Why are there so many gullible people out there?

0

Looking for love in all the wrong places …

 

HARDLY a day goes by without some item of news telling us of someone, somewhere in Sarawak or elsewhere in Malaysia, being conned, scammed, cheated, or simply relieved of his or her hard earned money by means that seems so incredulous and simply too silly or stupid to be believed.

It could be a young woman who was told a tall story either by email, by phone or simply a text message to send thousands of ringgit into a fake bank account overseas (or even locally) in order to secure some parcel, gift, or prize. It could be her helping someone out of a nasty situation (being threatened with imprisonment or worse), or a man whom she had only recently made the acquaintance of online, who promised her of a more lasting relationship, or simply a chance of increasing an ‘investment’ in some money scheme or golden opportunity or product.

One can understand if such a scam involves some product or scheme — as in investment in a gold bullion product or a Bitcoin type of scam — as it can be rather elementary for a conman to convince in lingo which can sound exciting and complicated enough to confuse his potential target. Most of the time there would be third parties involved, or the names of influential people involved would be bandied about.

But wait, let’s start at the very beginning before we go any further.

By our very human nature, we are normally creatures of some curiosity and — although intrinsically we are good, kind, gentle natured, intelligent and street smart people — we are not completely without any flaw.

Inherent within us all there is pride, prejudice, fear, honour, and greed. That’s just to name a few human characteristics.

The conman or scam artist’s job is simply to appeal to the most basic flaw that we all have — that of greed — and then to continue the scam they will play on our fear and pride to seal the deal and to complete the con.

They say that if you are an insurance agent or a direct marketing sales person, the most difficult clients to deal with are your closest friend and your relatives. That’s because they are too familiar with you and know you too well. One would assume that with this familiarity and trust it must be pretty easy to convince them, and sell to him or her. But the truth of the matter is that usually that’s not the case at all.

So why should a normal person, who is smart and intelligent, put his or her entire trust in a stranger and be conned out of his or her life savings?

The con artist usually has a very reasonable and believable story to sell, with it a baited carrot — usually a monetary reward — which is sufficient enough to lure and attract but not exorbitantly large as to cause disbelief.

It then takes the victim’s greed and the con artist’s sweet talk to lead to some easy method to secure the targeted monetary amount — usually involving transferring funds into a private personal bank account. All this has to happen within a very short period of time, preferably within the same day, better still during the phone call, text messaging period, or email thread. This denies the target from checking with her family or friends on the plausibility of the con.

The con artist will firstly secure the personal guarantee of the sting target to  “not disclose this offer to anyone else”, either his or her closest friends or relatives, on the account that the very special offer is just for him or her. No one else is entitled to it. This quickly forms an intimate bond with the gullible target.

Upon acting on the instructions of the con artist, the target would do the necessary transaction and complete the deal.

The realisation of what has actually happened — that he or she has been conned and taken for a ride — would only set in after what was promised has not been fulfilled, sent, or delivered. The reality would sink in very quickly. He or she has been conned!

Pride and fear sets in next. A majority of those who have been scammed will usually wait a period of time, going over and over in his or her mind what and where he or she had done wrong. Most would just write it off as a bad lapse of judgement and let it pass. Few would tell family or friends, and even fewer would make police reports.

It is next to impossible to recover whatever has been lost — the money together with one’s pride and dignity.

Such cons and scams have been in existence since the beginning of time as the world is filled with con artists and scammers. At the same time, there are many gullible people in our midst, people ready and willing to part with their hard-earned money, sometimes their lifelong savings, in order to benefit from some get rich quick scheme or some fantasy offer to a chance for lifelong happiness.

For some, it’s not money. It’s an opportunity for a second chance in life: these are the victims (unfortunately usually women) who have been approached, enticed, and seduced — either online, by text message, Skype, or WhatsApp, or even by direct contact — to believe that offers of either marriage or a deeper relationship are possible, provided she parts with certain sums of money to be invested in some preliminary preparatory deposits for this or that.

Such women are easy targets; they are usually lonely single women, either ageing spinsters, recently widowed, or even simply lonely women just seeking love and companionship in all the wrong places. Many country and western songs have been written about them — and if only they had listened and understood, they could have been saved from a whole lot of heartache, headaches, and emptied out bank accounts.

The next time you pick up such a suspicious phone call, receive a text message, or an email which sounds too good to be true, it probably is so just end the call or don’t even bother to respond.

Play it safe, don’t be so gullible.