Re:Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?
by jacquesm on Monday January 17, 2022 @01:16PM
(#29969646)
Not so funny for some. One person I know, (80+) got scammed out of a reasonably large sum of money (very large for them, probably pocket change for HN). They could not imagine that people would be so mean as to feign an emergency to scam others. These assholes really hurt people.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?
by iotku on Monday January 17, 2022 @01:39PM
(#29970065)
Yep, often praying on good will or desperation of older generations.
A lot of people think it's laughable that anyone would fall for "simple obvious scams" but I've met a good handful of older family and their more elderly friends who either fell to a scam or were only stopped once someone at a store questioned them as to why they were buying lots of gift cards all at once. In some cases scammers will work on people over a long period of time to gain their trust.
Re:Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?
by teddyh on Monday January 17, 2022 @02:06PM
(#29970419)
NB: “Preying”, not “praying”.
Re:Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?
by Clubber on Monday January 17, 2022 @01:20PM
(#29969717)
Yup, they're robbing old people of their life savings. It seems nobody seems to be doing anything to prosecute or even track these people down.
Re:Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?
by cosmodisk on Monday January 17, 2022 @02:56PM
(#29971021)
It's an international crime most of the time, with operations that can be opened in a day. It doesn't help that local law enforcement in some countries actively covering these types of crimes.
Re:Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?
by jlengrand on Monday January 17, 2022 @01:41PM
(#29970098)
You may have misunderstood my comment. The way the introduction of the article is phrased is funny, what scammers do is horrifying.
I've had people in my close family fall into debts to those folks, they target the weakest and literally go heaps and bounds to extract as much as they can from their 'mugus'.
Not fun at all :S
Re:Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?
by notum on Monday January 17, 2022 @01:22PM
(#29969771)
Thankfully, there's people who fight back:
https://www.419eater.com/
Re:Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?
by jacquesm on Monday January 17, 2022 @01:28PM
(#29969881)
It looks as though the old forum is dead and the new one is here: https://aff.419eater.com/