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?
A common factor in most social engineering attacks like this or phishing emails, is a sense of urgency. What I tell people is that any sense of urgency should automatically make you suspicious. If someone is trying to get you to act immediately, they are attempting to short circuit your common sense. Nothing is so urgent that it can’t wait 5-10 minutes for you to verify the facts.
And if it is, they should be calling 911 instead
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.
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.
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 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.
I do and I try to reverse the conversation or fuck with them
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.
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
They impart a sense of urgency that makes the victim think that they need to act now to help or something bad will happen.
Ain’t no time for that shit.
Homey don’t play dat. Take my money 💰
Lol 😂
