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Woman Admits Sending $400K To Nigerian Scammer
svnt writes "Janella Spears wiped out her husband's retirement account, remortgaged their paid-for house, and took out a lien against the family car in an attempt to cash in on the deal. A undercover officer involved with the investigation called it the worst example of the scam he's ever seen. Thoughtfully, Spears has gone public with her story as a warning to others not to fall victim."
Reminds me of this elderly couple I help with the computers working at the college. They've fallen for this pyramid scheme that is just so painfully obvious, but the old man just keeps explaining he's had enough experience (that is, has gotten fucked before) to know better and the old woman just follows along and doesn't ask any questions.
"It's not a scam, it's a high yield investment!"
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
1. Send husband's hard-earned money to your own foreign account ...
2. Ignore warnings and claim you're helping a Nigerian prince
3. Play victim and make it public
4.
5. Profit!
I know a bank CEO who refused to transfer money for a Nigerian scam, and the woman accuses him of standing in the way of her making millions. A variety of people have spoken with her, but she is adamant. This standoff has existed for weeks. I don't know the final status.
"You can fool some of the people all the time ..."
Your fallacy is essentially in assuming that blame is a percentage which must be portioned out among the actors involved in the event. It is true that if I leave a stack of money out in plain view it is 100% the fault of the criminal for taking it. It is also 100% my fault for being a complete idiot.
Yes exactly. Blame is not a zero-sum game. Thinking otherwise is idiotic, or, in most cases, an attempt to deny blame using the false logic of "That person over there is to blame, therefore I cannot be blamed". If you don't think about it too hard it makes sense, but we shouldn't fall for such blatant illogic.
The enemies of Democracy are
My mother works at a bank and she has to talk people out of these scams on a regular basis, and refuses to deposit the obviously fake checks. It's almost unbelievable how convinced these people are that it's not a scam.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
...because we don't live in a world of 99 uniform dumbasses and 1 genius. We live in a world with lots of dumbasses and lots of very smart people, with most folks somewhere in the middle. It's a normal distribution so, yes, 50% are below the mean.
Don't forget these things are also sent to old folks that are a LOT more trusting and whose mental facilities are often dulled by age. When my mom was working home health she'd have to talk old folks out of scams like this at least 3 or 4 times a year. She looked on them as a perfect excuse to get the kids involved more with their parents day to day lives. After all,nothing wakes a kid up like "Did you know your parent was about to mortgage their house to pay a scammer?". I'm sure that call from my mom was a nice reality check at how trusting and easily led their mom/dad was.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I think it's a good thing to take resources from the stupid, and give it to the smart. And that's what's happening. Even if you do not like it. :)
The underlying problem is that the Nigerian scammers may be smart, but they are not productive. They aren't making the world richer or better; they're just diverting value other people have generated.
From an evolutionary perspective, scammers are parasites on their own species. I don't know how much it happens in the real world, but I've seen simulations where self-parasitization causes species to go extinct. The parasite genes become enormously successful for a period, until the parasites crowd out the non-parasites, causing a drastic population crash.
So if you really want to support evolution here, you should be for sterilizing the scammers for sure, and possibly the people who fall for them.