it would depend on the wording but on the face of it, paying shipping on an expensive prize is more plausible than FBI Asst. Director Walter Skinner working with InternPol Police in Nigeria, overseeing a transfer to me of $12,500,000 dollars USD for an unspecified reason.
In the most general sort of way, yes. In actual execution, most people would laugh it off as an obvious attempt. These are not especially legitimate looking messages.
After all, it’s even more plausible, in my case, that the IRS would contact me about my 2020 returns than either of the other examples but that doesn’t make a random text message from “America IRS Police” demanding $500 in gift cards seem any more legitimate.
Yeah,I saw that video - really respect him speaking out against victim shaming and the tired trope that only old people fall for scams.
Edit: Plausibility of scams is very dependent on context. If you’re expecting a parcel to arrive, then you may be more susceptible to text message scams about parcel deliveries (that are actually phishing). If you’re an older person worried about your finances, you may be more susceptible to investment/pension scams.
It’s not surprising that any human can point at scams they find implausible; scams are so many and various that this is bound to happen (and some of them are genuinely inept and ridiculous). The mistake a lot of people appear to make is to infer that they are less vulnerable because they can see the folly of others.
A decent breakdown of ages and loss averages.
The most shocking thing there is how much the number of victims (in all categories) jumped in 2020. 2020 was even more fucked up than we knew…
The mistake people often make in looking at these stats is only to consider the value of loss. Older people lose more money (because generally, they’ve had a lifetime in which to accumulate more money to lose); younger people don’t get scammed less, they just get hit by financially smaller scams (which might be just as damaging when you’re young and money seems to be flying away from you at every turn)
Tough times mean that people are looking for bargains and opportunities, many of which are scams.
Tough times are tough for scammers too, so they try harder.
That there was an increase isn’t surprising, but the amount of increase is a lot more than I would have guessed.
I’m not too surprised about GenZ becoming more susceptible to online scams. Just like one assumes Boomers and older folks are confused and scared by technology (be cool, be cool - I am very broadly generalizing) GenZ is completely enveloped by it and completely, overly trusting of it. And the tech is so ubiquitous and comparatively cheaper than when GenX and Millennials were kids, children and young adults of GenZ have much more access to scammy channels than previous generations.
We’re all susceptible to it, of course. Especially with the ease with which collective data can be harvested and analyzed to find the vectors by which we’re most vulnerable. Technology is indeed a blessing and a curse.
Yep. For every boomer clicking a link or button because they’re fuddled and confused, there’s a youngster doing the same because they are so habituated to clicking here when told.
Poor English skills and trying to sound important results in the word salad that characterizes scams.
This thing went through a linguistic Cuisinart.
Hello Dear,
I am Mr.Suvo Sarkar, a Private Investment Banker working with Emirates
Bank of Dubai, Bank of America, HSBC and other Mainline Global
Banks.Our aims and objectives; As a Powerful Global Breadth of
Technical Experience towards financial services is including
brokerage,financing solutions, interception of suspicious funds and
digital banking platform.I hereby, bring to your notice that the estimated sum
of,(US$10,000,000) part payment was intercepted by this agency and
placed as a bond. In an urgent reaction we discovered that you are the
beneficiary of this fund routine from Africa bank, but as result of
misappropriate financial regulations we noted via our GBS signal
wherefore in accordance to our responsiveness being priority to grant
genuine performance and what this department represents.I have decided
to contact you for proper verification and also guide you properly and
safe channels to remit such huge sums to your bank.Furthermore, I
would like you to reconfirm your designated Bank full details as the
case may be.I have received a mandate via E-Transfer to remit a sum valued to $10
Million Dollar using our Bond Facility to you with immediate effect
and I have a copy of a generated message to that effect but will not
be able to release it to you till I read from you.Consider this message very urgent and revert.
I swear every one of them are flipping idiots.
When I get a demand for a gift card, they get this.
Despite the clear instructions, every single one wants the card number, the pin number, who’s getting the email, when is it being sent.
JFC, learn to read.
In the past I have received my share of inheritance, or lost funds that need a new home, etc. emails. Today however, I finally have received a real email from Warren Buffet, who has decided to randomly pick me to get $5,500,000.00 United Dollars! I am not sure what a United Dollar is, but I think it must be valuable. I will reply with all the information he requests to his aol account.
I wonder if Bill Gates is as generous
//i\\
PS: It really is the first time I have seen this particular tactic
Scammers are fired up this morning. A quick one that disappeared in seconds offered me $1500 from T-Mobile for delays during Covid.
Wife was randomly/carefully selected to get $20,000 from the generous winner of the $700 million in the last big lotto.
For almost three weeks, I’ve been tormenting the Ukraine International Certified Bankers Club with a stalled bitcoin payment. This morning, I told them their Holletication Certificate (Nonsense Word Generator) is expired which is needed for bitcoin transactions in a war zone.
And they believed it. The fun continues.
It’s still going. 68 emails later, he’s calling “my bank” (real bank) to talk to the crypto broker(who doesn’t exist) with the (fake) transaction number.
I guess it didn’t go well with the bank. He seems to be quite unhappy.
Another one I’ve been playing with (inheritance scam), after saying I’ve discovered i have no relatives by the deceased name, i have no right to the inheritance. Got a reply saying I do have a right.
No I’m not. If he’s not my relative, then I have no claim to the money unless you can find a will.
This is called “hunting over bait”.
Band name!
I posted in MMP that our tenant put the rent check in the mail box at the post office. Someone stole it, washed it, and wrote himself a check for $6,500.