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> My father told me that con men preferred to go after smart people This doesn't make a lot of sense. Most cons like the various Nigerian money scams and pyra

by pfisch 9y ago

> My father told me that con men preferred to go after smart people This doesn't make a lot of sense. Most cons like the various Nigerian money scams and pyramid scams are designed to only get responses from less intelligent people.

jerf 9y ago
It's not hard to imagine why the sorts of people who fall for widely-spread con nets and those who fall for highly personalized focused attacks aren't the same.
dboreham 9y ago
Perhaps "people who thought they were smart"?
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  They say you can't cheat an honest man. Why is that? Clearly, a lot of mostly honest folks do get conned sometimes. They aren't talking about something like Bank of America overcharging you on mortgage interest every month for years. That's not the kind of con you can do without a lot of cooperation, teamwork, and setup. It's more about the one-time scores. At the core of every con is a kernel of dishonesty, as the bait. Even something as simple as the Nigerian 419 or Spanish Prisoner has the implication that the advance fee supplied by the mark will be used to pay bribes. That means the mark is willing to be dishonest. The hook is set by revealing an opportunity for the mark to cheat the con artist to screw them out of some money. The million dollars will be transferred into your account, in your name, and we will ask you nicely to please, please give it to us, minus a reasonable fee. You go after the person smart enough to realize that they could just keep all that money, but not smart enough to realize there was never any money to keep. You go after the person who thinks they are smart enough to scam the con artist, and also dishonest enough to try. It might be because actively trying to scam someone turns off your own defenses against getting scammed.
  - exolymph 9y ago
    Bribes aren't de facto dishonest — their existence is, but using the only system available to e.g. get out of Germany isn't — and the type of person who falls for Nigerian 419 scams likely doesn't think the whole thing through.
    - logfromblammo 9y ago
      I think they are. They are more dishonest than paying kidnap ransom, in any case. When you pay a bribe, you actively fuel the system of corruption that makes them necessary. If you are doing it as a last gasp to escape that system, that is a different matter entirely from doing it to buy in to that system. The 419 scam lays it out there. You're going to be paying bribes into a corrupt system to take possession of some money that is not yours, but it doesn't belong to anyone in particular, so there is no victim, and therefore not stealing, per se. It's mostly harmless, and just a little bit crooked, so why not just wire all your savings to Lagos in $1000 chunks and get rich quickly and easily? Being just a bit crooked is essential for discouraging the mark from getting help from a friend or talking to the cops. If they speak of it to anyone else, that person will then know they are at least a bit sleazy, and possibly criminal. It's the same tactic used by criminal predators to silence their victims. Human trafficking, for instance: "You're here illegally, so if you talk to the cops, you'll be jailed and deported, and then you'll have to pay off your debt by farming beets in hardscrabble for the rest of your life."
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

by pfisch 9y ago

jerf 9y ago

It's not hard to imagine why the sorts of people who fall for widely-spread con nets and those who fall for highly personalized focused attacks aren't the same.

dboreham 9y ago

Perhaps "people who thought they were smart"?

logfromblammo 9y ago
They say you can't cheat an honest man. Why is that? Clearly, a lot of mostly honest folks do get conned sometimes. They aren't talking about something like Bank of America overcharging you on mortgage interest every month for years. That's not the kind of con you can do without a lot of cooperation, teamwork, and setup. It's more about the one-time scores. At the core of every con is a kernel of dishonesty, as the bait. Even something as simple as the Nigerian 419 or Spanish Prisoner has the implication that the advance fee supplied by the mark will be used to pay bribes. That means the mark is willing to be dishonest. The hook is set by revealing an opportunity for the mark to cheat the con artist to screw them out of some money. The million dollars will be transferred into your account, in your name, and we will ask you nicely to please, please give it to us, minus a reasonable fee. You go after the person smart enough to realize that they could just keep all that money, but not smart enough to realize there was never any money to keep. You go after the person who thinks they are smart enough to scam the con artist, and also dishonest enough to try. It might be because actively trying to scam someone turns off your own defenses against getting scammed.
- exolymph 9y ago
  Bribes aren't de facto dishonest — their existence is, but using the only system available to e.g. get out of Germany isn't — and the type of person who falls for Nigerian 419 scams likely doesn't think the whole thing through.
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    I think they are. They are more dishonest than paying kidnap ransom, in any case. When you pay a bribe, you actively fuel the system of corruption that makes them necessary. If you are doing it as a last gasp to escape that system, that is a different matter entirely from doing it to buy in to that system. The 419 scam lays it out there. You're going to be paying bribes into a corrupt system to take possession of some money that is not yours, but it doesn't belong to anyone in particular, so there is no victim, and therefore not stealing, per se. It's mostly harmless, and just a little bit crooked, so why not just wire all your savings to Lagos in $1000 chunks and get rich quickly and easily? Being just a bit crooked is essential for discouraging the mark from getting help from a friend or talking to the cops. If they speak of it to anyone else, that person will then know they are at least a bit sleazy, and possibly criminal. It's the same tactic used by criminal predators to silence their victims. Human trafficking, for instance: "You're here illegally, so if you talk to the cops, you'll be jailed and deported, and then you'll have to pay off your debt by farming beets in hardscrabble for the rest of your life."

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]