[joe_the_user]

To almost everyone that they need to sell to, it sounds ridiculous and dystopian.

I've heard this kind of apology for scams before.

If a "scam that sounds like a scam" still rips people successfully, well, the scammers are still guilty of fraud and I still view people who do it with contempt.

And "scams that sound like scams" are marketed to desperate people. In many ways, finding a promise people want to believe is more important than finding a claim that you easily defend. The people who check out frauds in detail are never a fraud's target market.