Re:The Eponymous Mr. Ponzi
by itsananderson on Tuesday September 03, 2019 @11:28AM
(#20867462)
My grandfather was taken in by a Ponzi scheme a few years before his death. He poured tens of thousands of dollars (his entire savings) into the sceme, despite my father's protestations. At one point my father gathered as much info about the "investments" as he could, and forwarded it to the authorities. He and my grandfather were on less friendly terms after that, even after the scheme's author was arrested and sentenced. My grandfather was convinced that my dad singlehandedly shut down a legitimate operation. My grandfather passed away about 6 months after the swindler was sentenced to 20 years in prison. https://www.forbes.com/sites/billsinger/2011/11/18/botfly-ll...
[ Parent
| on HN ]
I can totally understand how people get taken in by scams, but I’m completely baffled at how it’s so common to double down on them after they’re exposed. Human psychology is weird.
Any thoughts on how to handle this better? I imagine many of us will have to deal with this sort of thing at one point or another.
It's not weird at all. The human mind has all sorts of ways of protecting itself from harm or pain. No one likes feeling like a fool or being shown to be wrong. When faced with the (subconscious) choice of either admitting you were tricked and feeling humiliated or a comforting lie that somehow you were right all along, the lie is very tempting.
Con men count on this to keep their marks from balking, and I imagine the bigger the swindle the more powerful the urge to accept the delusion is, since the humiliation and shame are all the greater. Especially when, as in the parent comment's grandfather's case, the man's own son was telling him he was being scammed and he refused to listen. To have to face his son later and admit he'd been had must have seemed far too galling.
Re:The Eponymous Mr. Ponzi
by Ididntdothis on Tuesday September 03, 2019 @02:50PM
(#20869829)
You see the same in politics. When you show someone that a thing they are angry about is actually not true the response is often to stay angry at the now proven wrong issue and in addition to be angry at the person who told them.