A newspaper in Malaysia is reporting on a cell phone cloning scam. The scammer convinces the victim to lend them their cell phone, and the scammer quickly clones it. What’s clever about this scam is that the victim is an Uber driver and the scammer is the passenger, so the driver is naturally busy and can’t see what the scammer is doing.
Antistone • April 6, 2021 1:16 PM
Don’t you need to already have a phone in order to BE an Uber passenger?
lurker • April 6, 2021 1:19 PM
There’s no minimum IQ requirement for Uber drivers. Nr. 1 rule for tradesmen: never lend your tools (especially to customers). Corollary: carry a burner phone for dodgy circumstances.
John • April 6, 2021 1:41 PM
@antistone, Yes you need a phone to call for an Uber. But there’s nothing preventing you from accidently misplacing the phone during the time between making the Uber request and the Uber arrival.
“Oh, I’m such an idiot. I must have left my phone at that shop you picked me up at. Can I borrow yours to make a call?”
JonKnowsNothing • April 6, 2021 4:33 PM
@All
re: Don’t you need a phone for DodgyDriverCos?
While the normal working model of these companies is Direct Dial via App-Phone, there are (or were) companies that provided access to them for people that did not have phone, accounts or abilities to use the apps.
Primarily targeted to older individual or those with infirmities.
Use Cases include: (All pre-COVID activities)
There was some beef from the DodgyDriverCos over the small surcharge added by GrannyDialCos, the DodgyDriverCos wanted that surcharge to go the them. Some drivers felt that the surcharge should be part of their tip-packet.
I don’t know if these companies are still providing the services since COVID-19 but they were a great help to many.
===
ht tps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beef
idiom: Beef in the sense of ‘a grudge, argument’ was originally an American slang expression
(url fractured to prevent autorun)
Wei Jai Shan • April 6, 2021 8:34 PM
So, …. Uber has not been available in Malaysia for over 3 years, the only “e-hailing” service available throughout Peninsula Malaysia is called GRAB.
The rest of the article may be true but a little research works wonders.
BTW – I live in Malaysia!
Jack C • April 6, 2021 9:38 PM
eh
The scammer convinces the victim to lend them their cell phone, and the scammer quickly clones it.
And how is that supposed to be possible, the “quick cloning” of a cell phone?
On another note, it’s indeed not strictly speaking necessary to have a phone to be a passenger for DodgyDriverCo. A couple of years back I had my manager book me an Uber taxi to the airport because it was the only transportation and I refused to install their app on my iPhone.
There was some beef from the DodgyDriverCos over the small surcharge added by GrannyDialCos, the DodgyDriverCos wanted that surcharge to go the them. Some drivers felt that the surcharge should be part of their tip-packet.
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Arclight • April 6, 2021 10:00 AM
Even though there is cet4ainly a record of the passenger, Uber is probably not likely to help due to their privacy policy and “not wanting to get involved in a personal dispute.”
I suspect the scammers are aware of this and are taking advantage of the damage being an externality to the party who can help. It’s the same reason you often won’t get a business owner to give you surveillance video if your credit card was stolen or used there or your car was damaged in the parking lot. They don’t want to stick their neck out unless there is a payoff for them.