[visakanv]

I think a lot about the inverse Hanlon's razor, which is "if you want to do something malicious, make sure you can get away with attributing it to stupidity".

[eponeponepon]

To misquote Clarke, "sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from stupidity".

[BerislavLopac]

I wanted to propose the name "Clarke-Hanlon Theorem" for this, but apparently it's already known as Grey's Law: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HanlonsRazor

Edit: Actually it's not, the Grey's Law is the opposite of what eponeponepon wrote...

[visakanv]

Damn, that's fantastic. I'm using that from now on.

[vikascoder]

Or if your most stupid con act works on a particular set of people, you have struck gold. This is very deliberate on their part. They are not looking for someone possessing any iota of critical thinking skills (the IRS scammers in contrast look for the most easily "scared" demoraphic). They are phishing a different kind of fish.