Someone calls and says, “Grandma, i’ve been in an accident …” and so on. Why don’t people ask a few questions? If you’re my grand daughter, what’s my name, when is my birthday, where do I live, what’s my favorite food?
Teach yourself and those around you that if someone pressures them, they should end the call and call the person, but NOT BACK.
“Hey grandma, I have been in an accident.” “Okay, I will call back in a moment” now, don’t call the number that called you, but call your e.g. grandson’s number and talk to them.
That kills any scam attempt and ensures that your grandson is talking to you.
That works for your “bank”, or the police, or the government, or a company. For anything. Your bank and your government should appreciate your operational security.
Don’t ask such generic questions. Most scammers will already have that info. Ask something that’s not easy to find. Like what gift I got you last time. What’s the dish you hated. Etc.
Often times scammers will deliberately tell unconvincing stories with errors in details and spelling to immediately filter out people who are cautious or observant enough to challenge them.
That’s interesting
It’s also [citation needed]
here’s one. it’s a paper from microsoft research researching why so many scammers say they are from nigeria, but the same premise applies:
Far-fetched tales of West African riches strike most as comical. Our analysis suggests that is an advantage to the attacker, not a disadvantage. Since his attack has a low density of victims the Nigerian scammer has an over-riding need to reduce false positives. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor.
Thanks for providing a source!
I just noticed that we have nearly identical usernames, down to the instance 😯 I had to do a double-take when I saw the comment thread. It was not my intention to imitate you. I am simply not creative when it comes to choosing usernames.
That was an interesting read - and indeed a citation. Thank you.
However, there are one serious and one minor flaw in their arguments:
That the collection point for the money is constrained to be in Nigeria doesn’t seem a plausible reason either. If the scam goes well, and the user is willing to send money, a collection point outside of Nigeria is surely not a problem if the amount is large enough.
That is simply an unproven assumption, and a wrong one at that. And it leads me to doubt the depth of that persons knowledge of Nigerian scams.
While scammers from Nigeria do have methods to collect money that victims have sent to another country (through accomplices or unwitting mules), those come with additional costs and risks. And that is usually not worth it in the initial stages of the scam, when the amount is not „large enough“, usually a few hundred, maybe thousand dollars. Only when the victim is „committed“ by sending a small amount do they usually increase their demands, and then it is of course worth it to produce eg a bank account or even offer a meeting in the west.
As a side note: there has been a bit of a shift in Nigerian scamming over the last few years. Scammers seem to move from the „traditional“ advance fee fraud over to romance scamming, which they often do under a „western“ false identity, and for which they prefer gift cards and bitcoin as payment. It would be interesting to see if that is more than correlation.
Only when potential victims respond does the labor-intensive and costly effort of following up by email (and sometimes phone) begin.
While this is not entirely false, it is inaccurate. Scammers usually have at least the first few emails prepared, so the first few replies (in which they explain a bit more) are nothing more than copy and paste - not exactly „costly effort“. Quite often those first emails also include small tasks for the victim, like sending their passport scan, filling in forms or actively contacting someone else by email, which is an actual filter.
So you see, it’s a bit more complex than that meme „they are preselecting stupid people“.
interesting conclusion, maybe you should publish? you seem to have more info than they did ten years ago.
Here is one article which makes a similar point, and another which discuss the strategies of scammers and profiles of people likely to fall for scams. (I made the original comment and am not the lime who responded to your citation request). I will address your other comments on the topic here.
I can also offer my anecdotal observations about Nigerian scams from time I spent scambaiting when I was younger, back when I thought I was doing a service by distracting scammers’ focus away from someone vulnerable, and because it was amusing to see what stories they’d come up with.
- You were correct in saying that the opening messages would be copy-pasted stories with details changed.
- The stories had flaws and inconsistencies, lacked detail.
- Confronting the scammers immediately or refusing to switch to their platform of choice usually caused them to disconnect immediately. The excuses would come later when they were invested in a longer conversation and didn’t want to lose a potential victim.
- The general theme was that they are from a country other than Nigeria, or military sent overseas, stuck in a bad situation and need help. If I pretended to be male, there could be a romance angle.
- Sometimes they would admit where they are really from (confirmed with an IP grabber) but change their story and try to get sympathy by claiming scamming was the only way they could earn enough to survive.
- Gift cards were the initial payment method requested most of the time.
The long, elaborate (often romance and crypto-themed) scams you are thinking of are likely pig-butchering scams originating from China. Perhaps Nigerian scammers have evolved their strategies since then too; it has been years since I bothered to engage with them at all.
So no, I was not perpetuating a meme about scammers “preselecting stupid people”, nor did I say that everyone who falls for scams is stupid. Many are lonely, elderly, unfamiliar with technology, desperate, or kind-hearted but naive.
They force a sense of urgency and have well rehearsed routines to skirt around these type of questions.
Ultimately, if the mark is too sceptical, they’ll realise they’re wasting their time and move on. Plenty of others, it’s not worth trying that hard.
Age degrades the mind.
The targets have been pre-vetted through other means to be more susceptible to scams.
Scammers have refined their script for a long time, to stay in control
I do and I try to reverse the conversation or fuck with them
I don’t bother asking them anything.
I’m immediately berating them because I know that they’ve chosen to do this, nobody has put a gun to their head and forced them to do this. They all could collectively stop at anytime and overrun their bosses, they just don’t. So right out of the gate, I’m calling them out for what I know they are. I haven’t gotten a lot of scam calls in quite a while, come to think of it.
I’m immediately berating them because I know that they’ve chosen to do this, nobody has put a gun to their head and forced them to do this.
You should be aware a lot of scammers are forced to do this:
Wow, that’s really terrible, I didn’t know that
Yeah but you’ve only presented one example. There’s others that are likely not operating like that. Soooo shrugs
You’ve rather boldly made that unsubstantiated claim. Who do you think these scammers are? They’re from poor countries suffering from the aftereffects of colonialism and the ongoing effects of neocolonialism, all of which cause many social problems including the kind that drive people, either through direct violent coercion or more indirect economic coercion, to do things like scam westerners.
The overwhelming majority of people do. Scams like this dont work on most people. It just takes one or two stupid people every 100 calls or whatever to make it worth it. There are a lot of really stupid people out there though.
People either accept it or are suspicious right away usually.
People who accept it won’t question it. And suspicious people won’t waste their time asking a program questions.
When I’m almost certain it’s a scammer calling, I’ll answer as professionally as I can as if I’m running a business…
“Thank you for calling Ding Dong Double Dildos and Dirty Devices! How would you like to fuck yourself today?”
They usually just hang up and remove the number from the call list LMFAO! 😂🤣
I actually did this for my mom one day, scammers had been calling her left and right. She found it quite hilarious too, and by the next day, more than half the scammers quit calling 👍
Edit: Merry Christmas! This is how you fuck the scammers…
I’ve been answering the phone with “Bob’s dildo repair,Bob speaking” since before cell phones.
Caller ID has made things less interesting though, I still remember the sigh of disappointment when my first wife’s father called me the first time.
Fun fact I found out I’m an Autistic man with Bipolar disorder while in my 40s -50s so that could explain it.
The best option is to waste as much time as possible.
They impart a sense of urgency that makes the victim think that they need to act now to help or something bad will happen.
The vulnerable don’t think to ask and want to help.The scammers also cry to disguise their voice in snivels.
They called my mom but she is still sharp. She gave them a good rant about being a loser and they should find a better path in life instead of taking the easy road of preying on old folks.
Good for her
Ain’t no time for that shit.
Homey don’t play dat. Take my money 💰
Lol 😂
