[danielodievich]

The Economist's Scam Inc podcast (mentioned elsewhere in this discussion too) has fascinating (and very troubling) insights into this.

I have sons heading to college this and next year and I have tried to prepare them for the world of scamming that exists out there. I sure hope I've done enough.

Just a few minutes ago I had a scam text that pig butchering begins. I typically delete them immediately but this time just to see what happens I wrote back in several languages aggressively counter-offering to teach them how to buy crypto. I got a puzzled response, then a picture of a waifish asian woman on restaraunt balcony, I think it's AI generated, but it doesn't matter, and then after me clearly not biting a "Fuck you". I wrote "I feel for you doing pig butchering, but its not going to work here", translated it to Chinese and sent that, and got back another "Fuck you", this time in Chinese. ... Now that I typed this out, I realize this was kind of pointless exchange

[dghlsakjg]

Your kids are far more likely to fall for dumb shit their friends talk them into than random texts.

They will be, or already have been, exposed to people telling them that crypto/leveraged day trading/AI/whatever is the shortcut to wealth. That will likely be their peers, or the people (podcasters) that have high status amongst their peers, and is a much more insidious problem. That's what will get them into trouble.

[busterarm]

I hate online scammers to my core -- weird reason too.

A guy I knew back in high school was notorious for falling for 419 type scams all the time. His brothers would constantly dunk on him for being scammed online. It was like 7, 8, 9 times...

Years later he was caught on TV by Chris Hansen and charged. Went to prison. That recontextualized everything. He wasn't falling for scams -- that was a fiction to cover the fact that he was being repeatedly blackmailed by people who caught on to his activities online.

It makes me extremely angry to think that people knew what he was up to and let him continue just so they could keep getting evidence against him to blackmail him again and again. Fucking furious, honestly.

[dghlsakjg]

Its far more concerning that online scammers are more effective than police at finding pedophiles, and in fact the only reason the dude did get caught by the police was as part of a copaganda collaboration with a major media company.

Policing in the US is pretty highly paid profession. We should expect more competent results from them

[busterarm]

Truly agree with you, especially with all the details that came out in his case.

His fucking email was pied_piper<local area code>@aol.com for fucks sake.

[alyandon]

You wasted their time delaying them moving on to someone else. Mission accomplished.