Worst part about it is that vast majority of money i ever made and certainly >100% of money i ever saved/invested, was money of that sort: "wait so it's free cash for nothing, there has to be a catch?". And i have missed vastly larger amounts of money because of even more unbelievable things materialising before me which i dismissed because they sounded like a scam or someone's idiotic fantasy.

So i understand why crazy scams sometimes dupe people. These people are not necessarily dumbasses. They are just people who understood that yes, money do frequently grow on trees, and at least in Good Old times of ZIRP, those were the only money worth making.