My in-laws are elderly and while most of their faculties are pretty decent, they don't have a grip on everything, especially when it comes to some aspects of technology. My Father-in-law bought a new TV the other day and set it up no issues. Today he got a text message saying there was a postal delivery waiting and he needed to pay a small fee to release it. Now, my wife was on the phone to her mother about the SMS and was telling her it was a phishing scam, while in the background her father was filling out the phishing form with his credit card details.
I think that most people are knowledgeable and wary, but at the same time, they are overconfident and believe "I won't get caught out - I am too smart". It is a mental trick that we play on ourselves when we recognize a scam and therefore, think we catch them all.
For example, Can you spot the three differences?
Good job - that is a kids game and I am assuming you got them all.
Are you sure there are only 3?
This is the problem these days - there is always another scam and with our attention pulled this way and that, the chances of us getting them all are near impossible. Part of the problem is that there are so many things vying for our attention every moment of every day, that how are we supposed to focus on anything of importance? The problem is amplified because just like at school when every teacher believed their discipline warranted the most focus, everything is cast as important to the point that nothing is. Well of course, there is a lot that is important but it isn't necessarily where our attention gets paid.
I believe that a lot of the important things that influence us are hidden under a layer of boredom - like economic and financial literacy, while so much excitement is placed on the irrelevant. Everyone wants to see the gladiators in action, no one wants to do the accounting.
I think about this in general though - how much am I missing, can I know? Perhaps we are all being phished, our attention pulled away from where it should be paid. Like a magician's sleight of hand, smoke and mirrors to fool us into the belief we are following the trick when we have already been fooled - the game already changed.
The funny thing is that it isn't much different to what happened to my Father-in-law, they take our credit card numbers too, but they don't stop there. With each new shiny bauble that grabs our attention, the debt grows just a little more until there is no reeling it back in, just a continuous obligation to service it. Servitude. Each round reducing opportunity for the many, increasing profits for the few - A spiraling cycle, but not endless - there is a bottom.
There was no damage done to my wife's father, the card has been canceled and a new one ordered - though I think that he is a little embarrassed that he was caught out. But it could be worse, he might have spent his whole life having his future bled and only find out at retirement - like most of us probably will - unless we are paying attention.
Taraz
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