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Millennials More Likely To Fall For Scams Than Baby Boomers (washingtonexaminer.com)
A new report from the Better Business Bureau suggests that millennials are now more likely to fall victim to a scam than Baby Boomers. Washington Examiner reports: The Better Business Bureau reports that 69 percent of scam victims are under the age of 45. Young adults heading off to college are especially gullible, the group says. "College students can be easy targets for scammers and identity thieves. They are old enough to have money, young enough to be vulnerable and are likely unsupervised as many are away from home for the first time," writes Heather Massey of the Better Business Bureau. Phishing scams now target cell phones as well as email and social media.
"Millennials spend a lot of time on Facebook or other social media sites, where they can target them with these messages," said Jim Hegarty, Better Business Bureau president and CEO. College students also use sensitive information frequently, like student IDs, Social Security numbers, and banking information.
"Millennials spend a lot of time on Facebook or other social media sites, where they can target them with these messages," said Jim Hegarty, Better Business Bureau president and CEO. College students also use sensitive information frequently, like student IDs, Social Security numbers, and banking information.
Who better to fall victim to a scam than someone who is heading to college?
Since when were millennials born in 1973?
Sheep to the slaughter.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
It's right there in TFS. They use the internet more and so the ones likely to fall for scams are easier to reach. It's harder to get to boomers since they're not very connected. This'll change out to older folks getting scammed more once the generation that grew up with the Internet ages a bit.
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Young people are too trusting of others and grow up to be distrustful of everything after getting scammed once or twice.
The reason baby boomers fall to scam less often, is exactly because they've gone through that phase already and learned their lesson. This is the same thing that happens with every generation, the past is bound to be repeated over and over again, humans don't learn from their mistake.
I disagree. Being a M I have to. BTW, what is SPAM? Is that the latest from Apple or a music group? It's got more than 3 letters so I can't understand it.
Millennials are also the first generation where bullshit like "I should be able to walk down the street naked and have nothing happen to me" is considered neither a joke nor a statement of "why yes, I am bat shit crazy, just wanted to get that out there while breaking the ice." Or girls just leaving their apartments unlocked and then wondering why they had problems with creeps.
I'm an older Millennial, and I grew up in smaller towns in the South. When I went to college, I actually heard garbage like that from other Millennials. Coming from a law enforcement family in small southern towns, I was stunned at how so many of the middle and upper class Millennials acted like they were born last night in a cabbage patch.
I mean, fuck me, if I had said "I should be able to walk anywhere at 2AM covered in bling and not be hurt" my dad would have looked outside and said "oh I'm sorry, did I miss the news cast where Jesus returned in triumph and put all of the evil in the world into Hell? No? Then use your damn head."
Water is wet.
The scammers are rarely the scammed.
...are not millennials.
They are Generation Z-ers.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/0...
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
no surprise, given how public schools these days do little besides indoctrinate kids in leftist ideology. Chairman Mao would feel right at home.
Just young people. Older people generally have more experience than younger, news at 11!
You don't deserve potable water. You didn't build that. It's socialism.
my kid's economics class was less economics and more like a cheer squad for Adam Smith. There was no discussion of socialism, Keynesian economics or anything else besides how supply and demand made the world great.
You're right about Mao though. But he was a fascist, not a communist and certainly not a Democratic Socialist.
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no surprise, given how public schools these days do little besides indoctrinate kids in leftist ideology.
Well that would be a HUGE surprise, given that it is people who have been indoctrinated with right-wing ideology who actually make up the bulk of scam victims. Weird.
See? Look what happens. Let this be a reminder, pay more attention to the micropenises in your life. Without the care they need their lives just devolve into obsessing about teenage boys and over-thought outbursts that might have been funny or edgy in 1995 but are now juat kinda sad. Do your part.
So like 2007, where you take failed property investments, print a shedload of money and give it to rich people for those failed investments as though they were successful investments?
Or like 2017, where you print 10% extra GDP and give it to rich people in the hopes they'll spread some of it to the rest of the country? In effect taking the underlying value from everyone else.
And not like most developed countries in the world, that give free university education to citizens because that leads to a smarter population more able to compete in the world?
Wow one of you does sound craaaazzzzyyy.
Seriously? Comparing millennials (born mid-80s to early-90s, currently around 20-30 years old) to boomers (born mid-40s to ~1960, currently in their 60s and 70s)? They're more likely to fall for scams BECAUSE THEY'RE YOUNGER AND HAVE LESS EXPERIENCE. There may be more vectors for them to be scammed these days, but I don't think they're any more or less gullible than boomers were *at that same age*.
Also, didn't slashdot used to warn us about (or better yet, not link to) sites with autoplaying video?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
We don't have any money anyway
you could send your daughter down the street naked with a ¥10,000 yen bill taped to her and expect her to be fine. Jokes aside the reason they have so many vending machines is they don't have much vandalism. Europe's generally a lot better than the US in that regard. And people crack jokes about how nice and polite Canada is.
I guess what I'm saying is that the US seems to have a reputation for being a nasty place. That said, crime's been dropping non-stop for decades. What hasn't been dropping is politicians using "tough on crime" rhetoric to get elected while screwing their constituents...
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to 3 or 4 pointless wars. We've got a lot more wars going on now but we're doing it with less soldiers and mostly with career army. Actually, it's kind of scary. A few folks have pointed out that we've more or less got a hereditary military class....
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I was a little shocked things hadn't changed in the slightest. It's frustrating that there is zero discussion of the downsides or necessary controls for capitalism. It really was just a rah-rah-rah sis-boom-bah.
There are several things capitalism just doesn't work for. Paying for Healthcare being the biggie, but managing the food supply is another (given you're econ degree I'm guessing you have more than an inkling about how heavily our gov't is involved in ensuring a steady food supply). Capitalism works best for things where the consumer has lots of information, can understand that information and where it's not a matter of life and death. Twinkies, computers, cars, etc, etc.
A hybrid approach is fine (single payer works better than gov't run hospitals) but the current model is just plain broken. I think it's safe to say the Millenials have figured that out, but not what to do about it.
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...and the included "research" is an infographic with very little data, here's a link to the referenced BBB report from 2016:
https://bbbprograms.org/siteassets/documents/misc/cracking-the-invulnerabilty-illusion.pdf
I've protected myself in a thick scratchy blanket of cynicism.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Millenials have loose credit standards for scammers to steal. Loan debt is a s good as money when somebody else is on the hook.
So the school of hard knocks teaches life skills? Wow!
When Baby Boomers were young, they were stupid too.
“The thing that hath been,
it is that which shall be;
and that which is done is that which shall be done:
and there is no new thing under the sun.”
This is the same crowd (35-45) that fell for "Sign up for a credit card, get this free T-Shirt" during the first days of college.
Some people weren't taught how credit works. I graduated in 2006, sometime before I graduated the campus rules changed and suddenly all the credit card companies were gone. I knew people with 5 T-shirts through 5 different creditcard companies. "It's free, who cares".
The same people that buy micro-transactions to play a "free" game.
I buy it
I fell for it.
It's almost as if old people somehow have more wisdom and experience than young people. How on Earth could that be the case?
Why do you think so many politicians want to lower the voting age to 16? It's not because they value the insight the new voters would bring, that's for sure.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
>The Better Business Bureau reports that 69 percent of scam victims are under the age of 45.
I love how the definition of Millenial seems to keep expanding. Now it's apparently everybody under the age of 45.
Anyways, That age group is actually composed of 3 generations- Gen X, Gen Y (millenials) and Gen Z.
Also, most people going to college over the past few years have been Gen-Z, NOT Millenials.
One more thing- is Slashdot being brigaded by right-wing trolls or something? Sure is a lot of "Chairman Mao"/Communism/Libreral Agenda BS up in here. Isn't the Washington Examiner a right-wing newspaper? Is anybody actually going to evaluate this paper, or are we all going to just take it as true because "millenials amirite"?
You have it surrounded. Adults don't magically appear at 18. You are only a child until puberty starts. By 16 you are a sexually mature young adult and should be treated as such. The problem is that different people are on different clocks at different pacing. The brain doesn't fully mature until the mid 20s. Stop treating people over 14 as children and stop treating 18 year olds as fully adult. Let them make mistakes and learn. America's laws are down right ancient and puritanical in this regard. Europe is a bit more relaxed, but still uses "think of the children" arguments all the time. /rant from and old fart
I vote Trump as supreme overlord of the Earth. Can't trust the "We're wobbling the earth to death. #imwithher #shewon" llamas.
Fully agree on that.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Well of course they are gullible. How else would for-profit colleges and Betsy Davros' evil plans work if they weren't?
Ezekiel 23:20
Without fail, when I meet such a special snowflake millennial (they're not all like that, by far not, mind you), you will soon after meet their helicopter parents. Who keep these kids under a cheese cover 'til they're 18, and usually much longer than that, keeping reality away from them while reinforcing their belief that they are god's gift to the world.
What else do you expect to come out of that as soon as these completely unprepared people are dropped into reality?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Many fell for a scam before they went. Taking a loan to get a degree in some subject that won't add in any way to either their earnings potential or enjoyment of their work.
Well, on the other hand you have the dimwit old farts that never got out of the US, never saw what a hellhole their country actually is (unless you're rich and able to buy your way out of the dump) but still consider it the greatest thing since sliced bread.
There's dumb fucks on both ends of the age spectrum.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
To think we're special and that we'll get ours eventually without putting in half the work our parents did. It's not a wonder that when "Too good to be true" things come our way that most tend to jump on them.
I tend to rant.
The article talks about people under 45 being "vulnerable". Sorry, if you're in your 30s-40s (or even really mid 20s) and are still "vulnerable" to scams, your parents have failed spectacularly in preparing you for life in the real world. Perhaps it's just a form of natural selection at work. Parents that fail to educate their kids deseve a little penalty to their gene pool.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
People are stupid. Film at 11
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I find these claims spurious. One need only look at population statistics to see that in 2010 the percentage of the population that was under age 45 was about 66%. https://www.census.gov/prod/ce... Since the boomers have been dying off, that has more than likely approached the 69% figure in the paper over the past 8 years. Nowhere in the article do they reference the current population distribution. So 69% of the population is under 45 and 69% of scam victims are under 45. To me that says you can't use age as a predictor for who is likely to fall for scams.
I have had no less then a dozen calls in the last month from boomers who let someone access their desktop and locked it demanding money to unlock it. I arrived at one location where the scam was still ongoing. I promptly unplugged the ethernet on the computer and when the guy on the other end said I lost connection the lady made me reconnect and wouldn't listen to my explanation that she was going to get ripped off. I left and two days later she calls in to complain that her computer needed a password and they wanted four hundred bucks to give it to her. Since we sell them internet they think we are responsible. We get calls from our older phone customers complaining about all the scam calls they get everyday but the insist on answering and talking to them. So no I don't believe that millennial's are less savvy than boomers.
that Lionel Hutz is not, in fact, a lawyer?
Mao said he was a communist but did not run a communist country. He took complete control and ownership of all property in the country. That's the opposite of communism; where the proles are meant to have ownership and control via a Democratic process.
This was the cause of most of the deaths. Mao insisted they double plant, everybody knew that was a horrifying idea but couldn't override Mao because rather than being a communist country it was a fascist dictatorship. The double planting lead to a horrifically bad harvest and mass starvation. There are other examples of how bad Mao's economic ideas were. Everybody knew they were terrible too, but they were too frightened of Mao to say anything (or if they did they disappeared).
Bottom line: Words have meaning and can be misused for propaganda purposes. To suggest otherwise in the face of such obvious evidence is ignorant at best and dishonest propaganda at worst.
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69% of victims are under 45? Just wait for my research that shows the amazing blessings of high age in avoiding email scams - less than 1% of victims are over 90!
What about when Baby Boomers were the age of current Millennials? I know I fell for a credit related scam when I was in college 20+ years ago. Did credit cards even exist when Baby Boomers were that age?
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
This article links to an info graphic.
The info graphic just says that '69% of victims are under 45'. 58% of people in the US are under 45, so one could construe this to mean that millennials are gullible, but that is a stretch. 'Millennials' are a subset of people under 45. Babies are under 45 and they are gullible as fuck. No attempt was made to assess how many scams are encountered, nor the rate at which they are rebuffed, let alone any attempt to show some kind of apples to apples scam comparison.
Of course they fall for scams. They can't think for themselves, instead can only google it.
Baby Boomers are far more likely to vote Republican.
And US Millennials consistently fall for false ideologies of Socialism. Morons.
Like Millennials, we did our activism when we were younger.
The fact that you don't know about it kinda indicates the power dynamic of a much smaller generation versus two larger generations.
The summary claims the article shows Millennials are more likely to fall for scams. But the summary also claims this may be because Millennials are going off to college and unsupervised for the first time.
This seems highly unlikely since the youngest Millennials are now at least 23 years old. The older ones are closer to 40 than 30. Most Millennials are not at least 30 years old and the researches think they're just now heading out to college and have money for the first time? Do the researches even know what a Millennial is?
People going out in the world are more vulnerable, they're not stupid. The scams old people are falling for are because they're stupid or greedy. Old people aren't looking for apartments in new cities, cheap deals on furniture, or side jobs while they study. And those are all things that are really easy to be scammed on when you're desperate or not experienced.
Gen X is paying all the taxes for the 61 yr old âoeretiredâ baby boomers and the unemployed, backpacking millennial. Show some respect for your benefactors!
It's a fact. They're stupid. All of them.
You can't blame me. I didn't fall for Trump's SCAMpaign.
Oh, and let's not forget what happened this weekend:
Trump: "In less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country"
The Rest of the World: "LOLZ!! Go the fuck away, you stupid shitgibbon!!"
What a fucking embarrassment - on the world stage, no less.
Kids going off to college will be voting for the first time. Are you really sure it was a good idea to lower the voting age?
FFS, the article and internet at large continues to use this crappy buzzword for anyone under the age of 45, when 1) the whole generation thing is fuzzy because people consider ti 1980-2000 (or 1980-1995 or 1985-1995 or...) and 2) the "Generation" age that most would consider that buzzword are out of college or at the finishing stages of college.
I really wish the internet would stop using this buzzword as a punching bag for things that children born in 2000+ are falling to/doing.
The 20-40 somethings I run into can't keep their heads out of their phones for 30 seconds. Heck, you go into a convenience store, fast food restaurant, or multiple other businesses when it isn't super busy, you have to wait for them to put down the phone, before they will wait on you. Not only that, a LOT of them I run into on a high school or college campus, can't speak in clear English, without contractions, or slang. I won't even get into asking them questions about math, history and the like, or writing something in cursive to see if they can read it.
Obviously, the real report is simply "69% of victims are under 45" but you need to remember that you're reading the Washington Examiner. Their entire reason for existing is to spin things a certain way because they want you to behavior (and vote!) a certain way. Framing it as millennials vs boomers is best, because young people are assumed to vote Democrat and old people are assumed to vote Republican (let's not get into why these assumptions exist). And it's important to show that old people are better and wiser, because the Washington Examiner is an arm of Republican marketing.
The idea they want to plant is this: If someone is Democrat, then they're one of those people who fall for scams.
(Yes, they're doing this even in 2018, despite the fact that one of the biggest scams in American history happened two years ago, ironically in direct contrast to the message. But that's the strategy du jour: when you fuck up, it means you should double down and over-commit to fucking up even harder.)
Gen X doesn't count because there doesn't seem to be a consensus on how they vote (and probably for good reasons), so it's better to gloss over people of that age. Gen X doesn't help to drive a wedge on this particular issue, so it's best to just not bring them up.
Slashdot just copied the propaganda not out of malice, but simple incompetence or obliviousness. It's not like the editors here actually try.
Gen-X is a small cohort, so there isn't much we can do. Also we'd rather make popcorn and watch the world burn.
This sentence is a great example of the flexibility of the word "should." That word really does mean two different things. In one usage, the statement is sane and rational. In another usage, it's obviously stupid.
Really, I'm sincerely impressed with the excellence of the example. It's a perfectly ambiguous splitter.
But you should be advised that your usage of it (and obviously in a context where the sentence is meant to be perceived as stupid), reveals that you don't see the word as ambiguous, and that you're pretty committed to just one usage of the word being the usage of the word. I see you.
I would write it as "I predict that if I walk down the street naked, nothing will happen to me" if I wanted to cast the speaker as unreasonable.
Or I would write it as "People should be able to walk down the street naked without the current concerns of something happening to them" if I wanted to cast the speaker as reasonable.
Another reveal:
Sorry to hear you happen to live in a shithole. In most places, you simply literally can do that, without negative consequences being particularly probable (or at least not much moreso than at 2PM). I really can walk around my town at 2AM just fine without fear, but obviously it's a good idea to be paying attention, and nope out if things turn sketchy!
"69 percent of scam victims are under the age of 45. Young adults heading off to college are especially gullible"
Why do news corporations always try to make it sound like Millennials are still 18? It's 2018, 18 year olds in college at this time are out of the Millennial age range. I would say the majority are older than "college age" at this point. They especially wouldn't be "heading off to college" at this time. They've been there for a few years already.
Seriously, they're like 26 to 36 now.
College?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You're telling me that younger, less experienced people are more likely to get scammed than older more experienced people. Who knew?
Another hit piece on Millennial's...
The tide swallowing bunch
The vodka soaked tampon bunch
Millennial's are stupid for leaning left
Millennial's are stupid for being communist
Millennial's are destroying the country
And now Millennial's are stupid for being scammed...
*sigh*
Who voted for president Toad Dick, boomers or millenials?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Because good judgement is based on experience and experience is based on bad judgement.. duh!
More people believe in angels (46%) than warming (34%).
That's what you get for skipping stats to go out and get a smoke.
Need Mercedes parts ?
but the USSR and China were not, are not, never have been and probably never will be anything that even remotely resembles communism. They were fascist dictatorships that borrowed Carl Marx's rhetoric. Calling them communist is like calling Jerry Fallwell a Devote Christian. It's so obviously a lie on the face of it as to be laughable.
This has nothing to do with theory. Again, communism is fundamentally a democratic process run by the proletariat. Neither the USSR and China have not been run as Democracies. What Stalin, Putin, Mao or Xi says, goes. And anyone who disagrees just disappears. This has nothing to do with ideology. It's the mechanics of government.
These are all acknowledged facts. You're purposefully ignoring them to fit in with your ideological bent. It hurts you and it hurts me when you ignore facts and reality. And I don't mean emotionally, I mean real hurt. Economic hurt. Political hurt. When we give in to propaganda and "fake news" of the sort that lets obvious dictatorships hide behind their rhetoric just because we don't like what that rhetoric entitles we ignore their abuses and leave ourselves open to those same abuses. Nows the time to get woke. You're being had. You're being manipulated.
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Millennials are more likely to fall for scams, less likely to divorce, more likely to eschew large amounts possessions, more likely to own a small home or rent.
Apparently, Millennial are simply Victorians
That's pretty funny. "Well, the Millenials fall for scams becuase they're gonig out into the world and are vulnerable, while the older people are just greedy and stupid for falling for them."
No. If you fall for an obvious scam, you're a moron. Full Stop. Hell, you've got the entire internet to warn you against them, people twenty years ago only had word of mouth.
And only the tail end of the millennials are going out anywhere, the rest should already have settled in.
You sound like every deluded fool I backpacked around with in my twenties. Every difference from what they knew in the US was the best thing ever. Instead of seeing the sites and making judgement on what they knew versus what they were experiencing.
"Oh, look how they slice their bread. SOOOOO much better".
"Oh, look how cute that street layout is. it makes SOOOOOO much more sense.".
I agree, seeing the world is good. Saying the US is a hellhole makes you, well, just like them.
I've seen plenty of the US. If you like it, awesome, at least one country we won't get refugees from, I guess. But bluntly, it's a bit like an oversized Disneyworld. Really awesome for a vacation and if you have money, you can basically get whatever you want and have a blast. But I wouldn't want to work there, ever. Or have to live there for more than maybe a month or so.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.