People get scammed out of money online in a variety of clever ways - they will get contacted via email, Facebook messenger, Twitter, etc., by a scammer pretending to be a Nigerian prince, a friend in trouble abroad, the person they just sold something to on eBay, etc. - the combinations are endless. The problem with all these scams is that at the end of each of these communications is a real scammer, keen to take your money.

My solution to this is to have banks, financial regulators, etc. send out more scam communications than the actual scammers. However, if you respond to one of these scam communications you would be redirected to a website saying "That was a fake scam - you could have lost money!" and containing educational material on how the scam would have worked.
-- hippo, Jul 03 2019

The TV commercial version. Decoy_20scam_20commercials
[doctorremulac3, Jul 03 2019]

What happens when the "real" fake scammers start using a similar tactic? ie you are redirected to a site that states: "That was a fake scam - you could have lost money!" and containing educational material on how the scam would have worked, along with a contact phone number, if you have any worries or confusion with a very re-assuring voice on the other end who offers to review your security details - just to put your mind at ease.
-- xenzag, Jul 03 2019


Scammers are heartless, amoral, greedy, untrustworthy and contemptible; they lie to you, take your money, and give nothing in return.

Oh, no, sorry, that's bankers. So what's the difference ?
-- 8th of 7, Jul 03 2019


Not much - but the serious answer is that the difference is that it is possible (although sometimes hard) to influence banks' behaviour with legislation. So, if banks were made more liable for the cost to their customers of the scams which are enabled by the banks' weak security controls, they would do more about it.
-- hippo, Jul 03 2019


+1
-- po, Jul 03 2019


A free online course on cyber crime, sponsored by your bank.
-- whatrock, Jul 03 2019


I thought that the rationale for this would be that as people routinely ignore communications from their banks, they would quickly get into the habit of ignoring bank- and scammer-initiated scams alike.
-- calum, Jul 04 2019


The place I currently work for does exactly this - every couple of weeks, they send out increasingly sophisticated scam emails to staff, with the equivalent of an HR-sanctioned Rick-Roll at the other end pointing out all the clues you should have noticed in the email body that suggest a scam attempt.
-- zen_tom, Jul 04 2019


[zen] - excellent!
-- hippo, Jul 04 2019


@zen_tom my work does that too -- if someone fails the test and clicks on a faux-phishing email they are required to re- take the incredibly boring security orientation course (a 20- minute slideshow/quiz)...
-- Russtopia, Jul 08 2019


that sounds Hideously, Scarily Boring Can you imagine? We might even work at the same place.
-- zen_tom, Jul 08 2019


It's a good use of boring presentation techniques if it incentivises people to learn about staying secure.

Also, *do* you both work at the same place?
-- hippo, Jul 08 2019



random, halfbakery