{"id":13562,"date":"2022-09-02T01:40:57","date_gmt":"2022-09-02T01:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/?p=13562"},"modified":"2022-09-10T20:52:41","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:52:41","slug":"2022-09-04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/2022-09-04\/","title":{"rendered":"SkepTalk: Who\u2019s Making All Those Scam Calls?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Video of a talk by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee<\/h3>\n

11 a.m., September 4, 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

Join us at this Sunday’s meeting to watch and discuss a video.<\/p>\n

Everyone has experienced the call. \u201cThis is Alex from the credit card company. We have a refund we want to give you that has to be deposited directly into your bank account. What is your bank account number?\u201d or words to that effect. Or maybe \u201cAlex\u201d (or \u201cVicki\u201d, or \u201cJosh\u201d) has bad news: your credit rating will plummet if you don\u2019t send his\/her company $200 immediately. What\u2019s your credit card number? Calls like this bilk tens of thousands of people \u2013 many of them elderly \u2013 out of billions of dollars every year. What happens when a reporter traces one of these calls back to its source \u2013 in this case, to an Indian boiler room \u2013 with the assistance of a Brit hacker. Who is making all those scam calls, anyway, and what\u2019s their story?<\/p>\n

About the Speaker: Yudhijit Bhattacharjee is a prize-winning reporter who worked for Science magazine until 2014. A contributing writer to the New York Times, the New Yorker, National Geographic, The Guardian, and other publications. A one-time crime reporter, he has long been interested in scams and frauds. His best-selling spy thriller, The Spy Who Couldn\u2019t Spell, was described as \u201ctelling a story that would make a kickass movie\u201d. It has, in fact, been optioned by Hollywood.<\/p>\n

If you wish, you can preview his 67-minute presentation at:
\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NCtrNhzvd4M
\nCome join us for a lively discussion.\n<\/p>\n

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Video of a talk by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee 11 a.m., September 4, 2022 Join us at this Sunday’s meeting to watch and discuss a video. Everyone has experienced the call. \u201cThis is Alex from the credit card company. We have a refund we want to give you that has to be deposited directly into your bank … Continue reading “SkepTalk: Who\u2019s Making All Those Scam Calls?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[258],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13562"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13562"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13565,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13562\/revisions\/13565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}