Are people really that stupid?
By bryanwmc
@bryanwmc (1051)
Malaysia
October 21, 2012 1:20am CST
I am sure that to most of you who has email wud have gotten the emails stating ,they are daughter of gadafi,illegitimate son of osama or they are bank managerof a off shore bank etc etc. and of course that you may have inherited few million or need your help to transfer millions borrowing your account and your commision is millions or you have some long lost relative who have willed you few millions.it is always millions.daily in my spam box,at least dozens with same themes.
sometimes i really wonder , are these people really that stupid ,brainless morons who keep on sending what is so obviously a scam that you just smirk at the idiot behind the sending.on the other hand...if the recipient of this emails really believes what they are told and out of greed get scammed,i have no pity at all for them,just proves that they are more stupid than the sender.
Do you think that these are stupid people? Intelligent people wud realize how futile these emails are and if they want to scam online,they will be more clever and discreet.
3 people like this
14 responses
@romzee (937)
• Philippines
21 Oct 12
Happy for us, we all know they are just scams, but this stupid scammers are not brainless morons because they know what they are doing. They keep on doing this because they know the folly of human nature to fall for easy money. Millions of people are just starting to learn and use the internet everyday and apparently these people are their targets not us.
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
21 Oct 12
A very good point romzee, it is easy for us to forget but every day is the first day online for a vast number of people. These are much better targets because they are not familiar with such emails. nevertheless, a person still has to be very gullible to read them and take the story at face value. I guess this is where greed takes precedence over reason.
1 person likes this
@sjvenden27 (1840)
• United States
21 Oct 12
There are people that like preying on people that are weaker then them.. Which is very wrong and stupid!! There is always that .00001% chance that someone new started using the interent and are easily persuded. Or just that desprate to get help. Not know that they will be the next victim to lose everything.. There are so many people of all ages all over the world.. So if you look at how long it takes to send one email to everyone on your list... It doesnt take much effort on the scammers part, make a template and change a couple things or write a program that can automatically do it for you... No not in any way am I one of those people.. I just know how it works..
@sjvenden27 (1840)
• United States
21 Oct 12
Yes I do that; and mark the mail as spam so then I do not have to see them again..
@dyffer (75)
• Philippines
21 Oct 12
most of them are scammers, asking for you credit cards, bank accounts, insurance etc even sending you emails that you won 1 million dollars. dont be fooled by their tricks. if you dont know who sent you the email dont reply just put it in the good old thrash bin :)
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
21 Oct 12
I would be inclined to think that such emails would be ignored by everyone, but since they are still in use then I have to assume that some people are falling for them. If they never worked then the practice would rapidly disappear.
I find it difficult to credit that people would be fooled by something as ridiculous as this, but the main factor that clouds their reasoning is almost certainly greed. The desire for money has grown out of proportion lately, and any possible chance of acquiring more is desperately grabbed by quite a few people.
@obe212003 (2299)
• Philippines
21 Oct 12
Out of curiosity and disgust, i responded to this kind of e-mail. Having won the lottery, blah, blah... They responded with the details for processing of the prize money, but to make it short, asking for a fee for transferring the money to my back account, $300. I responded that they can have half of the prize money as against the $300, and offer they refused, lol!
@deazil (4730)
• United States
21 Oct 12
Some people are so desperate these days they'll believe anything if there's the remotest chance that they might get some money. I got one from a woman who claimed to be elderly and very ill and wanted to leave me a bunch of money.
I didn't read it all because there was a picture of her complete in a hospital bed, night gown, the works. A white haired old lady. I was laughing quite hard when I hit the delete key.
But maybe there are some very naive young people out there that fall for it. And once you respond they can read you and know exactly how to play you. Very sneaky people.
I didn't read it all because there was a picture of her complete in a hospital bed, night gown, the works. A white haired old lady. I was laughing quite hard when I hit the delete key. But maybe there are some very naive young people out there that fall for it. And once you respond they can read you and know exactly how to play you. Very sneaky people.
@iloveacn (15)
• United States
21 Oct 12
Oh like how some African prince has inherited 20 million U.S. dollars and just needs help paying off the IRS. but sadly in my opinion the average intelligence is dropping dramatically. Oh and by the way you missed spelled the word Would as WUD kind of ironic your complaining about stupidity when there's a wonderful most people have called spell check.
@bryanwmc (1051)
• Malaysia
21 Oct 12
i seriously doubt that there is a requirement to be a linguistic purist on a site like my lot.As long as the gist of the message can be conveyed and is comprehended when it is read , a little shortcut as 2 d way certain words r spelt ,to me is insignificant.It is not like i m writing to the Queen and therefore WUD b gracious enuff(enough) to be sure that i will not mangle the spelling of her Majesty's English. I am sure you may have read or responded to some of the earlier postings where ,the spelling needs quite a bit of a chore to interpret to understand what is actually being said. Then one will have to rely on good old fashion pronounciation of the spellings to decipher the postings in order to respond appropriately.Wouldnt you agree,my good fellow! If u navigate the many discussions ,u r bound to C sum gramatically incomprehensible sentence structures.Yet despite wrong spellings ,reading it out loud gives a familiar intonation of the word and wen u read it out loud to urself,do u realize wat dey wish 2 discuss.
@gitfiddleplayer (10362)
• United States
22 Oct 12
Those kinds of e-mails or scam mails prey on people who are desperate and they know it. I feel bad for the older people who get taken advantage of because they don't know any better and want to trust somebody who needs help. I make sure those useless e-mails go into the spam folder, even if you open them they can still keep your e-mail address active. I wouldn't call them stupid, they might not know any better and those are the hardest lessons to learn.
@jalucia (1431)
• United States
21 Oct 12
I often wonder, myself, who would fall for these obvious scams. But I guess they wouldn't keep fishing if there was nobody biting. I suppose the fact that the internet is open to everyone, there are some who are not able to be as discernible as you or I ... children, inexperienced pc users, elderly, mentally challenged, etc. I wouldn't exactly call them stupid, but I know that I would never fall victim to these scams.
@bryanwmc (1051)
• Malaysia
22 Oct 12
with all due respect , i really cannnot think of any other word to describe a person who will respond to these type of emails ,believing the message to be true. Common sense is all that is needed to realize that the stories fabricated are so far fetch that there is no way it can be a valid message. Only a person not in possesion of their full faculties might buy what the morons are selling,In spite of..! And it is not like a fairly recent trend os scamming,these messages. already been around few years and still circulating in the thousands daily.almost every online user knows about them so if there is still a species that will fall for it,i can only think of one word to describe the person,,stupid!
@silverfox09 (4708)
• United States
21 Oct 12
I dont know who can be falling for those kinda things anymore , because we have so much resource on the internet to identify scams . I got one from a girl claimed to be from the Philippine that want to come migrate to my country and looking for a friend to deposit her money in her account . I didnt even reply because I know that was a total scam . I will never give any stranger my bank number are even my full name .
@burrito88 (2774)
• United States
22 Oct 12
You can write one email message, change the content a little every so often, change the name of the sender, and keep sending out several copies per day. It does't take much effort. But if you hook a few people, you come out way ahead, no?
@kenshin2143 (1880)
• Philippines
21 Oct 12
Well, considering the things you mentioned, intelligent people will recognize such emails to be scam. However, not all people are that intelligent and most people who fell for it are people who really wants easy money. Even if they are that intelligent, their consciousness may sometimes be blinded by the urge to acquire such monetary consideration.
@Raine38 (12391)
• United States
21 Oct 12
Yeah, I had received lots of these before and they all went in the same place: trash. I even had a message sent to me through Triond. Anyway, it is clearly a scam, it raises lots of red flags right from the very subject of the email. But there was this one documentary that I have seen years ago that some people actually did fall for this kind of thing. What prompted them to do it is the promise of big, easy money. So sad.
@Aquitaine24 (11813)
• San Jose, California
22 Oct 12
I've gotten ones from the "King of Africa".In poor countties like Nigeria thereare actually college classes on how to write these scams.it's amazing how similar many of these are.
@dan_1973 (13)
• Romania
22 Oct 12
I had a few with inherited millions of dollars, all kind of campaign promotions i ve won, all u need to do is give them your bank account and if u have some money there it would be all gone as you blink lol, if u have any attached files don t even think to open it. i ve heard a good one, to send money by western union so they can transfer me some money! i belive there are people out there stupid enough to give them some personal details unfortunately.
