Don’t Trust, Verify — or How I Outsmarted the Fake Bankers
It always starts the same way.
Your phone rings. Unknown number. A serious voice says,
“Good afternoon, this is the fraud department of the Rabobank.”
And right there — before the coffee even hits your lips — you’re the star of your own crime thriller.
Apparently, someone transferred money from my account to a “German recipient.”
He even knew my name, my account number — impressive!
But something felt… off. Maybe it was his tone, or maybe it was the fact that real bankers don’t sound like they’re sitting in a call center above a kebab shop.
So I asked him, very calmly:
“What’s the secret verification code I have with the Rabobank?”
He paused. “Uh, I can’t tell you that, sir.”
Of course he couldn’t — because it didn’t exist.
I made it up on the spot.
That’s when I knew: the hunter had become the hunted.
I could almost hear the Windows XP error sound in his head.
Click. Game over.
⸻
A few months earlier I’d had another “bank expert” on the line.
This one claimed to be from the Rabobank’s IT department.
I decided to have some fun.
Me: “That’s funny, I don’t even have an account with Rabobank.”
Him: “Oh, I see that now. You’re actually with ING.”
Me: “Yes, that’s correct.”
Him: “Well, we work together — Rabobank and ING.”
At that moment, I laughed so hard I nearly reset my own firewall.
These people have an answer for everything… except logic.
So I kept him talking.
For one whole hour.
An hour in which he couldn’t scam anyone else.
An hour of pure digital community service.
⸻
The moral of the story?
Fraudsters don’t fear technology — they fear awareness.
Their greatest enemy is not antivirus software;
it’s a calm mind armed with a single principle we Bitcoiners live by:
Don’t trust, verify.
So the next time your phone rings and a “banker” claims to save you from fraud,
smile politely, ask for your “secret code,”
and enjoy the moment when their script crashes
#Bitcoin #fraud #bank
