This Scam Business

Young Scam Artist

Yesterday I came to the very sad and discouraging conclusion that just about every virtual interaction among humans in this current world is polluted by predators who've decided they don't need a moral compass when dealing with a multitude of potential patsies. Their numbers continue to burgeon as the world becomes poorer, and more naive and desperate for any break. Their masterful scams become ever more subtle and sophisticated. Their favorite targets here in the States are new immigrants, the elderly, and the mentally challenged. The police traditionally have turned a blind eye to their machinations since, for the most part, they're non-violent - and out of their grasp. In the past five years, since covid reared its ugly head, I've had to deal with multiple internet scams, whether by email, text, Messenger or FaceBook. There is nothing under the sun these culural sociopaths won't try to hoover a bank account. When I say cultual sociopaths, I mean families and clans who, for centuries, have lived by criminal means. In the past they separated themselves from, and never interacted socially with their prey. Parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts inducted their youngsters into the use of all the most sophisticated of criminal tricks upon the unsuspecting. In fact, their manipulations were so subtle and multi-level that the victims didn't know they'd been fleeced until those scam artists were long gone from the area.

Nowadays these scofflaws have it even better. When the internet came along they must have jumped for joy! No longer would they have to travel as carneys from town to town with a circus, or take out expensive ads in the newspapers/magazines or TV and rent a rundown office with a bunch of telephones to set up their nefarious boiler room businesses. All they'd need (after some social media training) was a computer in their very own living room connected with those of their grifter pals, wherever they lived in the whole wide world, to scam the millions of potential suckers out there who use the internet! For a seasoned prowler through the dark web with an ingenious grasp of human psychology, the pickings are almost too good to be true!