Nobody is at their best at every moment of their lives, and people who are highly skilled and smart in specific fields can be innocent babes in other areas of human activity. I’m currently on a bit of a crusade against the whole ‘victims are stupid’ (’/and deserve to be scammed’) thing.
I’ve been talking to scam victims about their experiences - they come from all walks of life; they are distributed across all age groups (another stupid myth is ‘only boomers’); I’ve spoken to one recently who is in a life-and-death job role where acute thinking is required and mental competence is frequently tested - not a stupid person by any reasonable standard.
Scammers spray out a huge variety of scam scenarios, and people generally fall victim when they are in a situation or state that has already ‘primed’ them to accept the story, often through no particular fault or action of their own.