the financial advice columnist who gave $50k in a shoebox to a scammer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She got off lucky with losing just $50k, and it looks like she comes from a family of means so she has something to fall back on.
I am still chilled by the story of the retired federal worker in Silver Spring who was scammed out of $650,000 and then had to pay a huge sum of taxes on the lost money.

https://wapo.st/3I45KnW

Yeah there’s a lot of chatter on Twitter that she went to Miss Porter’s and Columbia and is the treasurer of her family foundation. People went poking around and found that she’s a journalist, her DH works at a nonprofit, but their place in Brooklyn is $$$. She deleted her Twitter account because she’s taking so much sh!t for this. I’m the one in the duplicate thread that got locked who said I would rather die than admit this to anyone, but there are a lot of people saying this was a good thing for her to write to warn people.

This actually explains it to me. I read her article with an open mind - but it seemed VERY hard to believe that an educated, logical, healthy, etc etc person would fall for this. I tried to understand. But now it makes sense. People from this kind of major family wealth and privilege really are oblivious to how a lot of the world works, even if they are smart and talented. It also explains why she wouldn’t have mentioned taking out $50k to her husband — because it wasn’t *actually* a big deal to them.

[Anonymous]

The use of AI will only increase these type of calls and make them so sophisticated. I was on a team call where one of the other team members had made an AI bot of our manager’s voice to run the meeting as a joke because she couldn’t join the call. It was very funny at first, sounded exactly like her, but then I started thinking of you used this bot in a regular phone call and now a video/facetime/zoom call where the other person just hears a voice, you could use this technology for so many scams like the ones where the caller claims they need help getting out of jail or are in the hospital or have been kidnapped.

[Anonymous]

It worked because of the psychological pressure of wanting the "problem" to be solved, she was focused on her kid (both his safety and halloween) and probably because once she was in deep after a few hours it is harder and harder to pull yourself out of it and admit to yourself that you are being manipulated.

[Anonymous]

Also, keeping you on the line is a total tell. I lived in China and there's lots of scams to see art or drink tea with someone. If they can keep you, you get in deeper. If you walk out or break away or rudely brush them off from the get go, they move on to the next person.

[Anonymous]

I read the article and it is a scam far more sophisticated than any I’d hear of before. Her mistake was trying to manage it herself regardless of what they said about not involving anyone else. It wasn’t a kidnapping. Give her credit for being open about it and educating others about how sophisticated these scumbags are. She’s taking a lot of flak but she deserves our thanks.

[Anonymous]

Despite what the majority of the commenters are posting on this and other forums, I think this liberal, born-into-privilege, freelancing writer is a genius. This article has gone viral. It's all about the clicks. NY Magazine should promote her.

There is absolutely no way this story is real. Ever.

"Fake! Fake! Fake!" -- Elaine Benes from Seinfeld

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone on twitter is ragging on this woman for falling for such a stupid scam and I think they’re missing the point. Scammers use isolation/urgency/fear to make people panic and stop them from using their minds. It is nuts that a financial columnist fell for such a ridiculous scam, which goes to show what can happen when you aren’t thinking straight!

Yeah I don't get the condemnation. She was pretty brave putting such an embarrassing story out there for the rest of us to learn from.

[Anonymous]

I believe it. I’ve seen it happen at Emory when a friend got convinced to withdraw from an atm to help someone return a “lost wallet” for a reward. It’s a very slow build up and trust accumulates from a seemingly harmless or good deed. I think they actually target people from well off backgrounds because any middle/lower class kid would not fall for it. But really these people are so good, if you’ve seen matchstick men it’s more understandable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The use of AI will only increase these type of calls and make them so sophisticated. I was on a team call where one of the other team members had made an AI bot of our manager’s voice to run the meeting as a joke because she couldn’t join the call. It was very funny at first, sounded exactly like her, but then I started thinking of you used this bot in a regular phone call and now a video/facetime/zoom call where the other person just hears a voice, you could use this technology for so many scams like the ones where the caller claims they need help getting out of jail or are in the hospital or have been kidnapped.

Yup. Already happening.

https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/hong-kong-video-deepfake-scam-nets-hk200-million-fraud-involved-simulation-of-multiple-video-conference-participants/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Despite what the majority of the commenters are posting on this and other forums, I think this liberal, born-into-privilege, freelancing writer is a genius. This article has gone viral. It's all about the clicks. NY Magazine should promote her.

There is absolutely no way this story is real. Ever.

"Fake! Fake! Fake!" -- Elaine Benes from Seinfeld

I can't decide if it's real or not. But no doubt the writer and NY Mag knew exactly what they were doing when they played the story. I think they were thinking about the TV/movie potential. Lot of recent NY Mag stories have turned into movies or TV shows. Netflix and Hulu live their scam and grift series.

Anna Delvey
The Watcher
Sarah Lawrence

All NY Mag stories

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, keeping you on the line is a total tell. I lived in China and there's lots of scams to see art or drink tea with someone. If they can keep you, you get in deeper. If you walk out or break away or rudely brush them off from the get go, they move on to the next person.

My DH fell for the tea scam in Shanghai long ago, back in 2006. He was only out $250 and he ended up talking with a friendly bunch of young people in public so it could’ve turned out much worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PSA: Victims of Fraud are no longer able to deduct the loss on their taxes. (Related to the article, she makes mention of this and I hope her CPA was aware of the change because otherwise she’s going to have another problem)

The 2017 Trump Era Tax cuts removed ability to offset phishing/fraud on your taxes. There have been multiple stories recently of people who gave their tax deferred accounts to scammers and now owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes to the IRS.

Why don't these account administrators withold estimated taxes on withdrawal?? This is insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PSA: Victims of Fraud are no longer able to deduct the loss on their taxes. (Related to the article, she makes mention of this and I hope her CPA was aware of the change because otherwise she’s going to have another problem)

The 2017 Trump Era Tax cuts removed ability to offset phishing/fraud on your taxes. There have been multiple stories recently of people who gave their tax deferred accounts to scammers and now owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes to the IRS.

Why don't these account administrators withold estimated taxes on withdrawal?? This is insane.

That's an option you can choose while withdrawing. I am sure the scammers coach the victims not to choose that option, something about it not being necessary, etc.

If you think it should be automatic, that would be very hard to do without significant client information.No way for a 401k administrator to know what rate to withhold at. Could be a huge range.

[Anonymous]

She's a real-life Nina Van Horn

https://justshootme.fandom.com/wiki/Nina_Van_Horn

[Anonymous]

Cool that New York Magazine holds to the classic standards lf journalism, where anyone with the pluck and grit to be born an uber-rich white girl is qualified for the job.