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Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

wired.com

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Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#41

Post by throwaway48476 »

matsemann wrote: post #9
roenxi wrote: post #4

I'm not going to read the "article" because it is a transcript and looks a bit rambly and I don't expect it to be talking about anything interesting. But just going to the headline here; consider the base rate. North America has huge per-capita wealth (by a bit of a margin over most other large players). It is expected that scammers would target them and make the most profit there.

But why less Europeans? A language barrier for some countries? More regulations about robocalls etc? GDPR and better privacy so our data isn't as easy to exploit?

There are few scammers that speak Lithuanian unlike English where there are a billion speakers. Language barrier for less common languages is a huge factor.

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#42

Post by throwaway48476 »

wongarsu wrote: post #18
matsemann wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why less Europeans? A language barrier for some countries? More regulations about robocalls etc? GDPR and better privacy so our data isn't as easy to exploit?

All three of those plus more, but language barrier might be the biggest reason. Most Europeans speak English, but most scams are only plausible in your native language or the national language of your country. Europe is a patchwork of different languages. English has a much bigger "market" of victims for international scammers, many of them might already know some English before their career

The bigger factor is the market for scammers. There are millions of Indian, Nigerian, and carribean scammers.

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#43

Post by theropost »

vinni2 wrote: post #29

I struggled to find the source the fact that $1T is lost to scammers. From the FBI internet crime report in 2023 Americans lost about 12.5 Billion dollars [0]. That is far from 1T$. Another source reports cost if cybercrime is reported to reach 9.5T$ in 2024 but again no source provided for that number [1] [0] https://www.ic3.gov/AnnualReport/Reports/2023_IC3Report.pdf#... [1] https://www.esentire.com/resources/libra…

It kinda just depends on the agenda, one source says it’s nothing, another says it’s a trillion, and that huge gap usually means someone’s trying to push something, like tougher laws or justify some policy shift. Half the time it feels like the facts don’t even matter, just the story they wanna sell.

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#44

Post by prawn »

mixologist wrote: post #22

I am always confused how someone will fall for the scammer with such poor knowledge of your native language. If you look at the reports from the scams it is always so obvious that they are scams just by looking at the way sentences are structured or the way they speak. I would expect that easier targets for such scammers would be people who don’t use English as their primary language. Not someone living in US. It is…

Some portion of legit call centres for banks or telcos (as an example) have an accent, especially when support services are outsourced. Means that many are not deterred by an accent or imperfect email phrasing when approached.

In one case of a friend's mother being scammed: she'd complained to her ISP about an issue with their service. Their actual customer support told her to expect a call back later that day. Then some sort of Microsoft support scam out of India happened to call her an hour or two later...

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#45

Post by throwaway48476 »

samlinnfer wrote: post #32
Krasnol wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is good to hear that it is coming from countries which has been played by the Western World on the globalization front. Then ripping off those who profited from their low status and relevance on the world market gives it a nice Robin Hood touch.

It's good to hear that scammers are taking your grandparents retirement money as reparations for colonial acts?

Most people dramatically underestimate how widespread their cultural moral system is. Billions of people live in cultures where scamming is perfectly moral.

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#46

Post by pembrook »

Krasnol wrote: post #27
pembrook wrote: post #25

Certain cities in countries like Nigeria and Morocco have become fraud “Silicon Valleys” where there’s quite literally tens of thousands of people collaborating and sharing best practices on how best to scam Americans and Europeans. This will only get worse with AI. When I worked for a certain large inbox provider a few years back, I was astonished at the volume of fraud and phishing attempts that actually originate…

It is good to hear that it is coming from countries which has been played by the Western World on the globalization front. Then ripping off those who profited from their low status and relevance on the world market gives it a nice Robin Hood touch.

Scammers prey on the most vulnerable, mentally handicapped people, and even their own neighbors.

Ask Nigerians how they feel about the fact they can’t interact with most western institutions or develop economically due to the actions of their worst neighbors.

It may surprise you to learn the largest population of victims of Nigerian scammers are other Nigerians. The dollar figures may not reach $1T (since Nigeria is poor) but it actively inhibits every day life in these countries and leads to the economic deadzone that is a low trust society.

As California learned, decriminalizing theft does not help the poor, in fact it disproportionately affects them the most.

Please re-examine your luxury beliefs.

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#48

Post by throwaway48476 »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #8
spoonjim wrote: post #6

Americans are great marks because we are so relentlessly optimistic

And rich and uneducated.

Western societies have higher social trust which enabled them to outcompete the rest of the world. Business moves at the speed of trust. Now that western society has increasing contact with the low trust world it is regressing to the mean.

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#49

Post by Krasnol »

samlinnfer wrote: post #32
Krasnol wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is good to hear that it is coming from countries which has been played by the Western World on the globalization front. Then ripping off those who profited from their low status and relevance on the world market gives it a nice Robin Hood touch.

It's good to hear that scammers are taking your grandparents retirement money as reparations for colonial acts?

Why are you repeating what I wrote?

Calling Globalization "colonial acts" is a nice touch, though. Thanks.

Re: Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

#50

Post by stevekemp »

wongarsu wrote: post #18
matsemann wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why less Europeans? A language barrier for some countries? More regulations about robocalls etc? GDPR and better privacy so our data isn't as easy to exploit?

All three of those plus more, but language barrier might be the biggest reason. Most Europeans speak English, but most scams are only plausible in your native language or the national language of your country. Europe is a patchwork of different languages. English has a much bigger "market" of victims for international scammers, many of them might already know some English before their career

I'm living in Finland, and my Finnish language skills are .. not great .. but even I can spot spam messages easily.

There are some appalling auto-translated spammy/scammy SMS and WhatsApp messages being sent, and it would be incredibly hard to take them seriously due to their poor language.

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