# What's the scam? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 20, 2025, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106 "2025-10-20T01:28:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106/81 "2025-10-22T14:36:03Z")
> [@dirtball](#): > > Since the bank would have no incentive to deliberately jam up the poor customer with the law (if the customer is apparently trying to do the right thing), do we infer that a teller who’d give that kind of advice simply doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about? That was my impression. I don’t think it was malicious. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106/82 "2025-10-22T15:04:12Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > The bank has them charged for a crime cite? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106/83 "2025-10-22T15:25:21Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I get something similar about daily. Some days I get 5, other days zero. The area codes are all over the map, and all the texts are something like “Hello” or “How are you”, or “This is John / Jane” or … I get a few of these also - easy to block. I suspect that at least some of them are people looking for lonely people who they can take advantage of. “I’ll come visit you but I need $2,000 for travel expenses.” ---
**Author:** ![bobsmom101](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobsmom101/32/2867_2.png) [@bobsmom101](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobsmom101)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106/84 "2025-10-22T15:29:43Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I have seen stories online Sorry, but this is not a “cite.” I see glurge like this on my FB feed all the time – doesn’t mean it’s real. As @TokyoBayer points out, “depositing” and “cashing” are very different. I see a problem if you go to the bank and tell them you suspect the check is fraudulent but then **cash** it anyway (and claim after the fact that the teller told you to –). ---
**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:** [October 22, 2025, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106/85 "2025-10-22T15:38:19Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I get a few of these also - easy to block. My view, like with phone calls, is there is no point in blocking. The number it “came from” is fake anyhow, and the next time you get one it’ll be from some other fake number. The only thing blocking does is clutter my phone with useless data. And if the blocking feature reports my entry to the carrier as a kind of crowdsourced vote on spammers / scammers, all I’m doing is contributing negative points to some poor innocent who has no idea that every so often their number is selected at random to be the faked origin for a crook. I’m quite sure, statistically speaking, that my number has been misused by spammer scammers. For a couple years a few years ago I got a lot of scam / spam allegedly from the same area code and exchange as my own number. I’m sure most of us have had the same experience. There are only 10,000 phone numbers 0000 - 9999 in that group. So it’s a virtual certainty just like e.g. 3825 has been faked to me, my own 7392 has been faked to somebody else. Any of us reporting each other as spammer / scammers only hurts the innocent and does nothing useful to stymie the spammers / scammers. IMO YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106/86 "2025-10-22T15:56:56Z")
> [@bobsmom101](#): > > Sorry, but this is not a “cite.” I saw a video. Like I said earlier I **think** it was Lehto Law. I also read a new article online about the case. But searches just pull up people who are fraudsters doing it and the stories I saw are probably buried in the other stories. All y’all can choose to believe me or not that it happened, but how much time, money and energy do I want to put in finding citations so that some posters might 1. Miss key points and strawman it. 2. Say nuh-uh, that didn’t happen despite the cite 3. Blame Trump If I find it, I’ll post it. But again, choose to believe me or not that it happened at least once. Doesn’t make a difference to me. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106/87 "2025-10-22T21:37:03Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > The second, bigger point is: _the optimum amount of fraud in a society is not zero_. This is counter-intuitive but the point is that high-trust societies are better - richer, happier - than low-trust societies. This is true, but with modern computing technology, it’s possible to do a lot of verification with very little inconvenience. So while we can’t completely eliminate fraud, we can get it very, very low. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106/88 "2025-10-22T22:51:08Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > All y’all can choose to believe me or not that it happened, but how much time, money and energy do I want to put in finding citations so that some posters might > > 1. Miss key points and strawman it. Or like you have already done, which is to find things which don’t support your claim and say they do, which makes people wonder if you remember what you said you saw correctly. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106/89 "2025-10-22T23:48:00Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > …how much time, money and energy do I want to put in finding citations Unless Google is now charging for searches, I’d settle for one actual case that unfolded as you suggest. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106/90 "2025-10-23T07:25:03Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > My view, like with phone calls, is there is no point in blocking. The number it “came from” is fake anyhow, and the next time you get one it’ll be from some other fake number. I’m talking about texts, not phone calls. My phone is pretty good at identifying things as spam so I can just hang up. I never get this spam more than once, and it is actually pretty rare. Anybody know how the “you’re qualified for a loan” spammers get through so well? I looked it up once, and all I got was “yep, it sure is a problem.” NoMoRobo sometimes intercepts them, but not as often as it did for other scammers. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106/91 "2025-10-23T08:21:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > This is true, but with modern computing technology, it’s possible to do a lot of verification with very little inconvenience. It is also true that with modern computing technology, it’s possible to do a lot of falsification with very little inconvenience. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106/92 "2025-10-23T10:46:20Z")
Yes and no. The easy-to-do falsification won’t get past the easy-to-do verification. The easy falsification only works if you’re not bothering to do the easy verification. Which makes it all the more bizarre that the US banking system doesn’t do the easy verification. ---
**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:** [October 23, 2025, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106/93 "2025-10-23T13:43:18Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I’m talking about texts, not phone calls. Understand. But faking the “from” side of a text or a call is the same idea with the same bad motives on their end. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106/94 "2025-10-23T14:21:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Which makes it all the more bizarre that the US banking system doesn’t do the easy verification. I posted earlier that Japan had a problem with not sufficient verification for bank transfers. They use hanko [![](https://99percentinvisible.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/6357374075_01c811c97b_o.jpg) ](https://99percentinvisible.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/6357374075_01c811c97b_o.jpg) It used to be if you had the hanko and the passbook, you could transfer money. People were pretending to be bank employees and borrowing these from elderly folks. Even worse, sometime bank employees were stealing money. Now they require ID and such when doing at the bank. (It can be done online with passwords and such.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-scam/1024106.md?page=4)