You know, I’ve always wondered how scammers get the information that they use to act on their prey. If you’ve been the target of a scam attack, then you’d know that these faceless people know some things about you that only close friends and family should know, and as a result, they’ll be able to get you to drop your guard and eventually trust them enough until they wipe you clean of everything that you have.
I think I made a post about something like this one time. The levels these scammers go to these days and the amount of research that they put into their work is astounding. Because of the kind of knowledge that they come fortified with ehn, you’d be shocked to your bone marrow. They’d know your name, your brothers and sisters, hell they’d even know where you live and the relationship with your landlord.
How do they get these things? Who is feeding them this information? Because there is no way this is guesswork, no guesswork can be consistently so accurate. There has to be enough thought and process put into this to guarantee the kind of effect that they want. However, it makes me think, if they do so much research into it, why don’t they find more expensive clients to defraud?
Well, the answer is easier than you’d think. It’s easier to defraud someone who has only N100k than it is to defraud someone who is worth N100 billion. They are polar opposites and one was able to acquire such an amount of money jealously and aggressively. Before they’d give it to someone, they’d do their due diligence. I guess that’s what the fraudsters try to avoid because it is something most poor people can’t afford. Hell, even the police won’t take your case seriously, the bank won’t help you either. Once your money is gone, best believe that it is gone!
At this point, it’s quite easy for me to get my hackles up. Even when it comes to my family members. If any of them sends me a text asking for financial help, I would first call them on the phone to hear them say the words. Because it can be quite painful to give your last card to your Mom, thinking you’re helping her out of an emergency only to find out that you were scammed and nothing was actually wrong with your Mom.
And funny enough, another reason I say they put a lot of effort into this is how things always seem to work in their favor. If they call you pretending to be your Mom, for some reason, your Mom might not be with you at the moment. It could be that she went to buy something. Hell, you could even try calling her and her number would not be reachable. These are the little details that get to us and make us fall for their tricks and gimmicks.
But then, we’re humans, and no matter what, we’d always want to help our loved ones. If we have even the slightest idea that our family is in trouble. Many of us won’t even think of the possibility of it being a scam. We’d hurriedly give what we could to help out. As a result, we never can tell really. We could give out the money and get scammed, but then, it could turn out to be the real deal and we’d withhold the help from our loved ones simply because we’re scared of getting scammed. This is what this new trend has caused.
So, in the end, what do we do? I feel that it’s better to be scammed than to lose a loved one. We can forgive ourselves for being scammed, but forgiving ourselves for failing to help a loved one when we knew we could, would be harder to do. We just have to be careful, that’s all. Scrutinize each situation cautiously. The world is a big bad place and there are so many people out there who would capitalize on our weaknesses and try to rip us off. We need to do better!
So, while we protect ourselves against scammers, let’s be sure to always turn up for family. It’ll be hard, but I’m sure that we gat this.
