I'm sure there will still be scammers and suckers even during the era your stories are set in.

They'll need to try harder as AI scanners will be sniffing for them - and heaven help them with any AI honeypots they contact!

Yes people always will fall for these for numerous reasons. Sometimes they just strike at the wrong time. This is one of the reasons behind attacks where 2FA requests are spammed at a user. At some point the person will click yes either deliberately or accidentally and then it's game over. And this can happen to people who are even tech-savvy.

The scams are getting more and more technically savvy too. It's to the point that viruses and malware aren't the main threat; it's the social engineering that does it. And the threat only grows with the number of passwords required to use things, and the number of items that can only truly be accomplished online.

Always stay safe and vigilant. Always a good thing when you can sniff out a scam. But it's the ones you don't expect that'll get you!

I've gotten where I assume anything I'm not expecting is a scam and check things 'sideways' - as in never clicking any offered links they give.

Now getting my 85yo mother to stop clicking on stuff, that's a little harder as she doesn't always check with me before clinking questionable things. Only had a couple of scares, lucky so far.

Reminds me of bygone days, helping a friend help this little-old-lady after her grand-kids loaded their games on her w98 system (yes - that long ago!) and we were suggesting she put a password on it to help keep them off it. She asked what type of password she should use, and we suggested something they wouldn't expect her to use.

She got all crafty-eyed and said, "You mean like a curse word?" We laughed and assured her that that would be our little secret ...

"A Fool is born every minute!"

Or so the Saying goes.

One of my lifelong Mantras is/always will be- "When in doubt, throw it out!"

The trick is not being the fool born that (or any) minute.

Yes they do, sadly.

Stay safe.

yes. social engineering will always find a sucker, low iq, whatever.

The trick I find most fun is forcing them off their script/path, never giving them any data.

Though one of my brothers used to 'like' having a scammer call, he'd see how long he can keep them talking before they realize he's just stringing them on. His favorite was for getting the roof 'inspected/replaced', over half an hour in and the guy's trying to set up an appointment when my brother asks: "Now does the landlord need to be there too since we're just renting? ... Hello? Hello?"

Ah, so I'm not the only one who gets these strange phone calls and emails then. :)

A couple of days ago, while at work overnight, I got a call saying they're calling from Corp, telling me connect them with the manager of the store, after asking me for my name.

I said I was Bob Kane, and the manager's name was Frank Miller....

I kept them stringing along for about fifteen minutes, before they start telling me that the local fire marshal's going to come around soon for an inspection....

I didn't have the heart to tell them that the store's inspected yearly in last Sept.

Yeah, corp always calls when they know the boss is not going to be there.

For those I tell them I'm having trouble hearing them and ask for their extension - I'll call them back on the main number and get them on a better line.

My favorite was the call from the local power company, telling me I was two months behind and was going to be disconnected in 45 minutes if I didn't pay up right then. Now, I knew right off it was BS, as I'm set up on auto pay. I went and verified with the power company website while I was stringing them along, telling them I was having trouble finding my wallet.

I then proceeded to pull up a credit card generator site, that will give you valid card/ccv/expire/zip sets, that will pass an automated test but aren't actually legit.

After the 5th card that got 'declined', I told them in an exasperated tone, "I don't understand it, the guy I bought these from said they were all good!"

Got a nice, long string of cursing from them before they hung up.

Yeah, they hate it when you waste their time.

I have\had (lost password) email account that had a virtual ton of those scam messages. My favorite ones were from people threatening to tell my sister something. Don't have one. Scam calls are fun. I've had a lot of enjoyment stringing them along. Best was the South Asian guy saying he was with some Federal LE department and wanted me to pay a fine or they would raid my house in 30 minutes. I thanked him for the advance notice and started doing a James Carney routine. The you dirty rats/cops rant from his gangster movies. Guy hung up on me....

I've had one claiming to be a cop. Asked him for the full name of the person he wanted to talk to, he kept saying 'you'. He hung up when I pointed out that the only way I'd be able to tell a real cop from a scammer was to get his extension and google the number for the station he claimed to be calling from ...

Most recent scam caller kept waking me up around midnight, demanding to speak with my late father. After the third call I set the phone by a little container with some of his ashes and put it on speaker. After a minute of the guy talking nonstop he finally says why don't you answer me? I told him to use. Ouija board, you are talking to his ashes. Click. No more of those calls for 5 months

At the store I work at, yes. Corporate has our service desk try to screen them out and more than a few people buy the cold calls and emails that insist they owe money to such and such. Witnessed one case where a woman was insistent that she owed money to some gambling commission that insisted she pay in Apple gift cards. Another time I saw a woman who was certain her husband needed to be sent Apple gift cards for a flight because his own debit card wasn't working which...I really don't know how they convinced her of that one. And another one was someone claiming to be Amazon who tried to get someone to pay off a debt with them with Walmart gift cards...the two companies are mortal enemies. With the first two we could not convince them to stop for the life of us (five of us were there trying to convince them they were being scammed) and just had to settle for denying them service. The third one was a bit more reasonable.

Humans are a very emotionally driven species. They react strongly to perceived threats and even more they HATE being wrong. The latter one I partially blame on public education being grade-driven and parents punishing kids for literally getting things wrong resulting in people being trained to hate being wrong.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

Humans are a very emotionally driven species. They react strongly to perceived threats and even more they HATE being wrong. The latter one I partially blame on public education being grade-driven and parents punishing kids for literally getting things wrong resulting in people being trained to hate being wrong.

Yeah, the 'N' of 'sign' language I see out there all too often when someone is trying to force you to see things their way.

Shaming
Insults
Gaslighting
and the 'Need to be right' even when they are dead wrong ...