I can see it if it's someone who isn't familiar with technology like an older person (especially with phishing scams that ask you to click a fake link, or pop-up tech scams), or if it's someone who is extremely young and naive. To be honest, some of the phishing e-mails I've gotten would be pretty convincing if someone didn't know what to look for. The only way I figured them out is by a couple of small typos, hovering my cursor over the e-mail address to see who it was really from and not what they were trying to present it to be, and the fact that many of them were for sites/apps I didn't have accounts with. Even for the ones I did, I just logged in manually to make sure everything was okay, and never clicked any of the links sent to me.
I can see how someone who doesn't know how certain things work could fall for them and I wouldn't consider them stupid for that, maybe just uninformed about certain things (like technology, or the way certain things work, such as the fact that the IRS never calls you; there is a common phone scam claiming that the IRS is filing a lawsuit against you/that you need to pay a large sum of money to keep from going to jail that panics young people who have never dealt with them before). It's definitely good to learn and be aware so you don't get tricked, though.
There's also the fact that some of these scammers (such as the ones impersonating the IRS and threatening a lawsuit or jailtime) use scare tactics to their advantage, and people often don't think straight when they are panicking. There have also been scams where the scammers tell their victims their loved ones are hurt or in trouble and need X amount of money (which to me, doesn't add up, but again, logic tends to go out the window when people panic).
I definitely feel for the elderly who are unfamiliar with technology, and young, naive people that simply don't have enough experience to be able to know better yet, who get scammed. I always make sure to beware of anything that seems suspicious and research it or log into my accounts manually (NEVER through links sent in suspicious e-mails or text messages) to see what is going on. I've actually gotten quite a few texts recently claiming I've won prizes from certain companies that didn't look out of the ordinary, but knew I didn't enter anything and that it seemed too good to be true, so looked up the numbers they were coming from.
IIN That I think people who fall for internet scammers are stupid?
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I can see it if it's someone who isn't familiar with technology like an older person (especially with phishing scams that ask you to click a fake link, or pop-up tech scams), or if it's someone who is extremely young and naive. To be honest, some of the phishing e-mails I've gotten would be pretty convincing if someone didn't know what to look for. The only way I figured them out is by a couple of small typos, hovering my cursor over the e-mail address to see who it was really from and not what they were trying to present it to be, and the fact that many of them were for sites/apps I didn't have accounts with. Even for the ones I did, I just logged in manually to make sure everything was okay, and never clicked any of the links sent to me.
I can see how someone who doesn't know how certain things work could fall for them and I wouldn't consider them stupid for that, maybe just uninformed about certain things (like technology, or the way certain things work, such as the fact that the IRS never calls you; there is a common phone scam claiming that the IRS is filing a lawsuit against you/that you need to pay a large sum of money to keep from going to jail that panics young people who have never dealt with them before). It's definitely good to learn and be aware so you don't get tricked, though.
There's also the fact that some of these scammers (such as the ones impersonating the IRS and threatening a lawsuit or jailtime) use scare tactics to their advantage, and people often don't think straight when they are panicking. There have also been scams where the scammers tell their victims their loved ones are hurt or in trouble and need X amount of money (which to me, doesn't add up, but again, logic tends to go out the window when people panic).
I definitely feel for the elderly who are unfamiliar with technology, and young, naive people that simply don't have enough experience to be able to know better yet, who get scammed. I always make sure to beware of anything that seems suspicious and research it or log into my accounts manually (NEVER through links sent in suspicious e-mails or text messages) to see what is going on. I've actually gotten quite a few texts recently claiming I've won prizes from certain companies that didn't look out of the ordinary, but knew I didn't enter anything and that it seemed too good to be true, so looked up the numbers they were coming from.