Last Updated on by SCARS Editorial Team
SCARSSCARS SCARS - Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc. A government registered crime victims' assistance & crime prevention nonprofit organization based in Miami, Florida, U.S.A. SCARS supports the victims of scams worldwide and through its partners in more than 60 countries around the world. Incorporated in 2015, its team has 30 years of continuous experience educating and supporting scam victims. Visit www.AgainstScams.org to learn more about SCARS.™ ScammerScammer A Scammer or Fraudster is someone that engages in deception to obtain money or achieve another objective. They are criminals that attempt to deceive a victim into sending more or performing some other activity that benefits the scammer. Urban Legends – Chapter 2 – Scammers Are Stupid?
You Hear This All The Time From Victims
One of the things that is disturbing about many scamScam A Scam is a confidence trick - a crime - is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust through deception. Scams or confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, irresponsibility, or greed and exploiting that. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men' - criminals) at the expense of their victims (the 'marks')". A scam is a crime even if no money was lost. victims is the need to invent a mythology about scammers that simply isn’t true.
Unfortunately, incompetent anti-scam groups do this too.
This is a natural reaction, but it is wrong
This is especially true when you are confronting someone that you can do nothing about. For example a criminalCriminal A criminal is any person who through a decision or act engages in a crime. This can be complicated, as many people break laws unknowingly, however, in our context, it is a person who makes a decision to engage in unlawful acts or to place themselves with others who do this. A criminal always has the ability to decide not to break the law, or if they initially engage in crime to stop doing it, but instead continues., your next door neighbor, a hater, your daughter’s boyfriends, a political candidate, President Trump (actually we like him a lot – because he is the first president in decades to really do something against scammers).
Instead of looking objectively at the facts about these people (scammers), people revert to emotional name calling.
Unfortunately, this DOES NOT help you deal with the reality of the situation or the person (the scammer). It creates a barrier that blocks you from a full understanding of what happened, your role in it, and how to prevent it in the future. It holds you back from recovering – preventing you from adapting to the situation in a healthy way – and allowing you to find a new future.
Scammers Are Not Stupid
Scammers are normal people. Some of them are brilliant, especially those that have risen to the upper levels of their criminal organizations. Some are not. Just like anyone else.
Scammers are the product of their educational environment. Some are moderately well educated, and some are even university graduates. Some only have basic educations. Some write and read poorly – especially since English is not their first language.
Think about that. Most scammers are multilingual. Most Americans are not!
They come from a culture of superstition (which is another word for religion). Some believe incomprehensible faiths, some are Muslim. All of this imparts a separation between them and the cultures of the Western and even Asian cultures, yet somehow they manage to communicate their fakery sufficiently well to get money from a million people a year.
Scammers are professionals. This is their job, their work, their profession. Frankly, most of them are very good at it. They employ complex methodologies, follow scripts, work a process. In many ways, they are actors and actresses playing a role.
What tends to make us believe they are stupid is the way they act when confronted with the truth about their activity.