# We need to get far more serious about organized cyber-crime scamming **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 13, 2025, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-get-far-more-serious-about-organized-cyber-crime-scamming/1014274 "2025-02-13T17:46:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-get-far-more-serious-about-organized-cyber-crime-scamming/1014274/41 "2025-03-06T15:46:19Z")
I’m all for locking up scammers. Good for Nigerian scams, crypto scans, etc. But, what do you do when the victim doesn’t think a crime has been committed? I don’t know. Maybe we can make “Intent to Deceive” itself a crime. (Heck, make it a capital crime. Send them to the organ banks.) Gets rid of ad agencies at the same time! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-get-far-more-serious-about-organized-cyber-crime-scamming/1014274/42 "2025-03-06T15:55:49Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > At least part of the idea is locking up the scammers, putting actual effort into finding them and punishing them for ongoing fraud. That only happens with international cooperation and, as you may have noticed, that ship has sailed. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-get-far-more-serious-about-organized-cyber-crime-scamming/1014274/43 "2025-03-06T16:00:06Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > international cooperation Who needs that when we can threaten countries with tariffs? ---
**Author:** ![JoePockets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8dc957/32.png) [@JoePockets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoePockets)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-get-far-more-serious-about-organized-cyber-crime-scamming/1014274/44 "2025-03-06T16:10:47Z")
With great regularity get. Email trying to get me to take the bait on a scam! When you try to unsubscribe it comes back with error message, I would love to see better government oversight on email scammers! I’m sure there are lobbyists to protect the scammers right to scam. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-get-far-more-serious-about-organized-cyber-crime-scamming/1014274/45 "2025-03-06T17:45:10Z")
It’s not a good idea to click unsubscribe on any email you didn’t subscribe to The unsubscribe links in spam are often just a trap to test if your email address is alive - if you confirm that it is, your email becomes more valuable to sell on for more spam and more aggressive scams. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-get-far-more-serious-about-organized-cyber-crime-scamming/1014274/46 "2025-03-06T19:34:59Z")
My bank (Barclays) has been taking scams more and more seriously; a few years back when I paid off my mortgage (the bank was not the lender), they took me aside and interviewed me to ensure I wasn’t transferring money - quite a large sum - to a scammer. If I make an electronic payment, I have to answer a series of questions that are designed to make people stop and think about whether they are being scammed. Of course, you sort of get used to doing that and breeze past it and also, scammers are getting better at inventing stories to navigate victims through those questions without asking themselves the question ‘am I being scammed’. There’s also quite a lot of information in branch about scams - one thing I think they could probably do better is the way they present this information; for example a poster on a wall that has the headline ‘Romance Scams’ is not necessarily as likely to be seen by someone who is currently being scammed that way, as it might if it was titled ‘Did someone you love, ask for money?’ ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-get-far-more-serious-about-organized-cyber-crime-scamming/1014274/47 "2025-03-07T06:43:23Z")
Part of this is a telecom issue. With a court order, all telephone calls should be traceable. I don’t think that’s the case now. Same for Whats app, I think. If it becomes easy to identify the perp, it will become easier to pressure foreign governments. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-get-far-more-serious-about-organized-cyber-crime-scamming/1014274/48 "2025-03-07T13:13:56Z")
Of course for an e.g. telephone call (or email, etc.) to be traceable to the origin requires that every country in the chain of transmission be fully on-board with honestly and accurately supporting traceability. All it takes is one “relay station of convenience” country to decide that the fees they collect from anonymizing internet traffic more than pay for their ostracism and now end-to-end traceability is out the window. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-get-far-more-serious-about-organized-cyber-crime-scamming/1014274/49 "2025-03-07T15:58:40Z")
It is helpful, though, to have calls separated into “verified and traceable caller” and “unverified or untraceable caller” categories. My phone already auto-ignores the latter. Text messages aren’t quite there yet, for whatever reason. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-get-far-more-serious-about-organized-cyber-crime-scamming/1014274/50 "2025-03-07T16:12:31Z")
That would be _highly_ useful. For all communication means. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-get-far-more-serious-about-organized-cyber-crime-scamming/1014274/51 "2025-03-07T21:50:04Z")
Also a potential profit opportunity for legacy and newer tech firms, which could help overcome resistance to better though expensive regulation. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2025, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-get-far-more-serious-about-organized-cyber-crime-scamming/1014274/52 "2025-03-12T05:24:21Z")
> [@What is the purpose of this new spam call tactic?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-this-new-spam-call-tactic/1015418/16): > > I wish there was an option to charge the other person for the phone call they made to you. Just a token amount like $0.50. If you wanted to charge them you could, if you didn’t you didn’t have to. The money could go into a fund to stop telemarketing scams and the person reporting it wouldn’t benefit. > > It seems like that would allow free phone calls between people but cut down on spam. I think 5 cents per call _attempted_ would cut down on this a lot. The scammers do appear to vary their behavior according to small economic incentives. Answering one of these phone calls increases phone activity. Wasting their time appears to reduce it. Anecdotally, one guy on Reddit stopped calls by telling the Microsoft scammers that he had a Linux machine. I’ve stopped daily calls (at least for the past week or so) by (unconsciously) simulating [Jolly Roger Telephone](https://jollyrogertelephone.com/) and keeping the person on the phone as long as I could (about a minute). I cost them less than a nickel (assuming $2/hr wages) but that was enough to stop the nonsense. So far. * * * There is legislation to crack down on Caller ID spoofing, but deadlines have come and gone and the problem seems to remain. STIR/SHAKEN was suppose to go into force in 2021, but I can’t find a good update on this federally mandated technology. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-get-far-more-serious-about-organized-cyber-crime-scamming/1014274.md?page=2)