To find it hard to feel sympathy for certain scam “victims”?

[MayThe4th]

I’m not talking about those who are taken in by bogus calls from HMRC, or their bank, or PayPal or Royal Mail and the list goes on. In Theory we should all know the signs and be aware, but it’s easy to see how some people can be taken in.

But I’m talking about those people who give hundreds of thousands to 419 scammers, or to scammers for winnings of a lottery they never entered. There was an article the other day about someone who fell for a bitcoin scam and within half an hour he had been scammed out of £400k.

I watched the tinder swindler on netflix and all I could think was wtf! I mean it would be one thing giving this man money, but these women went into debt for him.

And I can’t help but think that so many people fall for these kinds of scams purely out of greed.

They believe they will make the millions, they hope the bitcoin will pay off, the women in the tinder swindler were dazzled by the lifestyle.

If my husband spent the cost of my house transferring money to a Nigerian bank account it would be grounds for divorce.

IMO these kinds of “victims” aren’t the same as real victims of scams, the people who are prayed on by lowlife who rely on someone’s fear they will be arrested for not paying their taxes, or fearing their bank account has been hacked.

The 419 and tinder swindler scam victims aren’t really victims, they’re led by greed, and are prepared to lose whatever they have to to get what they want.

If you have Netflix watch 'rogue agent' without googling it first. It's a good film even without it being a true story. But you wouldn't believe that it could have happened. On one episode of Border Security an American man traveled from the US to Australia to track down a white Australian woman (Linda) who he had been sending money to. When he got there, the security wouldn't let him enter because they believed it to be a scam. He only could get in touch with a 'friend' (who was an African national) of hers. He'd only ever spoken to this friend. He was having none of it not being real. All the guards took time out to speak to him. He left Australia saying that he'll be able to sort it out with Linda once he was back home.

Those with average+ intelligence usually don't fall victim to scams

They rely on the stupid

scammers are getting cleverer all the time.

Hope you dont ever eat your words.

Again, they rely on the stupid

Unfortunately half the population suffer with below average intelligence. They're ripe for the picking

I wouldnt be too scathing about people who are scammed, it could happen to you. Nobody is immune you know. Hope you never have to eat your words. no. It absolutely couldn’t happen to me.

As I said in my OP, I wasn’t talking about people who get drawn in by fake calls from HMRC/their bank/amazon/Royal Mail, I’m talking about people who get a spammy mail from prince john the 3rd who is desperately fleeing for his life and all he needs is some help to get his £20m out of the country or it will be lost for ever, and if you would just launder the money throug your account and give him £15000 to start the process then you will be given a 20% cut.

Or the euromillions saying you’ve won the jackpot even though you didn’t have a ticket.

And yes, the romance scammers. It’s one thing to be taken in by a personality, it’s quite another to give someone you’ve never met tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds.

I guarantee you that if someone put a thread on the relationships board saying that their dh had given the family money to a Nigerian prince in the belief that he was only trying to make money for them, not a single person would say that he needed to be treated with compassion and that it can happen to anyone.

@TheDogsDinner I can see you've read Take A Break . !!! You missed off the bit where they always describe him as absolutely gorgeous- matched by a picture showing a very average looking dude who I wouldn't trust an inch!

YANBU OP. Every single one of these scams can be boiled to either:

• a stupid person and their money are soon separated; and/or
• there's no fool like an old fool.

I listened to one on the 'You & Yours' radio 4 lunchtime news a while ago.
What amazed me about this particular woman is that she blamed her bank entirely for allowing her to withdraw thousands of pounds.
Even though her Bank had previously contacted her several times attempting to warn her against this man and that he was most likely a gang of Scammers.

She refused to listen, demanded the right to withdraw her money.. Then tried to get her bank to pay it all back to her! She was adamant they were to blame.
Honestly, you couldn't make it up.
You can't reason with stupid.

I worked with a woman who was scammed by her Turkish waiter fiancé. We had collected for her card and it was literally days before she was supposed to fly out to get married and he fucked off, with her entire savings.

Her maid of honour decided that in order to get over her heartbreak, they'd continue on holiday as planned. Where she met another Turkish waiter, and was engaged to him less than a month later and began sending him money and a phone and all that sort of stuff...

A waiter that dh got talking to when we were on holidays said that they all have several British girlfriends (and wives at home) and it's just a way of life for them - that they work 6 months of the year, no unemployment benefit so the cash they reap from their scamming sees them through the winter months. I think his view was that if they are stupid enough to believe the declarations of love mere days into meeting then they deserve all they get. I saw that the way I was treated respectfully because I was with DH compared to say, a group of girls on a holiday put me right off holidaying Turkey tbh.

In a similar vein, I am always curious about catfishing, because the relationships all seem to be very intense, but also really superficial.

You only EVER see messages saying "I love you", "I'm always there for you", "You're beautiful" etc.

Nothing with any sort of depth or substance. Just words that don't mean a lot without actions behind them.

I always wonder if they don't agree for the personal stuff to go on TV, but then I have friends IRL who get suckered in on a similar basis, without any sort of meaningful connection.

More often than not unless they have some sort of mental health issues a lot of people who fall for the scams you mention are (I hate to say it) usually motivated by underlying greed because they think they've won lots of money. There are also people who are very lonely and suddenly have a stranger paying them constant attention trying to be their friend and gain their trust, and they believe this person is real and trustworthy. 419 isn't new but the scammers have to work a lot harder now to be convincing. It's hard to understand how anyone in their right mind could fall for it but some people are not in their right mind and vulnerable. They are so convinced by the scammer and so invested that even their loved ones can't get through to them it's a scam. The scammer will isolate them and tell them it's strictly confidential and they mustn't discuss it with their family. We had an elderly aunt who lost money to a scammer and measures were put in place that the bank had to contact her son if she turned up at branch wanting to withdraw money. A while later her son got a call from the bank while he was away working to tell him his mum was in the bank wanting to withdraw several thousand pounds but was very cagey about it and couldn't tell them what it was for because it's confidential. They asked him should we give her the money and he said no of course not! Don't let her withdraw it! The bank didn't give her the money but that's how they isolate the vulnerable to try and stop their family finding out what is going on.

My friend's dad got scammed for about £6K. They'd cased the joint really well, and knew he worked at a university. They researched past students and picked a couple of names that had graduated in business management a good few years ago, but didn't appear on the role of alumni that had reached great heights, and were not on LinkedIn.

They sent an email along the lines of 'I don't suppose you remember me and Fred from (business management course and year)' , but we have left (merchant bank ) and started up our own investment company (name registered at Companies House, no trading information as new company, FCA registration 'applied for') and we are looking for investment in our portfolio. When at (merchant bank) we realised an average of (believable % margin) on our investments, and we have started (Company name) because we feel we can obtain a better return for our investors than can be obtained from (large merchant bank),. SO far our fund has grown considerably in just two months, see attached info (masses of printouts). If you'd like to invest, I've attached the form.
Followed by a couple of phone calls, so he invested £3k, and they sent monthly fake printouts for a few months showing good but believable growth, then phoned him again and asked if he'd like to invest in a new portfolio - so another £3k...however they rang again and he was unsure, so they got a bit insistent and at that point he thought it could be a scam, but up till then he was sure they were not.
It was of course a scam.... once he checked with FCA, which he should have done in the first place!

I thought I was being scammed a few weeks ago. Got an email on a Sunday from Royal Mail saying that my parcel would be delivered. Yes, I was expecting something but with them not working on a Sunday, thought it was a scam.

I did get my parcel on the Sunday.

IT couldn't though, that's the thing. I'm never going to send money to a Ghanain prince, or to a US army vet silver fox down on his luck. I'm not going to "invest" in crypto or marry an Algerian waiter. I'm not going to click on the link in the text supposedly from my bank and I'm not going to transfer the money to a new bank account gained from an email....

Lets not pretend we are all just as likely to get scammed. People need to take responsibility.

Yay! Let's all sneer at victims with less awareness/ technical savvy than some people.

This is literally the equivalent of telling a victim of sexual assault that they asked for it by wearing a short skirt.

I always assumed a lot of the bad decisions being made were by vulnerable people. Those with addiction issues, those with low intellect or those in their twilight years who were troubled with the beginning of dementia. I will absolutely always feel sorry for those victims.

Yes, and the sickest thing is that these are the people the scammers are actively looking to exploit. Most of us, without those certain vulnerabilities, chuckle and shake our heads at pathetic scams pretending to be from the UN, but addressed to 'Hello Dear' and with appalling spelling and grammar mistakes, alongside laughably unrealistic scenarios; BUT this is all deliberate and very carefully thought-out.

Scammers don't want to waste their time with people who are initially curious but then quickly see through them; they want people who are gullible enough to be taken in by their absurd opening gambit and who will thus likely stick with them all the way until they've lost all their money.

Yes, there's also often an element of greed - but I wonder how many non-vulnerable people would be just as greedy if they thought it was actually true and/or they could get away with something. None of us seeing the Nigerian princes promising us $120 million decline to respond purely because we think we don't deserve that much money just for helping them!

tineye.com is another free reverse-image searcher.

You didn't read the OP, did you? Or any follow ups.

That is an offensive comparison and you should be ashamed of yourself

Yay! Let's all sneer at victims with less awareness/ technical savvy than some people.

This is literally the equivalent of telling a victim of sexual assault that they asked for it by wearing a short skirt.

Its nothing like that though. People are caught up in these scams through pure greed. So it's more like someone robbing a house, then complaining that they got caught.

I did read it and no I'm not.

Loads of people in this thread are 100% victim blaming and it's a fucking shit thing to do.

Even the romance scams I see as being greedy in a way. These people want to be in a relationship with a younger, very attractive person, with little to no effort on their part. Are they lonely? Yes, aren't we all. But if that was the main problem, they'd join a club and make friends with people the same age.

It’s not victim blaming at all. The majority aren’t victims they’re just greedy.They’re choosing to throw their money away so absolutely nothing like wearing a short skirt and being raped. How offensive.

100per cent this!

This is a really horrible thread!

I suppose there are a number of Venn diagrams that could be used to categorise all people, with various criteria:

very intelligent/averagely intelligent/low-intelligence/severe learning difficulties or suffering from dementia

scrupulously honest/decent enough/a bit shifty/thoroughly crooked

Anybody could fall into any one of the first and also any of the second, and the 'right' combination is what leads many people to be scammed.

Also, don't forget the added element of people who are so unintelligent that they don't know that they are very unintelligent - or realise that many other people are much smarter than they are.

Exactly what a horrible post to start. What was the point? Ok so your superior OP you wont ever get scammed bully for you.