How Supremely Incautious Can We Get?
Possibly it's true, that there's one sucker born every minute. I'm in no position to doubt that. Particularly given the numbers of people accommodating themselves to being suckered. No one could possibly be ignorant of the fact that fraud artists are happily at work doing their best to cajole people out of their hard-earned money.
Having a ball doing it, too, it would appear. Since there appears to be no lack of individuals - presumably halfway endowed with sufficient brains to get by in life - who eagerly bite the bait. Not that anyone might wish to suggest that people go through life casting suspicious glances at every approaching stranger, eliminating all correspondence of unknown derivation, anticipating that everyone is out to steal from them.
Just exercise some restraint from compulsive reaction, use one's common sense - if they're imbued with any - above all, don't fall for the approach that riches can be had for little-to-no-effort, other than to be complicit in someone else's shady schemes. Greedy buggers.
Hey, there's even a sheepish admission by a columnist in the Lifestyles Section of the newspaper I read, that he wasn't sufficiently diligent in responding to an email from "his bank" and how grateful he was to "his bank" for catching the anomaly, stopping fund transfer, effectively bailing him out of his own moronic sleepwalking.
Sometimes it's encouragement to send money directly for the purpose of qualifying for a much larger amount of money - send it along, chum/p/s, as a goodwill gesture and you'll win the jackpot.
Turns out they're the unhappy Jack sitting on the pot, with no recourse to action in reclaiming their escaped funds. Sometimes it's falling for that old "you won!" come-on, be it a vehicle, a vacation or whatever - again, a goodwill gesture is required and all too many are happy to be compliant.
The really funny thing is that we ascribe to all these losers one dominant fact; they're elderly and not quite fully engaged, a tad shy of full-wittedness. Well, not necessarily, it would appear.
New statistics appear to reveal that about 6 in 10 adults succumb to these silly blandishments to get involved in a neat scheme to rid themselves of their own money. These so-called 'victims' (victims of their own gullibility) report an average of 21 contacts through fraudsters.
Victims claim demands averaging $1,900 from fraud artists; how incautious and trusting can one be to loosen that much cash and send it flying into fraud artists' hands can one possibly be? Losses range the gamut from a few dollars to a whopping $50,000, amounting to an estimated total of $450-million(!) lost on an annual basis. But wait, that's not the most unbelievable part of this.
The victims range across all demographics, from educated to not, wealthy to not, young to elderly. And so much for the hip generation of today, one-third of victims are under age 30, while those over 60 represent a relatively lighter load of idiots, at 13%.
Best of all, those with university degrees and juicy incomes in excess of $100,000 are as readily sweet-talked into compliance as any other groups.
The categories of money-parting fraud are numerous, from sweepstakes fraud to high-pressure sales-pitch vacation frauds; bogus health products and cure frauds, to investment fraud; cheque cashing/money transfer job fraud, to overpayment for sale of merchandise fraud.
They're cunning; you can receive notification in the mail that an unknown relative has died intestate, and lawyers have traced to you as the only living family member. Make a deposit at your bank, under the serial number given in the letter - which, incidentally, is addressed to you, specifically, middle-initial included - and the bulk of the estate will be yours.
Email messages purporting to be from your bank wishing you to confirm certain personal data; just log in to the message line and confirm, thank you very much. Make a modest deposit for a time-share vacation home and everything will be arranged for your dream vacation, ad infinitum.
The big question here is: trusting, or stupid?
Having a ball doing it, too, it would appear. Since there appears to be no lack of individuals - presumably halfway endowed with sufficient brains to get by in life - who eagerly bite the bait. Not that anyone might wish to suggest that people go through life casting suspicious glances at every approaching stranger, eliminating all correspondence of unknown derivation, anticipating that everyone is out to steal from them.
Just exercise some restraint from compulsive reaction, use one's common sense - if they're imbued with any - above all, don't fall for the approach that riches can be had for little-to-no-effort, other than to be complicit in someone else's shady schemes. Greedy buggers.
Hey, there's even a sheepish admission by a columnist in the Lifestyles Section of the newspaper I read, that he wasn't sufficiently diligent in responding to an email from "his bank" and how grateful he was to "his bank" for catching the anomaly, stopping fund transfer, effectively bailing him out of his own moronic sleepwalking.
Sometimes it's encouragement to send money directly for the purpose of qualifying for a much larger amount of money - send it along, chum/p/s, as a goodwill gesture and you'll win the jackpot.
Turns out they're the unhappy Jack sitting on the pot, with no recourse to action in reclaiming their escaped funds. Sometimes it's falling for that old "you won!" come-on, be it a vehicle, a vacation or whatever - again, a goodwill gesture is required and all too many are happy to be compliant.
The really funny thing is that we ascribe to all these losers one dominant fact; they're elderly and not quite fully engaged, a tad shy of full-wittedness. Well, not necessarily, it would appear.
New statistics appear to reveal that about 6 in 10 adults succumb to these silly blandishments to get involved in a neat scheme to rid themselves of their own money. These so-called 'victims' (victims of their own gullibility) report an average of 21 contacts through fraudsters.
Victims claim demands averaging $1,900 from fraud artists; how incautious and trusting can one be to loosen that much cash and send it flying into fraud artists' hands can one possibly be? Losses range the gamut from a few dollars to a whopping $50,000, amounting to an estimated total of $450-million(!) lost on an annual basis. But wait, that's not the most unbelievable part of this.
The victims range across all demographics, from educated to not, wealthy to not, young to elderly. And so much for the hip generation of today, one-third of victims are under age 30, while those over 60 represent a relatively lighter load of idiots, at 13%.
Best of all, those with university degrees and juicy incomes in excess of $100,000 are as readily sweet-talked into compliance as any other groups.
The categories of money-parting fraud are numerous, from sweepstakes fraud to high-pressure sales-pitch vacation frauds; bogus health products and cure frauds, to investment fraud; cheque cashing/money transfer job fraud, to overpayment for sale of merchandise fraud.
They're cunning; you can receive notification in the mail that an unknown relative has died intestate, and lawyers have traced to you as the only living family member. Make a deposit at your bank, under the serial number given in the letter - which, incidentally, is addressed to you, specifically, middle-initial included - and the bulk of the estate will be yours.
Email messages purporting to be from your bank wishing you to confirm certain personal data; just log in to the message line and confirm, thank you very much. Make a modest deposit for a time-share vacation home and everything will be arranged for your dream vacation, ad infinitum.
The big question here is: trusting, or stupid?
Labels: Social-Cultural Deviations
posted by Pieface @ 5:11 PM
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