This paper is the one and only source for every claim from the past 10 years that "scammers make mistakes in scams on purpose." Crucially, no actual scammer or former scammer or even acquaintance of a former scammer has ever corroborated it. The paper itself is pure speculation.

If anything I think that paper serves best as a reminder that just because an idea is clever and logical, that doesn't necessarily mean it's true.[1]

[1] As another example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Gandhi

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karim79 12 minutes ago | parent [-]

No. The paper is about reducing a set, as far as I understand. It's not about mistakes. It's about the deliberacy of basically squeezing out the individuals who are vulnerable and who do not see the signs of being scammed.

	▲	Nition 3 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yes but ascribing those motivations is a guess. There's no actual scammer saying they are doing that vs. it just being a fairly unsophisticated scam. It might be the reason, but the paper provides no actual proof, and as far as I've been able to find, neither has anyone else in the decade since.