Take a crazy guess what happened to NY Mag's personal finance columnist.

Imagine believing someone because they tell you they're CIA. If you read even a paragraph about the history of the American empire you would know never to trust a CIA person

I'm sort of shocked that the bank let this person make that kind of withdrawal. I would have assumed it would set off some kind of internal alarm bells or audit reports or something.
- Usually banks don't let people withdraw huge amounts in cash for this exact reason - to protect their customers from scams - but maybe that's less common in The Land Of The Free. "It's my money, I'll spend it how I want!" Idk.
- It's likely she has a fuckload of money in other accounts for investments etc so it didn't go over the threshold.
Setting all of that aside, let's just pretend you're dumb enough to buy all of that garbage

Imagine a 'CIA agent' telling you 'Yeah, have 50k in a shoebox for our man' and...not asking any real questions?

Not being like 'hmm, maybe the state intelligence apparatus with a budget rivaling most small countries' GDP would use a more sophisticated technique than a single call where they tell me to stick my life savings in the box my fucking Nikes came in'?

These are the people telling you they deserve to feast while you starve because they're so much smarter and better than you.

Out of curiosity - I read an article by her where she told the story of a married woman who retired at 38. He retired at 41. Somehow the couple bought a house in Lake Tahoe when she was 30. She was a political consultant and her husband was a political pollster. But I'd be willing to bet that one or both of them is a fail son or daughter.

She's trying to build her brand as an author on "retiring early".
- Handing over a year's salary to a stranger is probably not going to help with retiring early.
- If she only has $80k in combined checking and savings and was able to retire at 38, then $50,000 must mean absolutely nothing to her lol. Probably a landlord or heiress to some family fortune. Same with the husband.

I Googled the number (nothing)

centrist

It wasn't an existing case number so I knew they were legit

If I made an incredibly stupid and costly mistake that was immensely damaging to my professional reputation I would simply not write an article about it telling everyone in the world what a gullible rube I am

Any financial advice she gives for the rest of her life should be countered with "but when should I put $50,000 cash in a shoebox and hand it to a stranger because he says he's from the CIA?"

Here's some free financial advice.

If some one calls you and tells you to give them all the money in your bank account, don't.

i guffawed
Here’s another free financial advice

If you find out the number of some bourgeois New York “economist,” call them and tell them to hand over all the money in their bank account because you’re the CIA
- furiously flicking through the phone book to locate a Dr Pavel in the NYC area code
I know a magazine that might be looking for a personal finance columnist if you're interested.
Well, when you put it like that

I can't stop thinking about this. Imagine being so secure in your job you can write an article announcing to the world that you're completely unqualified for it. Truly an incredible level of confidence this chick is awesome.

Imagine being secure enough to have 50,000 cash

Frequency bias fallacy. She spent the first 35 years of her life not handing out $50 000 to strangers in shoeboxes and yet you cherrypick this one event to mock her.

Sorry. But I am a leftist. It is my nature. Now if you'll excuse me - I must go. I'm late to the How to Make Little Children Suffer and Cry meeting. Plus - of course - I must attend the Single Toothbrush committee hearing.

So she gets a call from "Amazon", who forwards her to the "FTC", who forwards her to a "CIA agent". Everything else aside, how the fuck do you think some random Amazon customer service rep is 3 steps removed from the CIA?

television brain

you save a pretty penny on maintaining a robust police state if instead you just get enough people to believe in the robust police state
Devil's advocate: target has a forensics team that frequently collaborates with the FBI, so a developed relationship leading to an easy transfer like that isn't too crazy
- FBI, sure, but CIA? Might as well have claimed to have been the comptroller for Walter Reed VA Medical Center demanding kidneys for the troops.
FYI to all Hexbears, most government agencies, especially federal ones, will not call you first. They send paper document via mail letting you know what the deal is before anyone even attempts to contact you via phone. So if you ever get a cold call from the IRS, FTC, or CIA, it's not actually them.

People who say you're too stupid to properly use a stimulus check are the type to hand over more than the median annual salary to a scammer.

Praaaaaaaaaxis.

Yeah, honestly wish I had thought of this scam
- There are plenty of potential victims out there who deserve it.

lmfao I read this earlier today and I was just blown away at the stupidity. She repeatedly mentions through the article that she's suuuuper rational and not dumb at all i promise guys.

It's true

Everyone knows Einstein got conned into giving his life savings away to a guy selling counterfeit watches in New York

It just happens
- The conman’s name? J. Robert Oppenheimer

I don't consider myself a particularly savvy person, I have no street smarts or anything like that, so I'm always hesitant to be like "haha how do people fall for this" because I'm 99% sure you could scam me with social engineering bs

But oh my god she put her money into a shoe box and handed it to a stranger what the fuck dude

Hey just follow me over the wildy ditch with 1m and I'll trim your rune armor

This lady: "Sure sounds legit!"

Super secret dupe glitch, drop your rune armor on the ground and press alt F4 and you'll have two of them!
you will see a guy named xpopox, trade him 30k for nothing

"Okay!"

If anyone claims to be a cop of any variety and instructs you to do something other than identify yourself, unless they are in the act of detaining you you should just say no. If they call you, hang up lol. Don't trust cops.

If someone calls you and instructs you to put cash into a shoebox and give it to them, don't fucking do it lol. Pretty simple shit.

I get these calls and I try to see where they're going, but they always hang up on me. I try to act distraught and confused; maybe I'm just bad at that. I'm even more motivated now that I see that I can empty the litter tray into a shoebox and give them that.

I can’t remember the channel, but there’s a British guy who makes a hobby of staying on the line with scammers as long as possible so he can get information and try to dox them.

Maybe look up “scamming the scammer” type videos for tips?
- Are you thinking of Atomic Shrimp? Love his videos too.
- There are a couple great channels like that. KitBoga is the most directly entertaining, he makes up entire characters with costumes and voice changers and stuff, and builds all sorts of wacky tools/traps to waste as much scammer time as possible.
  
  Jim Browning is the most savvy, I think. Dude is a legit hacker, constantly gets access to scammer call centers' computers and security cam stuff and reports them to their local cops. Crazy computer magic shit.
  
  I don't know any others by name, but I can definitely recommend both of them.

Wild on so many levels. The CIA is literally a "foreign intelligence service", it shouldn't be active in the US, and especially not for an amount as small as $80,000. This would be something for the Secret Service, FBI, or local police, depending on how many others were affected.

Literal wallet inspector moment

Hahaha maybe she should do some overtime writing some more rich kid hagiographies

the personal finance columnist she tells you not to worry about

This is so fucking funny. 100% deserved. Fuck ‘em. If someone called claiming to be from the CIA - real or not - and told me to hand over my money, I would tell them to simply shoot themselves two times in the back of the head. I hope the scammer enjoys a nice vacation.

on the one hand scammers are generally pretty good at what they do. they have a lot of practice, and they try to target you and keep you off balance and unable to think straight as they try and get your money. it can genuinely happen to anyone, depending on the circumstances

on the other hand you're the finance columnist for a major magazine!!!!!!

If a guy named Jonathan Federalgent called me and demanded $50,000 in a shoe box I'd simply talk to him about my laserdisc collection until he either left me alone or subscribed to my blog.

gonna go for lead brain on this one

Telling my wife the divorce papers are from the CIA and she better sign them or else Jeff Bezos will use his mind powers to disintegrate her

People who say you're too stupid to properly use a stimulus check are the type to hand over more than the median annual salary to a scammer.

I have to admit that this lady is great/terrible at describing how shitty it feels to be a bumbling person doing stupid things then having to wallow in shame. The excessive, florid wordiness going on at dreary length, and totally WROINGLY thinking anybody fucking cares about the minutia of her thought process, that there would be any insight to be gained, adds to the effect. it's like, an onomatopoeia... it sounds like what it is. Even though I will never in my life have 50k for someone to scam from me, I relate to this. 50k individual, smaller, but still awful decisions I've made in my life and this is how it feels.

When I woke up the next morning, a few seconds passed before I remembered the previous day. I was my old self, in my old bed, milky dawn light on the walls. Then it all came crashing back, a fresh humiliation, and I curled into the fetal position. I felt violated, unreliable; I couldn’t trust myself. [...] I imagined other people’s reactions. She’s always been a little careless. She seems unhinged. I considered keeping the whole thing a secret. I worried it would harm my professional reputation. I still do.