Why do people fall for scams?

Scam has become a rampant thing in the society today, it has been in existence for a long time but technology has given it the wings to fly. Technology has aided the operation of scammers to the extent that they can wreak havoc in any part of the world from the corner of their room.

There are many times I ask myself why scammers don't put the same energy they put into duping people into doing legal things but I still don't know what joy they derive from causing people pain.

Scamming took a new dimension with crypto, the crypto-verse became a target for many scammers. Every day, lots of crypto wallets and exchange sites are being attacked and these scammers cart away with lots of money when they are successful with their heartbreaking job. Their actions include hacking, sending links of phishing sites, luring people with rewards, and many others.

If you go around asking everyone if they have had an encounter with a scammer before, I am sure we will have more yes than no. The first and last time I fell victim to a scam was a long time ago, I was just a teenager. I wanted to get a phone that should cost about $40 for $20, isn't that greed? I was really hurt then but I learned my lesson. If I didn't fall, victim, that day, I could have done it later and it might something that would be huge to recover from quickly.

I looked into many individual scam cases and came to the conclusion that the two major reasons why people fall into scams are because of ignorance and greed, these two things have made people fall into the traps of scammers and lose a lot of money.

These exclude organizations and companies that are been hacked by hackers, hacking is a different case on its own.

Ignorance

I have seen people blame scam victims, especially in the crypto verse but not every victim can be blamed. You can't be too perfect when it comes to scam issues but you can be very careful, I have seen crypto geeks fall victim to scams without even knowing what was happening.

You can't blame all victims in the world where a single click on a link can reduce your wallet from millions to zero, an ignorant person can make such a mistake and this doesn't have to do about you being a crypto expert or not.

Like I said earlier, you can't be perfect but you can be very careful enough when engaging with the internet. Today, I find it hard to even click links from people because I don't know who is at the other end of the computer.

Some month ago, a friend of mine was scammed. The scammer got my Instagram account and I wasn't aware of it, they reach out to all my friends telling them about a business that yields well. Many of my friends know that I love business and there are some I we have done one or two things together that trust me.

A lot of them called me and I made it clear that it wasn't me, I eventually discovered the account has been hacked. I reached out to my contacts not to engage with anything from the account but this friend of mine didn't get the message and she didn't doubt what the impersonator said, she thought she was chatting with me and sent $400 to them immediately.

She should have at least called but she was too sure of the person at the other end of the computer and unfortunately for her, it wasn't me.

You can't be too sure of anything on the internet so I avoid clicking on links except when I am certain of the source, being careful enough can help in situations where you aren't sure about what you are getting into and there is no point pressing further if you are not sure or feel suspicious about anything.

When you don't know what you are getting into, just ignore it or make research about it if you are curious and want to clear your doubts.

Greed.

For some victims, it is greed. They are been enticed with things they haven't worked for or even have a bit of connection with and I wonder what they think of while trying to earn rewards that they have done nothing to get.

Even if you weren't meant to fall for their tricks, the moment you develop a pinch of greed then you are going down because scammers just need you to trust them and greed is what makes you trust them so quickly.

I was prompted to write about this because of what a guy went through on Monday, the 8th of August.

He was contacted by a group of scammers and he was told he won $10,000 worth of Bitcoin but he has to register on their platform which requires giving out his debit card details, he was about to do it when my mom interfered because he is part of their evangelical team and he told her about it.

She gave him my contact to seek advice from me which he did and I discovered it was a scam, everything they showed him was a demo account. He was completely ignorant about crypto and the first thing he should have asked himself was what did I do to deserve such a reward?

Fortunately for him, he was just a step away from getting scammed.

Aside from the regular scams, Ponzi scam is another thing people dive into with the hope of making money. It baffles me how using we trust people who promise us $100 in 3days after depositing $20, are the people behind it some kind of philanthropist or something?

Like I said earlier, greed is the only thing that powers thought of reaping from where you haven't worked.

Scammers keep coming up with advanced approaches and tricking people with rewards is very common today, things are hard and a $50 bait can get you stuck in a scammers hooks which would eventually make you lose more money. This has nothing to do with your level of education or exposure and once they sense greed while interacting with you, they have gotten an edge over you.

Avoiding scammers isn't such a difficult thing to do, you can just overlook their bait messages. I usually have fun with them lately, I play along for a while before telling them to get a job instead of trying to steal from people.

I have read stories and seen people claiming that scammers use some kind of charm to lock their victims and it makes me laugh. The charm they use is exploiting their victim's ignorance and greed. As an individual, working on these two can help you avoid falling victims to scams no matter how they try.

Thanks for reading.

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