Can anyone really fall for a scam? I'm not particularly smart or wealthy and I've never fallen for a scam despite numerous attempts. Maybe I've just gotten lucky but scams seem quite easy to avoid.

(I have had a few fraudulent charges on my credit cards but I don't really consider those to be scams and they're easy to resolve.)

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habinero 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yes. Anyone can be gotten with the right bait. Most people are never targeted and there's a lot of things that mitigate spray-n-pray attacks, but when it comes down to it, human cognition just has some fundamental exploitable weaknesses. It doesn't really have anything to do with intelligence.

For example, we're insanely good at pattern matching, but the flip side to that is we're not effective at spotting the rare subtle difference.

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nradov 2 days ago | parent [-]

I've been targeted many times. I don't believe your assertion that my cognition has fundamental exploitable weaknesses. I think you're just making that up. Citation needed.

	▲	habinero 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I wasn't calling you stupid, my dude. Chill. Human cognition has evolved to be very good at some things but is terrible at others. We're great at spotting patterns, and terrible at spotting the rare subtle exception. If you haven't fallen for anything, great, but that's because no one has ever cared enough to target you personally.

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crooked-v 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Being average makes it easier, because nobody's specifically targeting you using information scammed out of your less canny family or coworkers.