Why People Fall for Scams
The cluster debates why people, including smart or savvy individuals, fall for obvious scams, defends victims against shaming, and discusses scammers' tactics like preselecting gullible targets and exploiting trust.
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I'm not sure it help to shame people who fall for those scams. People do fall for it, scammed are exploiting human's trust that most people are nice. Most scams seem dumb once you know about them. And once some scam becomes well known, scammers will just change tactics.The important thing is to educate people (for example do not give your bank information over the phone ever, except if you are the one who called maybe) and have good insurances in case something like this happens. An
You're overestimating the intelligence of the typical scammer.
You're on hacker news so it is easier for you to say that who falls for this crap. Ground reality is completely different. Lot of young and mature people can fall for this crap. It's like saying who falls for fake news these days. It is gonna be a learning curve for normal people to understand nuances of these scams.
people who fall for scams on phone are the ones who wouldn't hear about news like this.
Scammers are preselecting for people who would believe obvious lies. It doesn't make sense to even bother with "overly cautious", aware people like yourself.
If people are better off not falling for scams, why do they ever fall for them?
Smart people are often the easiest to scam because they believe they can't be scammed.
Typically people being scammed don’t feel like they are being scammed.
Most people don't understand this stuff so they'll take it at face value even though it's likely a scam
Tell that to the any number of people that have fallen for similar (or even more basic) scams. Unfortunately, not everyone is Internet savvy enough to know what's legitimate and what's a scam.