5 ms·

These scams are so stupid I can't believe people actually fall for them in significant numbers, let alone after all this time they've been going on. The scams

• Hokusai 6y ago
  > I can't believe people actually fall for them There is people with a high level of trust. They will believe almost anything. Sometimes they are in a vulnerable situation, sometimes it comes with age as cognitive function gets worse, other times maybe people with high stress situations looking for a way out of their problems, they exist. In phishing, the scammer knows that most people will ignore their mails. But, they are trying to get to the vulnerable people, the ones that will bite the bait. "significant numbers" is difficult to evaluate. Maybe it is a very low percentage of the people that is targeted, but when the targeted are in the millions the victims are going to add up. And, in my experience, this is a psychological trait. A kind of opposite to paranoia. A paranoid person will not believe anyone. A too-trusting person will believe everyone. Phishing and other scams prey on the vulnerable.
  • tzfld 6y ago
    > There is people with a high level of trust. They will believe almost anything. The internet must be a hell of a place for these.
  • smlckz 6y ago
    > A kind of opposite to paranoia. You mean, pronoia? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pronoia#Etymology_2 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pronoia#Etymology_2
    • Hokusai 6y ago
      > You mean, pronoia? Yes. (psychology) A belief (sometimes regarded as irrational) that people conspire to do one good. [from 1981] Antonym: paranoia It is interesting how prevalent is "paranoia" in books and movies and how little attention "pronoia" gets. Thank you. I didn't knew that the word existed.
  • me_me_me 6y ago
    > In phishing, the scammer knows that most people will ignore their mails. But, they are trying to get to the vulnerable people This is also the reason why they use grammatical errors. To further fish out the too wary. You are left with desperate (people in dire financial situation), or 'high level of trust' as you put it.
  • CM30 6y ago
    > In phishing, the scammer knows that most people will ignore their mails. But, they are trying to get to the vulnerable people, the ones that will bite the bait. "significant numbers" is difficult to evaluate. Maybe it is a very low percentage of the people that is targeted, but when the targeted are in the millions the victims are going to add up. Probably a stupid question, but is there any first hand evidence (like a testimony from a scammer) that this is the case? Feels like a completely unfalsifiable argument, since knowing whether the mistakes are deliberate because they make it easier to trick people, accidental but kept because of the same (the scammer doesn't know why it works) or actually accidental cause of the scammer doesn't know better seems like something that's almost impossible to prove.
  • guenthert 6y ago
    > A too-trusting person will believe everyone. That's an easily curable condition though and doesn't last long.
  • guenthert 6y ago
    > Phishing and other scams prey on the vulnerable. And it would be wrong to assume that "the vulnerable" would be a disjunct group. People, i.e. everyone, will at one point or another find themselves in dire straits. When desperate, the threshold of what seems like a 'good idea', a way out of misery, will be lower. People tend to believe what they want or need to believe.