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> The way you'll fall for a scam like this is by thinking you couldn't fall for one. It sounds possible, and I don't believe in that declaring 1% of victims no

by antifa 3y ago

> The way you'll fall for a scam like this is by thinking you couldn't fall for one. It sounds possible, and I don't believe in that declaring 1% of victims non-victims thing, just sounds like cartoonish reverse hunger games non-sense. But there are a lot of scams that I (and let's presume a lot of HN) categorically can't fall for. Random account on whatever social media account DMs me with studio quality model photos and a flirtatious opening? What's the first thought that goes through your head? Is it "oh geeze another spam bot" or is it "finally! the perfect hot swappable replacement spouse I'm entitled to has contacted me directly out of nowhere!"? Maybe it's also only because I already know about the check cashing/delayed not clearing scam, but who TF is accepting checks and sending them back out to randos they've never met online? When these people are losing $5,000, that was their last $5,000, too! I'm not totally sure what categories of scams I am personally vulnerable to, maybe I'll have paid $100 for a $10 drop-shipped low quality garbage a few times a year. I consider funkpops a scam and I haven't fallen for them. But some of these other scams require some kind of narcissist "finally what life owes to me is promised by this emoji filled DM from someone I've never heard of before or met IRL!" or other possible, but eventual, mental decline that will likely come with age. There's not a 20th Nigerian Prince who's going to eventually get lucky on me. It's the other way arround. One prince's 20th email will get lucky on a random sucker.

nullc 3y ago
Sure, it won't be a nigerian price that gets you-- knowing about the scheme is perfect protection for almost everyone. It'll be the nigerian call center's 208th scheme that involves absolutely no princes that gets you, one you've not heard of yet, one that you're in the audience for. I think the clearing scams are actually a really good generic one that absent knowing about them most people with something valuable to sell could fall for. If you really thought a check was absolutely irreversible then someone paid you, but then had to back out and said you could keep 10% of your trouble why wouldn't you return the payment? What are you going to do instead? steal the money and leave yourself exposed to a successful civil lawsuit and public reputation smearing? As far as the romance scams, many aren't that obvious. They start off with simply a missent SMS, then count on you says "sorry wrong number" then they slowly chat you up. If you're lonely you might engage. Most don't send super hot photos, or at least not right off the bat. And it's "real" in the sense that you're talking to a real person. The span of these is often months long -- and I suspect that HN user (esp in highly gender lopsided bay area communities) are probably prime targets for the more sophisticated of these. I've often seen scams on ebay that I expect could hit people on HN, exotic tech equipment at unreasonable prices, where they try to talk you into some off platform irreversible payment. Of course, a sufficiently advanced scam is indistinguishable from just a sus deal so it's hard to give examples. Here's a recent sus deal that I've had my eye on: https://www.ebay.com/itm/256208014829 https://www.ebay.com/itm/256208014829 (no one should blame me if you buy it and it turns out to be bullshit!): super cheap refurb gpus with oversized memory for running language models and big diffusion models. Would make for an easy scam. Buy a bunch of dead gpus from cryptominer farms. delay for as long as possible, ship a dead gpu, vanish. Because it's an odd duck (a configuration that never existed) it doesn't exist as part of the liquid market, so it can be suspiciously cheap without being too good to be true. But if it is a scam its one with a really niche market. > require some kind of narcissist I think that each one of us contains almost the full spectrum of human experience to some degree, in some contexts, and at some times. At the right moment with the right setup, pretty much anyone could feel they're finally getting a break, finally getting the recognition they deserve. As I said upthread-- to lose to a scammer you just need to screw up once. Even if a scam requires you to have a character flaw it doesn't require that you consistently have that flaw, only that you exhibit it for the scammer just once. You might think, okay well what about someone so humble that they could never fall for a scam that required a narcissistic perspective? There are scams for those too, usually where the scammer accidentally "overpays you" and then relies on your kindness and pro-social behavior to quietly return the funds before the scammer loses his job.

by antifa 3y ago

nullc 3y ago

Sure, it won't be a nigerian price that gets you-- knowing about the scheme is perfect protection for almost everyone. It'll be the nigerian call center's 208th scheme that involves absolutely no princes that gets you, one you've not heard of yet, one that you're in the audience for. I think the clearing scams are actually a really good generic one that absent knowing about them most people with something valuable to sell could fall for. If you really thought a check was absolutely irreversible then someone paid you, but then had to back out and said you could keep 10% of your trouble why wouldn't you return the payment? What are you going to do instead? steal the money and leave yourself exposed to a successful civil lawsuit and public reputation smearing? As far as the romance scams, many aren't that obvious. They start off with simply a missent SMS, then count on you says "sorry wrong number" then they slowly chat you up. If you're lonely you might engage. Most don't send super hot photos, or at least not right off the bat. And it's "real" in the sense that you're talking to a real person. The span of these is often months long -- and I suspect that HN user (esp in highly gender lopsided bay area communities) are probably prime targets for the more sophisticated of these. I've often seen scams on ebay that I expect could hit people on HN, exotic tech equipment at unreasonable prices, where they try to talk you into some off platform irreversible payment. Of course, a sufficiently advanced scam is indistinguishable from just a sus deal so it's hard to give examples. Here's a recent sus deal that I've had my eye on: https://www.ebay.com/itm/256208014829 https://www.ebay.com/itm/256208014829 (no one should blame me if you buy it and it turns out to be bullshit!): super cheap refurb gpus with oversized memory for running language models and big diffusion models. Would make for an easy scam. Buy a bunch of dead gpus from cryptominer farms. delay for as long as possible, ship a dead gpu, vanish. Because it's an odd duck (a configuration that never existed) it doesn't exist as part of the liquid market, so it can be suspiciously cheap without being too good to be true. But if it is a scam its one with a really niche market. > require some kind of narcissist I think that each one of us contains almost the full spectrum of human experience to some degree, in some contexts, and at some times. At the right moment with the right setup, pretty much anyone could feel they're finally getting a break, finally getting the recognition they deserve. As I said upthread-- to lose to a scammer you just need to screw up once. Even if a scam requires you to have a character flaw it doesn't require that you consistently have that flaw, only that you exhibit it for the scammer just once. You might think, okay well what about someone so humble that they could never fall for a scam that required a narcissistic perspective? There are scams for those too, usually where the scammer accidentally "overpays you" and then relies on your kindness and pro-social behavior to quietly return the funds before the scammer loses his job.