The Column – Cyber Security Week
Sometimes a phone call remains a phone call, other times it becomes the gateway into a nightmare.
It all begins like this. I call a friend and he dismisses me in an agitated voice: “I’ll call you back, I have a banking emergency.” An hour later he actually does it and tells me a story that seems to have been written by a screenwriter with a certain predilection for “ordinary follies”. First comes an SMS, apparently sent by his credit card operator, reporting anomalous payment attempts for significant amounts. A number to call appears in the message. He calls him. Here we must stop immediately, because the first error has already occurred, but it does not resemble an error, but simple common sense. I get an alert, I get worried, I call. It’s a shame that in these cases common sense, if not trained a lot, becomes a watchdog that wags its tail at the thief.
On the other side he finds a routine wait, music, a courteous operator, a professional tone. Nothing theatrical. No B-movie accents, no ramshackle requests, no exotic princes with a locked-in inheritance. Just normality. Indeed: precisely that clerical normality that reassures, because it makes us think that the world is still governed by people sitting at a desk, with an open management system and a coffee break on the way.
The operator explains to him that several payments were attempted, one even worth five thousand euros, but then the scene changes. She asks him to keep his phone turned on and within reach: it seems that the Police Headquarters is investigating these serial scams. You may receive a call that arrives after a few minutes.
The alleged investigator speaks of a confidential investigation. He explains to him that there is perhaps an accomplice inside a bank, coincidentally his own, and that he could become a kind of infiltrator. Here the scam takes a qualitative leap. They’re no longer asking him to defend himself: they’re offering him a role. He is no longer the victim, he becomes the protagonist. A sort of undercover agent with jacket, bank account and an understandable acceleration of the heartbeat.
The task is simple, they say. You must go to the branch and make a transfer of ten thousand euros to an account controlled by the police. By observing how the operation is managed, investigators will be able to understand how the scam mechanism works. It seems absurd read with a cold mind. But scams are not designed for the cold mind because they are built for those minutes when anxiety puts its coat on reason and accompanies it to the door.
My friend is not stupid. On the contrary. He is cultured, attentive to economic issues, collaborative. Maybe a little anxious, yes. However, no more than many of us when someone tells us that our money is in danger and that, to save it, we must do exactly as we are told. The modern scam does not seek the ignorant, rather the fragile moment of the intelligent person.
He goes to the bank. The self-styled investigator asks him to keep the phone in his pocket, with the call active, so he can listen to the conversation at the counter. It’s an interesting detail, because it shows the direction. They don’t just want to give instructions; they want to control the environment, stay in the room without being there, like certain bad smells, invisible but decisive.
The bank transfer is arranged. Then, as soon as he leaves, the call resumes. The fake cop asks if it was done instantaneously. No. At that point he gets irritated, or pretends to do so knowingly. He explains that this is not the case, that too much time will pass, that the investigation risks falling through, that the criminal will not be able to be observed. You have to go back and turn it into an instant transfer. And he comes back. Here the true hero of the story enters the scene: a bank official. She sees him return, becomes curious, asks him what he is doing. When he feels that he wants to transform an ordinary ten thousand euro transfer into an instant one, he doesn’t just execute. He asks questions. It introduces that friction that in digital processes we always consider a nuisance and which instead, sometimes, is the parachute in the backpack.
My friend hesitates. He doesn’t know what to say. Then the official asks him the question that breaks the spell: did it all start from a phone call from the credit card operator? Is this pushing you to do all this? At that moment he wakes up. The dream becomes almost a nightmare, but remains “almost”. The transfer does not become instant, but is canceled.
Later, speaking to me, he defines them as “mentalists”. He’s right. Not in the stage sense, with the deck of cards and the audience applauding. In the worst sense: people capable of building a mental cage using urgency, authority, fear and the desire to collaborate. They don’t break down the door; more simply they convince you to open it, serve them coffee and maybe apologize for the inconvenience.
The lesson is not “don’t trust anyone”, because that would be useless and even a little sad. The lesson is simpler: when someone rushes us, isolates us, asks us for secrecy and pushes us to move money, we need to interrupt the script. Hang up. Breathe. Call the bank from the official number. Talk to a natural person, preferably in front of a counter. Security is not universal distrust; it’s the ability to slow down when everyone pretends that running is essential.
Because in the world of scams, those who know everything don’t win: those who control the time and, at the right moment, know how to stop, win.
