I am 78 years old and have seen some people in my neighborhood begin to show some signs of cognitive decline. A few are being treated for dementia. These people are not stupid. Even people who think they are sharp at 80 may not be aware of their aging brain. Can you at 80 run as fast as you did at 18? Does that make you stupid?

Don’t click on anything you don’t recognize! Got a text supposedly from my cardiologist to pay a bill. A text? So I called the practice and yes, they said they have a new billing system that now texts people with a link to their site to pay the bill. Problem solved.

Excellent point. Some people are so quick to judge without knowing ALL the facts. I have a neighbor who had genius level intelligence who developed dementia and it was sad to see.

No, but it makes you slow. Bad analogy

For those who think they are too smart to ever be scammed:

It is not that simple. Raw IQ has little to do with the potential to be a victim of a scam. Scammers target emotion. They are experts at hijacking the amygdala. IQ level and emotion are two different things.

Several years ago, I attended a talk about scams where the speaker was in law enforcement and his job was to investigate scams. He talked about a case where the victim was a doctor who was scammed out of more than $100,000.

He said sometimes victims are know-it-all types who think they are so smart that they could never fall for a scam.

Other victims could be brilliant but are naive when it comes to reading other people.

I know someone who was brilliant in his career as an engineer. His name is on several patents. He is also a gifted musician. But he has now fallen for conspiracy theories and says things that are cult-talk. He is so far gone that I would bet he could fall victim if a scammer came along to talk him into donating large sums to “the cause.” Another friend tried to get through to him with some sense, but the now obsessed, cult-talker actually said to his longtime friend, “I can no longer have you in my life.” That is definitely cult-talk. Something had hammered the emotional part of his brain, long enough and hard enough, that his once good sense is gone. It is a sad mess.

Loneliness can lead to high vulnerability to those horrendous “romance scams.”

FOMO/Greed leads victims open to too-good-to-be-true investment scams. Some of Bernie Madoff’s victims were highly successful in their careers.

Some people are more susceptible to being lied to and manipulated emotionally than others. It has nothing to do with IQ. It is the result of emotional responses overpowering critical thinking skills.

Boomer

Talk to neighbor before you send your money away.
 

A neighbor told me he fell for a scam, maybe better characterized as blackmail. He was in his mid 80s, had a PhD, and had taught at an ivy league university. He seemed reasonably sharp, mentally. This was about 4 years ago. Someone contacted him, said they with Interpol, were going to arrest him for money laundering or some such. Whatever they told him, they scared him enough that he thought it would be a good idea to wire ~$200,000 to China. It's been a while so the details are hazy, and who knows how much of what he told me was accurate; he was embarrassed. It was almost all of his money, but he had a little left and a pension; enough to live adequately for the next year or two, until he died.
You can see this is not a unique event, if you search: Interpol scam.

So it can happen to smart people too . . .

Well, maybe.

about 8 years ago, "Marshall Alvarez" called me (I still had a land line then) to inform me that he was going to have me arrested on a bench warrant for failure to appear for federal jury duty in Ocala. If I didn't bring him two "vouchers" (African term for teller's checks) of $1500.00 each, he would have "local" law enforcement arrest me and I should have my lawyers present.
I countered with "Since this is a federal warrant and you are a federal agent, why don't YOU come here and arrest me, and I'll have my lawyers here. They're from the law firm of Smith, Wesson, Colt, Remington and Glock and they are real anxious to meet you. If not, then why don't you crawl back to whatever third world sh**hole you came from. Needless to say, he hung up.

Now, people must fall for this, or he wouldn't be doing it. But I'm sorry for still considering that stupid or gullible. If it is dementia related, obviously those people would need a conservator appointed.

They have gotten a lot more sophisticated since then with the use of AI, deep fakes and voice cloning. Those guys were amateurs.

It really shouldn't matter----in the end, the scammer is trying to get you to part with your money. To quote Nancy Reagan, "just say no". If they want $$$, say no. If they want information, say no. If you don't recognize the caller, don't answer. And never click a link in an e-mail. And if for some reason they get you on the phone, DON'T LISTEN AND HANG UP!

You are correct. The word stupid can be taken to mean different things, but most people consider it an insult, and probably shouldn't be used in this case.

“No, but it makes you slow.”

You have no idea who they target

*They* have no idea who they target. Too much time and effort involved with narrowing down a list. Cheapest/fastest way is to spam everyone and hope someone takes the bait. Most won't bite but it costs the same to send one email as it does to send 100,000 and if just one out of every ten thousand does then the scammer wins.

Exactly. 80-year-olds run slower than 18-year-olds, glad you agree.

But the really slow people are those that try to take little snippets out of context, especially when they are glaringly obvious.

somebody pulled this scam on my father-in-law some years back. we got a call from him late @ night, very concerned about about our daughter. i told him she was asleep in her bed, i'm so glad he didn't give out any info but he was very upset none the less, not knowing this scam existed