Do you feel sorry for

[Merkavar]

Do you feel sorry for people who fall for obvious scams or phishing attempts? Like all those emails people receive that just go straight to spam?

I hear every now and then about people falling for it and i just cant help but laugh and not feel sorry for them. The ones i have seen never look legit and i just cant understand why you would give your bank details.

Like a co worker of my dad got to work one day and realised that earlier that morning she had fallen for a scam. it took here a few hours to realise but she had to cancel her cards etc.

So do you feel sorry for people who fall for scams like nigerian prince or your wow account has been hacked emails?

Spoiler: Reason for this post

Wollongong Police are warning students of a number of current SCAMS that often target students. These scams are targeting persons from all backgrounds with the most common being phone scams, lotteries and rental properties.

One of the popular scams involves the victim being contacted by phone or on the internet advising they have won a lottery or been selected at random to win a grand prize or large sum of money. There are costs involved with claiming the prize, or they will advise you that tax is required to be paid before the money can be released to you. Instead of receiving the money you will lose every cent that you send to the scammer, as you have limited or incorrect details, police are unable to assist you in the recovery of money sent to these scammers.

Remember legitimate lotteries do not require you to pay money to collect a prize.

If you have not bought a ticket then you can not win anything.
Never send money to anyone you don?t know and trust.
Never provide your personal details to anyone over the phone or internet including your date of birth, pin numbers and account details.

RENTAL SCAMS

Students need to be careful when responding to rental properties advertised on the internet. Cases have been reported over the last few years where the owner makes various excuses why a property can not be inspected including being overseas on holiday. The ads appear genuine as photos and a real address is supplied to the prospective tenant.

Once the scammer has the person?s interest they then require you to forward an upfront payment for rent prior to the keys being forwarded to the new tenant. The keys are not forwarded and the scammer is unable to be located.

If an offer sounds really good make further enquiries. Department of Fair Trading can offer assistance by providing a list of SCAMS and how to protect yourself. If you do become a victim you need to report the matter to your local Police station.

 

[cfb_rolley]

No way do I ever feel sorry for anyone that falls for one of those "Nigerian bank owes you $23,864,843,589,345" scams. If you're retarded enough to email back with your credit card details, then you probably shouldn't be allowed to use the internet.

I do feel a little bit sorry for people who go out of their way to not get scammed and somehow have their identity stolen or something like that. That's gotta suck.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Judge it case by case.

The Nigerian prince thing is designed to appeal to a persons greed, so it's easier to be callous to the people who fall for it. I feel bad for the people who thought they were giving to charities only for them to be proved fraudulent.

I know that alot of people lack net savvy. I cleaned my ex's laptop 3 times, I had warned her not to open attatchments unless she was expecting them after the first time...seems like there just isn't a suspicious bone in her body.

 

[EHKOS]

Nope. I have found alot of people on this planet are very stupid. I thank God I am one of the intelligent humans....but then again, ignorance is bliss.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

Most of the time i read about people falling for scams..the scam fallen for is usually so obvious it's almost pathetic. In that case i don't feel sorry for the victim.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Depends on the scam. There's quite a few really obvious ones that appeal to people's greed...mind you, the Nigerian prince stuff tends to be operated by surprisingly hardcore organised crime syndicates, oddly enough.

Things which look more legit, like the "your computer is infected, click to run a scan"...those might look reasonable at first glance.

In any case, scams are designed to trick people, you can't be too surprised if the people who create them aren't always hopelessly transparent.

 

[Scrubiii]

I have never actually fallen for one, but every time I see one, I can't help thinking of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdi6E-qzS1c

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Usually, I don't, unless they were scammed out of a lot of money.

 

[Jordi]

I don't think that laughing at people necessarily means that you can't also feel sorry for them. Whether I will laugh at someone for falling for a scam depends on how stupid s/he was being. This depends in both the scam and the person. For instance, if a grandparent would fall for a "Click here to rid your computer of viruses!"-scam, I don't think that is very funny, but I would expect my IT-colleagues and -friends to see through that.

I guess the only situations where I would really not feel bad for someone are when I either really dislike them, or when the actions they undertook were really bad (e.g. greedy).