I tend to think it's the right combination of down-on-your-luck, willful ignorance, naivete and social manipulation. I don't know that it's valuable to break i

I tend to think it's the right combination of down-on-your-luck, willful ignorance, naivete and social manipulation. I don't know that it's valuable to break it down to "stupid" or "not stupid". Either way, this is kind of those whose validity seems like a coin toss. Might be true, might not be. I wouldn't be shocked, either way. Obviously the reach of spam schemes like this is frighteningly broad; you're bound to hit people who have the magic circumstances, though this one seems particularly extreme. I suppose it's illustrative, though. I approach a lot of neat stories I read on the internet that way.