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Is Bruce Hay the Most Gullible Man in Cambridge?
- danso 7y ago> This past fall, I met Doe, who told me Shuman appeared out of nowhere at an intersection where he was standing with two colleagues and started chatting him up in what he described as hushed tones. He recalled her saying, “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help but notice that you’re attractive. I’m in town from New York, visiting a friend, and I was hoping you’d be willing to show me around.” He gave her his cell number. The obvious goofiness of the alleged scammer's pickup line makes me think of the famous Microsoft Research paper, "Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They are From Nigeria?" [0], which hypothesized that foreign scammers continue to use the Nigerian prince trope because it filters for the dumbest victims: > Since gullibility is unobservable, the best strategy is to get those who possess this quality to self-identify. An email with tales of fabulous amounts of money and West African corruption will strike all but the most gullible as bizarre. It will be recognized and ignored by anyone who has been using the Internet long enough to have seen it several times...Those who remain are the scammers ideal targets. [0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/why-do-nigerian-scammers-say-they-are-from-nigeria/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/why-do-...