harvyk
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- Apr 15, 2009
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My mother got the Virgin version of this scam and they asked for her by name, so it's not just random dialling of numbers and hoping someone picks up.
That's a fair bit of research on behalf of the scammers, plus in a way it ultimately works against them.
The really successful scammers virtually do everything just shy of telling the victim they are a scammer. The reason behind this is each victim represents an investment on behalf of the scammer. There are certain details of my life that I'm probably not going to tell just anyone (most of my friends included), regardless of how genuine the other person may appear. But someone else who is far more trusting and far less skeptical than me would. The scammer wants to eliminate people like me asap, as I would simply be considered wasted time, and the easiest way of doing that is by dropping subtle hints really early that they are not on the level. That way the people they manage to string along are likely to give up sensitive details that they should be keeping confidential.
There is a reason why scam emails typically have typo's, are "Dear Customer" despite the fact that with most peoples emails it is easy to guess the persons name etc