (Fucking Asshole)
Bahen Chod (Sister Fucker)
Backar Chodu (Goat Fucker)
Teri ma gadha ka lund choosay ( no translation on my card but it gets a very violent reaction at the other end of the line)
I started to translate that last one, but even I couldn’t bring myself to type it out.
Per Google it’s “your mother sucks donkey dick”
Heh, I’m glad I’m not the only one who immediately goes to Google translate.
Here in Ontario, it used to be the law (not sure it is any more) that you had to take the driver’s test again every year once you hit eighty. My dad turns 80 in a month, but he’s already not driving any more. Dementia, lack of feeling in his feet and so forth, and he drove into the side of a Tim Hortons last year (not hard, and nobody was hurt). My dad’s side of the family were all Car People. Even though my grandfather never had much money and would drive the family vehicle until you could see the road through the floorboards like it was the Flintsones’ car, they always loved cars, and new models, and watching racing. When my dad and my uncle had to ask the Ministry to take my grandfather’s licence away when he became far too addled to be on the road safely, he was furious for a long time. Thankfully there are a couple of other drivers in the house, still.
I know it’s not funny, but this made me laugh. So Canadian.
A friend was getting persistent email spam from India.
He resolved the problem by replying to each with porn where a gentleman was engaging in sex with a cow. (I mean, yes, it exists). I think that pushes the limits well over normal Hindu values. His spam stopped.
When I had a bank account in high school, there was no co-signer on my account - I could have withdrawn the entire amount without question. To be fair, there was never more than a hundred bucks or so, but still…
As far as the elderly: The roommate’s situation is really awful. It’s a bit hopeless to rely on a bank teller or a Home Depot minimum-wage clerk to put a stop to it - though there are anecdotes here of clerks attemping to dissuade the purchaser from buying those gift cards.
As far as having the roommate declared incompetent, someone would have to have an interest in her well-being. Does she have family? If so, are they aware of this?
I’ve mentioned before that my mother-in-law has played along with far too many scams. She never went so far as to actually lose money, and she claims to this day that she knew they were scams and felt like she was doing a public service by tying up the scammers for a bit, but we know better. She does have memory issues - but a number of these occurred before that was really a problem. It was a combination of a more credulous generation, very crafty scammers, and the fact that they really, really could have used the promised money.
She also spent quite a bit of time trying to secure her bank account from a Norton Antivirus invoice scam - including (I gather) changing the account number several times to keep the scammers from taking anything (they never did, or even tried, it was one of those emails where they try to get you to pay an “invoice”).
My sister-in-law finally got herself added to the account, so she could monitor stuff. To the best of our knowledge, the worst that happened was MIL would occasionally buy something overpriced from Publisher’s Clearing House (like batteries), likely in hopes of increasing her odds of winning something.
TIL Tim Hortons in Canada don’t have drive-thru
Well, that one does, now anyway.
My stepfather was becoming a real danger to others on the road and wouldn’t listen to my mother about not driving. She finally told him that she would never get in the car again with him behind the wheel, and he finally relinquished his keys.
I can only assume that Burton Cummings was playing on the radio at the time, and he backed over a noble beaver while being hooked to the tow truck.
What about a QR Code on the payment receipt that takes them to a fake website that shows it as being confirmed as paid?
WE never had to worry about stopping an elder from driving. My maternal grandmother, at about 85, abruptly told her daughters she was giving up the car. She had lots of relatives to help though, two daughters, multiple grandchildren and so on.
I always intended to do something like that (I registered the domain coinsquirt.com a few years back, for the purpose, but never got around to developing it fully)