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.

Comments

A trusting bunch

[plopez]

Sheep to the slaughter.

Re:A trusting bunch

[ShanghaiBill]

There is nothing new about this. I was in Berkeley in the early 1980s, back when the new freshmen were still boomers. In September, the panhandlers and scammers would be lined up along Telegraph Avenue. By October, the students would be jaded and cynical.

Re:A trusting bunch

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, there was the recent /. article about the younger generation thinking socialism was a good idea so the millennials could genuinely be naive, gullible fools.

It is more likely that their idea of what socialism is is way different from your idea of it.
Many socialist proponents look and the Scandinavian countries as a template while you probably look at Maoism or something similar.
Now you probably think "what they have in Scandinavia isn't socialism" but that is just you have to remember that according to the American conservatives anyone who wants to fund schools or healthcare is a socialist.

If you make sure to use the same definition of socialism all the time you will either find that you have plenty of examples of where socialism works better than the current US system or you will find that there aren't actually a lot of people supporting socialism.
If you change definition depending on your agenda, well of course things will look inconsistent.

Re:A trusting bunch

[AmiMoJo]

Anecdotes aside Sweden consistently comes near the top for things like quality of life, education, healthcare, crime etc.

I'd imagine that if your friend had to live in, say, the UK long term they would realize how good Sweden has it.

Re:A trusting bunch

[Kiuas]

What once made Sweden great and wealthy was proper incentives for economic productivity and high trust between people. '

Bullshit.

The Nordic countries are all very wealthy (in the 25 in purchasing power adjusted GDP per capita, Sweden is 16th 5 places behind the US and one of the highest in Europe, and Norway is actually ahead of the US) and productive (with the exception of Iceland, all in the top 13 in terms of GDP per hours worked., with Denmark being pretty much equal to the US and Norway again being ahead of the US).

Then the socialists took over and for a while restrained themselves in milking the productive portion of the population dry.

Erm what? You do realize the exact opposite is true? Finland became independent after first 800 years of rule under the Swedish kingdom and then another 100+ years as an autonomous part of the Russian Empire in 1917 (we kinda slipped loose after the revolution happened, and had our own civil war in 1918 during which the communists that wanted us to join the then still emerging soviet union lost). A 100 years ago we were one of the poorest countries in Europe, with low overall education and literacy rates and a massive issue with poverty. We started the slow climb up and then the 2nd world war came. After the war and the rebuilding effort the foundations of the modern democratic socialism that combines a market economy with progressive taxation were laid out, copied from Sweden in large parts due to their successes there. The schools system was rehauled and unified, universities are tuition free, tax-funded health care etc. All of these are things that are now in our constitution. And what has happened? As already showcased we sprinted forwards to be among the top economies of Europe. Now does that mean that there are no issues and this is a perfect Utopia? No, absolutely not. The '08 crisis hit us here in Finland extremely hard because it also happened to coincide with the implosion of Nokia which was like almost a third of our export sector that basically disappeared, and we've spent the last decade recovering from that, and that's still an ongoing process, partially hampered by the fact that the current center-right (in Finnish terms, even the rightmost party here is to the left of the democratic mainstream in the US in their support for the existing universal systems) hasn't been very effective in tackling some of the structural issues, but nevertheless, we're still doing very well.

But to say that the socialists 'ruined everything' is just utter BS. Without the social policies that we've put in place, we'd likely still be a very backwater nation instead of a global first world economy,

Now the situation is so bad that I've heard a swede say he would rather not work because that would give tax money to his government that is ruining everything!

Oh so you heard 1 Swede say that did you? Well that proves the whole system is ruined then doesn't it? C'mon man.

Sweden took in a lot of refugees, way more than any other compared to the size of the population and that has obviously become a heated issue, as they have had problems with their immigration system previously as well. This has been made worse by the fact that Sweden changed its elementary school system away from the model they used to have (and that we still use) and allowed the creaton of privatized elementary schools, which has lead in parts of the large suburbs to rapid segregation creating schools for well-off natives and left the public schools in those areas to be heavily for immigrants. This obviously creates problems as it hampers those kids from learning the language for example, making integration and thus employment harder which creates a host of issues, the most prevalent of which is the rise of organized crime in those suburban are

Sheltered

[MikeRT]

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."

Re:Sheltered

[jwhyche]

This is something that I have also observed with a lot of millennials. Most of them have the works they way they think it should, and now how it actually works. In the ideal millennial world you should be able to walk down the street naked at 2 am. They just don't take in to account there are fucking evil people out there that will happily take advantage of them.

It is not that millennials are stupid, it just they are not getting the same life experiences any more that most of us non-milennials got.

Re:Sheltered

[Actually, I do RTFA]

You should be able to leave your apartment unlocked/walk down the street naked and not have an issue. You of course won't. But that doesn't excuse the actual people who take advantage of them.

And, year-by-year, we get closer to that ideal world. So, you know, it's improving.

Re:Sheltered

[jeff4747]

Not like this generation. Hippies, despite all the shit I give them, had enough basic life skills when they started out. When I came out of high school, at the age of 18, I knew how to create a budget, balance a checkbook, type, cook a basic meal, buy and maintain a car, look for, apply for, and get a job. Any many other basic skills.

And then your generation voted to gut school funding and tie it to standardized tests that do not involve any "basic life skills". And you are apparently surprised by the results of your votes.

Lack of critical thinking

[Spy Handler]

no surprise, given how public schools these days do little besides indoctrinate kids in leftist ideology. Chairman Mao would feel right at home.

Re:Lack of critical thinking

[jpaine619]

He's absolutely right though.. There is indoctrination happening... When I was much younger, there was NOT this level of politics in school.. I couldn't tell you if a given teacher was a Democrat or a Republican or a fucking Communist because they didn't tell you, they didn't push an ideology... They taught you how to read, write, and do 'rythmatic..

At best you could make an educated guess from how they dressed (business like or hippy) but that was about it..

Now? Yeah, it's way different..

Re:Lack of critical thinking

[houghi]

The thing is that lack of critical think has absolutely nothing to do with left or right. There are plenty of excamples where the left does not think and people are indoctrinated. There are equally plenty of indoctrinated kids to the right.

No only Chairman Mao would be proud, Adolf Hitler would be as well. Just as plenty other "leaders".

WTF?!?!?

[sootman]

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?

Re:Gen-X are millennials now?

[OrangeTide]

Gen-X here. Nobody ever gave a shit about us, not even other gen-x'ers.

Re:Are you off your meds again?

[jpaine619]

You're right about Mao though. But he was a fascist, not a communist and certainly not a Democratic Socialist.

Fuck yeah! Haven't gotten to see the No-True-Scotsman fallacy in a long time. Thank you! (seriously).

Mao said he was communist, he ran a communist country, his successors are communists.. But no.. he was a fascist, because you know better...

Thanks man.. I really needed that laugh, for real.

Older is wiser? I'm shocked!

[Tony Isaac]

So the school of hard knocks teaches life skills? Wow!

When Baby Boomers were young, they were stupid too.