We all like to think we are smart, independent, in full control of our lives, and there is no way any of us would fall for a financial scam, like those lonely old seniors do, because “that happens to them, not to me, because I am smart.”
But the truth is, even smart people fall for it, people with master degrees, people who work in academia, people running large business… Even I could fall for this.
And how did you learn to recognize it?
A scammer almost got me recently, saying they were calling from the fraud department of my credit card company. I started talking to them until I remembered I had closed that specific account years ago. It was convincing up until that point. When I questioned it, the caller became irate and said “oh yeah, well if I’m a scammer, how do I have your address???”. She read it off, and it was a place I’d moved from years ago as well.