Is it normal that i think people who fall for internet scammers are stupid?
I don't get how people can be so naive to fall for those internet scammers.
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I don't get how people can be so naive to fall for those internet scammers.
I’m not so sure. Gullible yes. But some of the scammer scammers are quite slick and know how to get people to trust fhem. I’ve listened to them for a bit just to hear their methods. They appeal to people’s weaknesses,
I can see it if it's someone who isn't familiar with technology like an older person (especially with phishing scams that ask you to click a fake link, or pop-up tech scams), or if it's someone who is extremely young and naive. To be honest, some of the phishing e-mails I've gotten would be pretty convincing if someone didn't know what to look for. The only way I figured them out is by a couple of small typos, hovering my cursor over the e-mail address to see who it was really from and not what they were trying to present it to be, and the fact that many of them were for sites/apps I didn't have accounts with. Even for the ones I did, I just logged in manually to make sure everything was okay, and never clicked any of the links sent to me.
I can see how someone who doesn't know how certain things work could fall for them and I wouldn't consider them stupid for that, maybe just uninformed about certain things (like technology, or the way certain things work, such as the fact that the IRS never calls you; there is a common phone scam claiming that the IRS is filing a lawsuit against you/that you need to pay a large sum of money to keep from going to jail that panics young people who have never dealt with them before). It's definitely good to learn and be aware so you don't get tricked, though.
There's also the fact that some of these scammers (such as the ones impersonating the IRS and threatening a lawsuit or jailtime) use scare tactics to their advantage, and people often don't think straight when they are panicking. There have also been scams where the scammers tell their victims their loved ones are hurt or in trouble and need X amount of money (which to me, doesn't add up, but again, logic tends to go out the window when people panic).
I definitely feel for the elderly who are unfamiliar with technology, and young, naive people that simply don't have enough experience to be able to know better yet, who get scammed. I always make sure to beware of anything that seems suspicious and research it or log into my accounts manually (NEVER through links sent in suspicious e-mails or text messages) to see what is going on. I've actually gotten quite a few texts recently claiming I've won prizes from certain companies that didn't look out of the ordinary, but knew I didn't enter anything and that it seemed too good to be true, so looked up the numbers they were coming from.
The ones you're talking about are typically either middle aged adults, young adults or old peeps who fall for these scams.
The top 3 most common ones that people fall for:
- Tech support scams, these ones are by far the worse they are typically found when you are scrolling through the internet and you find them through a fake popup screen.
- Phishing scams ( this typically goes for things like email, credit card, usernames etc. ) however it is sometimes easier to spot spelling mistakes despite the fake website people who fall for it may not know any of it and unsuspectedly get all their money finito ( by finito I mean like all your money stolen if anyone wondering. )
- Romance scams ( This by far is the worse ones I cannot count how many times people have been affected by this type of scam but the amount of times people have been affected by this type of scam is countless. Typically speaking more times than I can actually count. )
I understand how people become so naive I think they might be so naive to fall for these scams is mainly because they don't know what will come next typically these scammers just try to go out of their ways to milk so much money.
There should be a society where people should feel less naive and not give into these money sucking mosquitoes and bring more light into these scams especially teaching about these internet scams to elderly people.
I feel the same way. I recently received an E mail asking me to renew my television licence. I realised immediately that it was a scam because I don't have a television! As horny_simpletons said, how can people not see the red flags? I give leeway to those who aren't as mentally alert though.
I feel sorry for them yet at the same time think "how do they not see the red flags?" I guess when you look through the rose tinted goggles the red flags just look like flags.
I got this app that uses prerecorded messages that continue the conversation for as long as possible with no information being given out to maximize wastefulness.
Losts of um, who is this, hmmm, I dont know, can I grab my pen, etc
I got to see a message that lasted 45 minutes. Ooof
That's fricking hilarious.
Not that I don't trust you to always be completely honest here, but I did a Google on this and found the following article about RoboKiller:
https://www.ozy.com/good-sht/the-app-that-gives-spammers-a-taste-of-their-own-medicine/94593/
The article is a couple of years old now. I hope development has continued, resulting in even greater confusion and annoyance for the scammers.