| ▲ | dec0dedab0de 4 days ago |
| Be careful with checking official numbers too, or at least tell any non-tech friends. Fake numbers have been ending up in search results on official looking websites. It's a real knife fight out there. |
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| ▲ | Waterluvian 4 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| I find that when it’s legit a consistent thing happens, which smells of careful training: they instruct me to call the number on the back of the card, or on a bill. |
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| ▲ | TOMDM 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Obvious next step to me is malicious bills sent to an address | | |
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| ▲ | skygazer 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's interesting how easily Google results rankings are manipulated by bad actors, and how unvetted the scams are in paid adverts on and through Google. The web is untrustworthy, and Google transparently passes it to users. We'd probably be better off if Yahoo's quaint curated list of sites had won out. |
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| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | mschuster91 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > It's interesting how easily Google results rankings are manipulated by bad actors, and how unvetted the scams are in paid adverts on and through Google. Well, SEO, I get that this kind of gaming is hard to prevent, not at Google's scale. But the AdWords scams? Or all the other fake ad scams, chumboxes and god knows what? The complete lack of audits around something that actually causes money to change hands should be outright banned. At the high end of ads, think large brand TV spots, you got entire teams of lawyers involved to make sure licensing, actor releases, technical details, corporate identity and a myriad of other things are taken care of. But at the low end? Some rando from St Petersburg can post an ad for a book "uncovering Western lies about NATO expansion", some Indian can post an ad for "Norton Removal", some American an ad for a f2p game with content that clearly does not describe the actual gameplay or some Chinese can post an ad for penile enlargement pills - and none of the four will get even one human eye on the ad before the campaign goes live and the ads are displayed to actual users, even though all four either violate Western laws outright or are at least banned by the providers/networks. And the problem isn't just limited to Google, Youtube, AdWords, Unity Ads [1], Taboola [2], Outbrain [3], Facebook/Insta [4] - it's everywhere, the entire low range of ads is infested to the core. Self-service ad platforms should be shut down, period - the industry has shown that "self regulation" doesn't work. [1] https://discussions.unity.com/t/does-anyone-screen-these-ads... [2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/taboolas-content-chum-boxes-... [3] https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2021/01/the-outbrain-drain-why-ne... [4] https://www.vice.com/en/article/instagram-and-facebook-are-o... | | |
| ▲ | eek2121 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Yes, and that same lack of lawyers/friction is what also allows legitimate small businesses to thrive. I've worked for many, and out of those many, none of them had lawyers involved at all. It is all about balance. Google could do more here, however the answer is not as obvious as you might think. Especially in an age where identities get stolen often and the lag time on catching said fraud is quite long. The issue is that the entities mentioned are doing...nothing at all. Not even basic MANUAL identity checks and payment checks. Automated checks work very well until they don't. | | |
| ▲ | mschuster91 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > Google could do more here, however the answer is not as obvious as you might think. Oh it is. A basic background check alone done by an actual human to see if the business is actually real, let's say this costs Google 1h @ 40 dollars plus 20 dollars for credit bureau fees. Google can offload that cost to the advertiser - even for a small cookie store, that's hardly an expense. And after that, vet the campaign material for each asset. When you have 200 dollars in ad spend (which isn't much), 10 dollars should go pretty far in having a human see if the "pizza store" didn't just place an ad for penile enlargement. > Automated checks work very well until they don't. The key thing is, the entire ad industry is amoral. No one cares about fraud or brand reputation any more, not when you see chumbox ads on "reputable" newspapers. So everyone seems to think "why should I leave a few dollars on the table?". | | |
| ▲ | bcrl 3 days ago | parent [-] | | At what point does Know Your Customer kick in for ads? |
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| ▲ | avidiax 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yes, especially do not google the number that you were given on the phone. That is completely certain to turn up the scammer's official looking page and "confirm" the phone number. I have seen Microsoft support forum articles that list the "Facebook official phone number". The fact that it's not from Facebook doesn't make it less authoritative in a panicked person's mind. Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple really must start publishing an "official phone number". It is perfectly OK that this phone number just plays a repeating message saying that the user should browse google.com/phone. That website can explain that there is no phone support offered, and provide a bunch of links for common scamming hooks that leads to anti-phishing material. |
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| ▲ | gblargg 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This happened to me once. I was calling Amazon and did a Google search on mobile. I called the big number that was at the top of search results. After I had given my account email, but nothing critical, I started becoming wary of the questions I was asked because they weren't relevant. I hung up and searched again and the result did not come up again, and Amazon's number was totally different. I looked up the number I called and it didn't find any results. So I'm guessing an ad scam. I definitely don't trust Google results with featured answers for things like that anymore. |
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| ▲ | bcrl 3 days ago | parent [-] | | This happened to my father while I was around during the beginning of the COVID lock down. He searched for an Apple support number and was served a targeted ad for a phishing site. Because of the change in search a few years prior, ads now look very much like search results compared to the obvious visual distinction back in the Don't-Be-Evil days. The ad was sufficiently targeted that it only showed up on his device for the search -- nobody else would see it. Ephemeral ads are not a good thing. | | |
| ▲ | GoblinSlayer 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Ironically today even network engineers of all people can't type speedtest.net without google's help. Set your search engine to wikipedia and see them struggle. |
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| ▲ | klik99 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Good to know. The guy who called me on friday felt like a targeted attack, I've been getting a TON of pokes at trying to reset my google password. It really made me feel like there's less and less you can trust online. Scammers are winning the arms race, and have the resources to create really good looking pages. |
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| ▲ | kevin_thibedeau 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| They also typosquat support numbers for people who misread them or assume things like toll-free is always 800 when it can be other area codes. Just because someone answers, don't give them enough PII to use your identity elsewhere. |
