Why are scam calls getting dumber and dumber?

@AcidBurn That's surprising but makes sense when I read a little about it. My in-laws are paranoid won't even give amazon their credit card information, let alone a phone scammer. My parents are a little more sensible but still super cautious. Younger folks are used to giving up personal information all the time because they grew up with the internet so are gonna be less careful.

@CountScrofula my roommate's mom fell for the nigerian prince thing and gave "microsoft" remote access to her computer when they called about a problem they found on her pc.

@AcidBurn I don't know about that, because most the people being actually targeted for this specific scam are middle aged and older. They're not after me and the pennies in my bank account lol. I'm just receiving calls because my phone number is linked with the other persons.

@NaturallyPeculiar Ever consider that maybe your calls aren't the only scam out there? If middle aged and older are being targeted and millennials are still the majority of the victims... that's even worse.

@AcidBurn I didn't say they were. I just meant this particular scam isn't going after millennial... though on that note every millennial I know including myself wouldn't give their card or bank account number to some random person over the phone unless they confirmed legitimacy. The only people I know who've actually been scammed are all over 50 years old. Does that mean there aren't millennials falling for this stuff- no I'm sure there are but probably not any more than any other age group. It really just depends on the person. Some people are too simple and don't question things.

@NaturallyPeculiar I guess congrats on knowing smart people? Nationwide data paint a different picture.

[quote] In its annual 2017 Consumer Sentinel Data Book, which summarizes complaints from consumers, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revealed that consumers in their 20s lost more money to fraud compared to those over the age of 70.
The report cites that in the age group of 20 to 29 reporting fraud, 40 percent said they lost money. On the opposite side, of those 70 and older who reported fraud, only 18 percent said they lost anything. [/quote]

@AcidBurn This statistic is pretty skewed since there's a large gap between 20 to over 70 and completely leaves out people from ages between 30-70.
Also it doesn't give a sample or population size. This would count as not enough information to be considered an actual statistic.

@NaturallyPeculiar lol why are you so unwilling to accept real data over your personal experience? The 29-70 gap has less instances of fraud than the 20-29 and over 70 ranges.
As for population size, it's the FTC. That means anyone in the country is included. The only way this information could be skewed is that it only accounts for people who report being a fraud victim. It's entirely possible there are a lot more victims in any age group that simply don't report it.

@AcidBurn There's a difference between accepting real date and not accepting unclear data.
Also, there has to be multiple studies with the same conclusion for the data to hold up. You gave me a spinet of data that doesn't give actual number except "40% of these people report being scammed" with no percentage of people of any other ages. Also not everyone in the country would be included being as not everyone reports scams or is surveyed asking if they've ever been scammed so therefore there should be a sample size at least.

@NaturallyPeculiar I'm sure if you look up the report you can find all the data you want. The article I read only meant to summarize the findings. But it's pretty clear the sample size of people you know is a much better representation.

@AcidBurn I never said the sample size of people I know if a better representation. We're not even talking about that. It's clear that you don't think research is an important thing to do and that you must not ever question unclear date people give you and must just believe it because they say so. If you have the summary then why no send a link to the source? Even if I look it up it doesn't guarantee I will find the exact source you're quoting from.

@NaturallyPeculiar You just tried to lecture me about research, then tell me you aren't able to look this up for yourself. Alright then.

Google: age group more likely to fall for scams
I think it was a newsweek article

@AcidBurn I wasn't lecturing lol. I was using the same tone you did when you were saying how it was "clear the sample size of people you know is a much better representation". You were distracting from my point and trying to state I thought something that I didn't so I did the same to you so you would see how ridiculous it sounds...
Also I didn't say I couldn't look it up for myself. I said that if I look it up myself the sources I find will must likely not be the same one you're quoting from. If you were to do a research paper you wouldn't just say "look up the information yourself" you'd have to cite where the information came from. It's common sense that no one is going to just take your words for it. The fact that you could give a direct quote but not a direct source is a bit weird, isn't it?
I'm not sure if I found the exact source but I found a newsweekly article that had similar summary to what you had put. I then checked out other articles and they all had different percentages and most only talked about ages 20-29 vs 70+ and left out the in between again and the ones that did include the in between ages showed that ages 30-50 get scammed as much or slightly less than ages 20-29. I guess I don't have to provide sources either since you didn't so if you want to check just google what you told me to google and go through the pages and look at 15 different articles.

@NaturallyPeculiar This isn't a research paper. Why is it weird that I no longer had the page open an hour later? You'd already said the article didn't have enough information for. I'd already given you the name of the document the article referenced. I don't understand what more of a source you need.

@AcidBurn So if I were to give you random statistics about something without state a proper source you would instantly believe me and not question it at all? At the time you didn't give me the name of it though. You just copy pasted a summary. Then you just said "google this I think it was on newsweekly".

@NaturallyPeculiar The original document source was in the quote. [quote] In its annual 2017 Consumer Sentinel Data Book... [/quote]

None of what I'm presenting is hard to find.

Look up annual 2017 Consumer Sentinel Data Book and tell me if you can find what you quoted easily because that's way too broad and you know that.

@NaturallyPeculiar What I quoted was an article summarizing the data and its source.