School principal resigns after writing $100,000 check to Elon Musk impersonator The principal of a Florida science and technology charter school has resigned after allegedly writing a $100,000 check to an Elon Musk impersonator using school funds. Dr Jan McGee, who is listed as a founding board member of Burns Science and Technology Charter in Oak Hill, Florida, told the school's board of directors that …
1) "The principal of a Florida science and technology charter school has resigned after allegedly writing a $100,000 check to an Elon Musk impersonator using school funds...
2) "Dr Jan McGee, who is listed as a founding board member of Burns Science and Technology Charter in Oak Hill, Florida, told the school's board of directors that she had been fooled by the fake Musk after being "groomed" (in her words) for months...
3) "McGee reportedly cut a $100k check to a person she believed was an associate of Musk's to kickstart additional investments of up to $6 million...
4) "I am a very smart lady. Well educated..." McGee told the board, according to local news reports."
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Who says that an oxymoron can only be one word in length?
Well educated she may be. Smart, not so much. Quite apart from falling for the scam, it wasn't very bright to try making a payment that was so far beyond her authority.
In fairness, though, it often seems to be the people you'd least expect to fall for scams that get stung. Among my clients, it was often otherwise-savvy small business owners, or well educated intellectual types who were talked into installing TeamViewer and / or making payments to folks claiming to be from Microsoft / BT etc. In one case, the client having paid someone purporting to be from BT, I couldn't help asking why as he wasn't even with BT. "I didn't think of that," was all he had to say.
In another, the client fell for such a scam, then fell for another almost identical scam less than a week later. Unbelievable, but true.
I will go out on a limb and tempt fate by saying there is zero chance that I would be caught by any of the tech scams going at the moment.
The same can’t necessarily be said for genuinely new scams using a previously unknown vector. Luckily those don’t come along too often.
On a semi related note, I got an email last year from my credit card company saying there had been a data breach, my records were exposed and as we really are very very sorry, here’s 2 years credit monitoring. Note; monitoring, not protection.
Last week I received an email from Experian saying yes my details had been spotted on the dark web, but I’d need to pay their consultants if I wanted any action taken as the ‘subscription’ didn’t cover that.
The line between ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ scams seems to be getting more and more blurred.
My first thought was this is a fine demo that Dunning-Kruger really is a thing.
As to the ones we least expect falling for this stuff, it's related: we deceive ourselves. The only way to guard against it is to admit it (and try not to forget it). The ones most at risk of self-deception are those who deny doing it.
Being smart doesn't mean being too smart not to think you're too smart to deceive yourself so it's not something you need to watch out for, like someone who's stupid. Which is like you deceive yourself so you can look the other way while you deceive yourself about how smart you are. Deceive yourself that you're honest, basically.
Exactly. It's the people who confidently declare they won't fall for scams who worry me. Human cognition is rife with pitfalls.
Pessimism and paranoia help, but they have opportunity costs. I could be much wealthier if my appetite for risk were higher and ethical reservations lower; I have acquaintances who have backgrounds similar to mine and are not so burdened who are indeed much wealthier than I am. I could also be much poorer. And I don't make the mistake of believing I can recognize all scams.
I don't know about others' experience, but speaking for myself the only people I've heard refer to themselves in those terms typically went on to say/do something remarkably stupid in short order...
Same as when you see someone's online handle containing words as "king", "lord", "master" or the like, you can safely ignore anything they write as chances are it will be utter drivel.
When somebody drops in their academic achievements or their years of professional experience to back up what they are saying online, it’s fairly safe to assume they are liars.
And I know this to be a fact because I have a PhD in online behaviour and I’ve practiced in this field for more than 20 years.
No, I think the point was understood. And the reposte was fair: it was possible to be using on-line social media 40 years ago. They allowed you to learn the failure modes of modern social media in a much lower risk environment. Though I would still delete a bunch of posts I made in my name, given the chance - even where I turned out to be right.
Dunno about Usenet four decades back — I started on Usenet a mere 32 years ago. But I used my real name then, and I used it on smaller social-media predecessors such as BBSes and university message-posting systems in the 1980s.
Many of the big-name Usenet personalities in the 1990s used what appeared to be their real names, or at least wouldn't go to any length to hide them. Everyone knew Kibo was James Parry and snopes was David Mikkelson. And in many of the Usenet groups I frequented there were people of local fame who used their real names. rec.arts.sf.written is an example; folks like Charles Stross and Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennett and Jo Walton appeared as themselves, if memory serves.
I'd like to think I am 99% immune to this type of scam, but heck, I am not sure anyone is 100% immune.
You hear about the classic IT/Microsoft/bank/catfishing/romance scam and I'm not sure I could easily fall for these types of scam (I am naturally cynical of anyone who contacts me out of the blue). But if the scammer put in some serious effort, of course, anything is possible (you hear about scammers who physically start a relationship for months before putting the next phase of their scam into action).
I recall my great uncle falling to many of these scams following a decline in his mental health. The poor sod posted them cheques for £25k over the space of a year trying to claim a "lottery millionaire/betting" type of scam. We only twigged when he asked me to drive him to an award ceremony in Birmingham to collect his million pound payout in a few weeks time, but only after bragging about how he'd invested all this cash and just had to send one more cheque through the post...
My organisation is using random phishing emails on its staff as part of training. I spotted most of them, but during one particularly hectic moment, circumstances combined and I fell for one of them.
Kicked myself hard, really disappointed but it feels like very effective training.
We have the same at the place I work. I got caught out a few years ago where it looked like my manager had declined my expenses. The fake phishing mail arrived only a few minutes after I had submitted them, so the timing worked* and I was rushing onto other things. I didn't get as far as trying to login to anything but was a good lesson to be highly vigilant.
*I should have been suspicious that they were approved so quickly :)
"Kicked myself hard, really disappointed but it feels like very effective training."
Similar at our place. I entered fake details into the "scam" login portal, which looked very much like our company portal, right down to the very, very long and obfuscated URI, but it was an automated system that enrolled me into the mandatory online refresher course anyway as a "victim". Bugger. I won't be doing that again.
"My employer uses (or used; the practice seems to have abated of late) the clever technique of sending out legitimate emails which are indistinguishable from the phishing ones. The IT and Security departments were particularly adept at this."
Paypal was excellent at this when I had an account with them. They'd send all sorts of drivel loaded with links that resolved to long URL's that weren't always obvious Paypal domains. I'd send in a scam report and they'd confirm that the email was legit. They never did seem to see the problem. Some banks will do the same thing instead of asking customers to log into their account typing the URL in manually from their own records and change their password or check for unknown transactions.
The latest scam that I get all of the time is an invoice is sent for a large sum of money with a note that they'll be debiting my bank account in the next couple of day with a link at the bottom. It's easy to catch those when you get 5-10 of the same ones each day on each one of your email accounts. I've never clicked the links but I'm guessing it will redirect a heap of time and wind up at a page that asks me to "verify" my banking information. And, what's with this use of the word 'verify' that is used when they want you to provide information. Whenever I come across this, I have to explain that a verification is they tell me what information they have and tell them if it's correct or not. Sheesh.
> For romance scams, you could well be contacting them on a dating site.
The trick is to make the mark *think* they are being contacted via the dating website, without actually doing so (as that would leave a trail - and mean the scammer has to pay the dating site fee as well).
So, again, just blast out many, many messages that claim to be a response to the mark's post on the dating site - almost all of the recipients won't have gone anywhere near the dating website, but a few will have - and a few more may fall for the "your friends signed you up" second email.
Bit of standardised social engineering later and kerching.
Apropos, there is,or was, a company that sold underwear to oldies (Damart or some such a name). Each catalogue had a "Prize Draw" to pull the old folks in. It used to drive me bonkers each time I visited an aged reli and saw this. What they were doing was softening their customers up for other "Free Prize Draw" scams.
There's a lot of companies abusing the elderly in reprehensible ways. Similarly there's "tour companies" that'll organize "seniors city tours", where they promise a nice sightseeing tour around a city of interest at a low (but not that low) cost to get a load of elderly into the bus. The bus then drives to the city of interest (usually), spends about half an hour to an hour driving around the city to satisfy the "see the city" part, then shepherd everyone into a convenient location for coffee/thee and cake. Then they get subjected to an hour or 2 to 3 (or 4 to 5) of hard sell on all sorts of useless tat that would embarrass the average Tell Sell shouty-person before loading everyone back into the bus for the journey home.
Most egregious case I've heard of was a so called tour of Liege/Luik in Belgium (starting in the Netherlands) where the bus left at 8 in the morning, arrived at the city at around 10-ish, going basically over the main road through the city before arriving at some backwater hotel/conference center where everyone was promptly shepherded into a windowless back room and made to sit there for nearly 7 hours, before finally putting them back on the bus to arrive back home at around 8 in the evening. Very hard sales tactics, lots of useless tat, threats of making them pay some ridiculous sums of money for the return on the bus or they'd be left behind if they didn't buy anything, etc, etc. Downright emotional abuse. I don't know exactly what words were said but I know my aunt who finally managed to find someone to deal with in that particular company afterwards was still hoarse when I spoke to her 2 days later. (all tat returned, all money refunded, company duly blacklisted and from then on one of his kids would accompany grandpa on one of these tours).Police basically can't do anything because technically they haven't done anything illegal.
Damart, yes. Still going, they are based not far down the road from me in sunny Bingley.
They got themselves into a spot of bother a few years back sending out prize drawer promotions disguised as "account overdue" red letters. About as classy as the big thermal knickers they flog.
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I obviously move in the wrong circles, but if I was about to give someone a cheque for €100k, I would be demanding to see them live and in person. Hell, I'll cover the extra thousand dollars for the flight and hotel costs to fly out to San Francisco and meet Musky in person to handover the cheque.
For someone who only had authorisation to write cheques to $50k, writing $100k was obviously a big deal. So why on Earth wouldnt you take the extra precautions??? If his Muskiness was too busy to meet you in person, he could at least have one of his minions greet you and accept the cheque in person at Twitter HQ, or hell at any one of his firms, Tesla, Space X, Boring, whatever is closest. You dont just send €100k without doing the old meet and greet in person, preferably in an office not in a hotel lobby, restaurant or other non-descript location that does not tie to a specific company.
Also can I ask, because maybe it's an American thing, but I have NEVER heard of any legitimate transaction where you are hoping to get an investment from someone else, but where YOU have to pay first to facilitate the transaction. Sorry, but the only time I've heard of such a thing is in scams. I mean if this woman truly expected El Musky to invest $3million, but there was a $100k fee for the transaction (WTF?), then surely you would just expect that $100k to be taken out of the $3 million, so you'd just receive $2.9million instead. You'd never be expected to pay $100k first, surely?!?!
There are some Scams, where you put your hand up and say "Fair play! Anyone would have fallen for that one." (I'm thinking of that one in Barcelona, where the guy somehow lost a few million of crypto, after showing a wallet that the guy himself controlled to the conman, and for which I dont think anyone has actually been able to explain how it worked!), but there are plenty of other Scams where you just have to think the person really did turn off their brains for this...
” Also can I ask, because maybe it's an American thing, but I have NEVER heard of any legitimate transaction where you are hoping to get an investment from someone else, but where YOU have to pay first to facilitate the transaction.“
If you’re in the EU and receiving a package from outside the EU, it’s pretty common to have to pay processing costs before you receive your product. This itself is a scam as companies like DHL will often extort a ‘handling fee’ before telling you that no import duties are due, and the only thing you need to pay is their handling fee.
Of course non-payment means you don’t get your package, and if it gets returned to whichever Chinese online tat bazaar you bought it from, good luck ever getting a refund either.
That's more than a little different. For one you've actually purchased something and so expect to receive a package. If you have to pay a fee to get it from DHL/UPS/etc. that's annoying, but you still get your package at the end once you've paid. It's not a scam, or at least not an illegal one, and more like "legalised extortion" which I'd love to see the EU go after, but that's another topic entirely.
If someone purporting to be DHL contacted you out of the blue to say you needed to pay their fees in order to get this wonderful expensive package of yours, when you're not actually expecting a package, then that's clearly a scam, and you'd be daft as hell to pay. If you have any doubts, get the "tracking number" or whatever identification info they give you, then call the firm (DHL/UPS/etc.) directly over their official customer service number (not the number as listed in any email they've sent you), and simply state you think this might be a scam, does this tracking number exist in their system, and is it actually destined for you. Doing anything else is asking to lose your money...
Not exactly what DHL are doing. DHL is charging you for doing the right paperwork to legally import whatever is in the package into your country because as the shipping agency THEY are responsible for making sure the right taxes and duties have been levied before you get your grubby mits on it. It might well be that the end result of that is "no charges due" in terms of import duties or taxes but there's still some legal paperwork to do. Yes, the fee is a bit extortionate, but the alternative is that either they have to A: hold your package, inform you that YOU need to do the paperwork, wait for you to do so and provide them proof of such and THEN send it to you (hoping you did the forms right), or B: refuse to deal with any packages for which the correct paperwork hasn't already been submitted when the package arrives in their hands. A is very impractical and would likely lead to them charging extortionate storage fees (not to mention the problems with people trying to fill in their own tax and import forms), B is going to create logistics chaos.
Yes I get the paperwork angle. The reasons I believe it's a scam (or more accurately, extortion) are:
1. I have no contract with DHL, and did not engage their services.
2. I am given no option to choose another party to handle my imports.
3. In my particular case, the vendor has already done the import paperwork at point of origin; DHL simply duplicate this (or 'verify' it, in their words)
3. I am not afforded the opportunity to submit my own paperwork.
4. The charges are out of all proportion to the "actual" cost of 'filling in paperwork', which in reality involves no actual paper and is fully automated in most cases.
It may well be that after consideration of the above I "choose" to pay the €7 or so to get it all handled for convenience' sake, but the point is then it would be my CHOICE. As it currently stands, I have no realistic choice other than reject the package and in all likelihood lose my money.
That scam mostly works when some has recently ordered something from outside their customs area, and is expecting a carrier to ask for import taxes and fees. Generally they won't know which carrier their supplier chose, so even if it is the "wrong" carrier, it could still work in that situation.
> If someone purporting to be DHL contacted you out of the blue to say you needed to pay their fees in order to get this wonderful expensive package of yours, when you're not actually expecting a package, then that's clearly a scam, and you'd be daft as hell to pay
Well, yes, that is how these scams work - they spray out a huge number of such messages and rely on the chance that a small number of recipients will be too rushed[1], too naive[2] or simply too far on the decline[3] to take what we, the "clever lot", deem to be "the obvious precautions".
[1] life gets on top of all of us at some point
[2] the young and the trusting are a joy in life
[3] that fate awaits most of us
"they spray out a huge number of such messages and rely on the chance that a small number of recipients will be too rushed[1], too naive[2] or simply too far on the decline[3] to take what we, the "clever lot", deem to be "the obvious precautions"."
Also [4] if you spray out enough of these messages, you're bound to hit a few who have genuinely ordered something and are expecting a delivery.
Quite. Very nearly got me a couple of years back when EU/UK customs went into meltdown - taking down most of the carriers' tracking systems in the process - because nobody seemed to have worked out what the new post-Brexit rules were. I imagine that scam was probably fairly lucrative around that time.
" they spray out a huge number of such messages"
I expect it's a good racket these days with people ordering all sorts of stuff online that they can't remember what they've ordered, if they've got it yet, etc. A friend of mine's wife is an online purchasing addict. He just indulges her since he can afford it, but the have a house full of useless Asian made tat that their kids are going to send to landfill when they put the pair of them in a home.
"If you have to pay a fee to get it from DHL/UPS/etc."
The complaint should go to the government as often times there's been some rule change or sudden enforcement of some rule on the books that was never bothered with before. It can even be a mistake on the shipper's end when they send you a "gift" that obviously isn't a gift when randomly checked by customs. Some countries asses their import fees on a whim and there is no way to know what they are until the package arrives in country. The shipping company gets tagged to collect and remit those charges or send the package back out of the country.
It's not a scam, just the usual governmental train wreck.
Believe DHL's argument is that they still need to prepare and submit the customs paperwork to demonstrate no import fee is due. The fees all the delivery companies charge for this are extortionate however. It's like retail banks, and many other businesses: the basic service is a loss-leader, if you want extras you get gouged. Don't hate the player hate the game (governments that allow it) I guess.
Re delivery, I've met a few scammers when selling things in Facebook marketplace. They say they want to buy (item) off you but are very busy, can't do it themselves and will send a courier to fetch it. Then they ask you to pay the courier price, promising to refund it with the item payment.
Clear scam to my eyes, but for sure there are people falling for it or they wouldn't be doing it
Nobody said it was the same. The original statement was "I have NEVER heard of any legitimate transaction where you are hoping to get an investment from someone else, but where YOU have to pay first to facilitate the transaction." - upfront package handling fees are an example of where you have to pay first to facilitate the transaction. These become a scam (in my view) when they: A. Charge you to tell you there's no charge, and B. hold your package to ransom knowing full well that returning it is a practical impossibility.
Ever take out a bank loan?
Certainly, in the clear light of day, it's usually easy to spot these ********. But that's the game. They DON'T operate in the light. NO ONE is immune. If you think you are, YOU are the idiot. Pray you don't get targeted.
It's not paranoia--they really are out to get you. And unlike you, they are professionals. Think about that. But try not to think about it too much before bed.
Ever take out a bank loan?
Yep, 3 in fact. And never once had to pay something up front to get the loan. I've also always gone to the premise of either the Bank or the Financial advisor who was organising the loan before signing anything.
Perhaps the one thing you're talking about is paying the deposit on our house, which had to come from our money, rather than the banks, but even then, that transaction took place whilst sitting in the solicitor's office opposite the couple we were buying the house from.
So like I said, maybe it's done differently in other nations, but at least where I am, things happen in person, or in professional environments. Which makes the thought of doing such large scale transactions in the ether to be almost unbelievable...
"Yep, 3 in fact. And never once had to pay something up front to get the loan. "
This depends on the banking practices in country, but there can be fees once the loan is approved. Normally, these fees are just added to the loan balance. Occasionally, there can be something added to the first payment or two to pay certain fees. I have seen it, but it's not something I'd ever do. Those fees are published and the payment terms as well. If you don't get the loan, you don't pay the fees unless you've engaged a broker that is doing the paperwork and finding a lender for you and even then, the goods ones don't charge fees upfront.
Business deals and investment[1] purchases of sums like that occur every day without doing all the paperwork via lawyers; if you feel like it, you can go and buy a car for that much without invoking the lawyers. If you have signatory power up to $50k already then signing big cheques can be normalised.
Agreed, if the deal is something out of the ordinary (for you) then getting a lawyer to go over the contract is a sensible precaution, but not a strict necessity (either way, as signatory, you still bear the liability - getting lawyers in just gives you someone else to blame).
But, of course, the whole way any of these scams work is to hope to find someone who doesn't go to lawyers as a matter of course, especially after time has been spent building up a relationship.
[1] or "investment", as even the otherwise legit ones are a gamble
"But, of course, the whole way any of these scams work is to hope to find someone who doesn't go to lawyers as a matter of course, especially after time has been spent building up a relationship."
The scammers will also look for somebody that is rather full of themselves and won't seek any advice from anybody else. There's plenty of people that would have told the person that it was a scam or the deal smelled bad.
Let's face it, Elon is the type of person that would want to go to the school in person with his own photographers and make a big deal over handing over a large ceremonial check. Elon has made statements that he was going to donate a large portion of his wealth but there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that and then he overpaid for Twitter and could be walking the financial knife's edge. This would be the sort of thing he'd want to make very public. At the same time he's handing over the ceremonial check, the school would get the donation via wire transfer.
have NEVER heard of any legitimate transaction where you are hoping to get an investment from someone else, but where YOU have to pay first to facilitate the transaction. Sorry, but the only time I've heard of such a thing is in scams.
This is he inexcusable stupidity part. Yes maybe the Muskrat would donate a ton of cash. (And she'd geared herself up to think this possible). That's plausible. But your donor asking you to give them great wodges of cash up front? That is in the fucking stupid part.
"surely you would just expect that $100k to be taken out of the $3 million, so you'd just receive $2.9million instead."
I wouldn't expect there would be any money taken out if it was a donation. The tax authority would question why there was a kick back. There isn't a problem if an organization hands out some branded 'premiums' such as a coffee mug or carry bag as a thank you, but not $100k. Intangibles are better such as the naming of a building with a brass plaque or if the money would be used for scholarships, it would be named after the donor. Just like Thorton Melon said in "Back to School", The reason people like you have a place to teach is because people like me donate buildings.
She fell for something too good to be true on the internet.
If it looks to good to be true, then it is. There is no probably. I'm not sure her resigning will help much though, admin caught it first so it should have been a learning opportunity. Can't help thinking there were other reasons why she needed to go and this was a tipping point. Or maybe it's just us brits being too nice again.
... but using other people's money when falling for a scam is just something different.
Hybrid-criminal?
For once, the scammer exhibits criminal energy for setting up and running with the scam.
But also the victim exhibits criminal energy for using school funds well beyond her own power.
-> What if we cross the two streams of criminal energy?
"According to WESH Orlando, McGee had for years wanted to get Musk involved in funding the school"
Why does this lady apparently think that Musk would want to get involved in funding some random charter school? What possible reason can she have for even thinking such a thing is in the benefit of the school or the students?
"What possible reason can she have for even thinking such a thing is in the benefit of the school or the students?"
Well, if it did happen, it would be beneficial in the way that any large chunk of money from any donor would be. A lot of schools don't have massive budgets, so that could help provide some expensive upgrades.
"Why does this lady apparently think that Musk would want to get involved in funding some random charter school?"
I have no good answer for that question. My best guess is that she was one of those people who thought and since this has just ended still thinks that Musk is a great person. Such people are out there, but I can't explain why they think what they do. Musk has on occasion done something to help others, only when it would be flashy and bring a lot of attention to him personally, usually less than he claimed to do, and sometimes not actually providing any benefit, but maybe she took those few examples and extrapolated that he was a prolific philanthropist. This is where research would be useful, but she doesn't seem to be the researching kind.
....
Unpopular school administrator is going to get ousted.
1) Grab a last greedy payout on the way out the door. Or
2) Embezzlements <50k going to show up eventually, now she has gullibility to blame rather than having to return her cars and houses.
Successful or not, better than getting fired with nothing because parents and staff hate you, and/or being found out stealing a bunch of money.
Go to new job, 'now I'm immune to such antics,' fleece the next folks with your vast experience. Job done and done.
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