My 85 year old grandfather didn't commit suicide, but he was taken for every penny of his meager life savings by the Jamaican lottery scam. My dad discovered what was going on, called the police, but was told there was nothing they could do. My grandfather firmly believed and probably still does that he had won the lottery and was just waiting for a payout. We basically had to revoke his phone privileges to keep him from giving them more money, because he was so convinced. He does't have Alzheimer's or dementia. The scammers are just very convincing.
81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers
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Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers
#22>" targets nearly 300,000 Americans a year, most of them elderly, and has enticed them to send an estimated $300 million annually " In this case, the scammers took advantage of an elderly man, inflicted with Alzheimer's and diminishing mental capacity. Sad. But that can't be the case for the majority. How on earth do "normal" people fall for this? I can see, maybe , when the internet was young and this was new. But i…
Same way people get addicted to gambling.
Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers
#23It's kind of depressing that they wage war on drugs, and then they try to put journalists in jail for nonexistent hacking, but they are incapable of going after phone scammers. I don't think they ever try. If I would say I expect real protection from police & court, I'll get laughed at these days.
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Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers
#24Since the NSA is by default monitoring calls, I wonder why they cant do anything about this? (:p)
Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers
#25Does anyone know what happens to the people when they get old, so they become gullible? Is there some physiological mechanism, or is it just that older people are less sophisticated about those issues?
Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers
#26Just a heads up, this is a CNN wire story. The original, properly attributed to Wayne Drash, is here: http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/07/us/jamaica-lottery-scam-suicid...
Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers
#27>" targets nearly 300,000 Americans a year, most of them elderly, and has enticed them to send an estimated $300 million annually " In this case, the scammers took advantage of an elderly man, inflicted with Alzheimer's and diminishing mental capacity. Sad. But that can't be the case for the majority. How on earth do "normal" people fall for this? I can see, maybe , when the internet was young and this was new. But i…
Why do people fall for the "work for a startup and get rich" scam?
Probably because some people get rich. Also, many people appropriately view the options as a lottery ticket and just like to be in a company building something new.
Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers
#28It's kind of depressing that they wage war on drugs, and then they try to put journalists in jail for nonexistent hacking, but they are incapable of going after phone scammers. I don't think they ever try. If I would say I expect real protection from police & court, I'll get laughed at these days.
Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers
#29Does anyone know what happens to the people when they get old, so they become gullible? Is there some physiological mechanism, or is it just that older people are less sophisticated about those issues?
"Wizard's First Rule: people are stupid."
Richard and Kahlan frowned even more. "People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool. "Because of Wizards First Rule, the old wizards created Confessors, and Seekers, as a means of helping find the truth, when the truth is important enough. Darken Rahl knows the Wizard's Rules. He is using the first one. People need an enemy to feel a sense of purpose. It's easy to lead people when they have a sense of purpose. Sense of purpose is more important by far than the truth. In fact, truth has no bearing in this. Darken Rahl is providing them with an enemy, other than himself, a sense of purpose. People are stupid; they want to believe, so they do."
— Chapter 36, p.560, U.S. paperback edition of Terry Goodkind's awesome book with the same title.
Re: 81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers
#30Does anyone know what happens to the people when they get old, so they become gullible? Is there some physiological mechanism, or is it just that older people are less sophisticated about those issues?
As you grow up, you calibrate to the world. My theory is that ability to change your calibration once it's developed is difficult, and probably gets more difficult as you get older. These scams weren't around at this scale, and with this much potential for damage, when older people were growing up. It's probably quite hard to shake the instinct that when someone says they're from the bank on the phone, they probably are.
I'm sure there will be new things that I will be susceptible to in a few decades.
Also, people tend to abandon the old and vulnerable. It's just what happens. They're left alone. If the only voices they hear are the guy on the phone and their internal monologue, with no 'sensible' moderating force, and a potentially unlimited amount of time, it can be very easy for things to get skewed.