150. Why Do People Get Scammed?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Why Do People Get Scammed?"

No Stupid Questions – Episode 150
Date: June 18, 2023
Hosts: Angela Duckworth and Mike Maughan

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Angela Duckworth (research psychologist and author of "Grit") and Mike Maughan (tech and sports executive) tackle a listener question: "Why do people get scammed? Is everyone susceptible, and how can we protect ourselves no matter our age?" The hosts approach the topic with candor—sharing personal stories, exploring the psychology and sociology of scams, and reflecting on themes of trust, shame, and gullibility. Along the way, they discuss generational differences, new AI-driven scam threats, and the deep emotional toll scams often exact on victims.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Personal Scam Stories and Shame (01:53–05:04)

• Angela’s Family Experience
  Angela recounts a painful incident where her elderly mother fell for a classic "grandchild in trouble" scam, ultimately sending $15,000 in cash to a Miami P.O. box.

  • Notable Quote:
    "It was actually more than the money in this scam that was the real cost to her... I think she was really embarrassed. Honestly, I think there was something shameful about having fallen for the scam." — Angela Duckworth (04:15)
  • Emotional cost far exceeded the financial loss: research cited shows ~80% of scam victims report emotional suffering, versus 24% reporting financial distress.

• Mike’s Near-Miss
  Mike recalls nearly falling for an early 2000s Nigerian email scam—made tempting by the (irrelevant but oddly convincing) coincidence that his brother had just returned from Nigeria. Though he didn’t lose money, he admits to feeling embarrassed for having engaged with the scammer at all.

  • Notable Quote:
    "I'm dumb, and I, at the very beginning, engaged with a Nigerian email scam. So yay for me." — Mike Maughan (07:06)

• Cultural Reflection:
  The shame in being scammed is highlighted as a major reason the cycle perpetuates: victims feel too embarrassed to share their experiences, so others don't get warned.

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2. Trust vs. Vigilance – The Psychological Dilemma (08:54–10:14)

• Angela muses on the knife-edge between trust and skepticism, noting that society runs on a baseline of trust, yet too much vigilance can undermine social functioning and even democracy.
  • Quote:
    "It's hard to know how to do both those things at the same time. These things are in tension." — Angela Duckworth (09:35)

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3. Who Gets Scammed? Age and Demographic Myths (10:14–15:22)

• Data and Research:
  Mike challenges the stereotype that the elderly are most at risk. Angela summarizes the academic literature:

  • There is no clear pattern showing older people are more likely overall to fall for scams.
  • The nature of scams varies by age:
    • 60+: Victims of business imposters, tech support, prize/sweepstake, and family imposter scams
    • 18–59: Victims of online shopping scams, investment fraud, and fake checks
  • Quote:
    "The pattern that scientists are trying to put together almost doesn't exist... So I'm going to go with no, false." — Angela Duckworth (11:10)

• Active Victim Participation:
  Angela reads an academic definition of scams: the victim must play an active role, unlike in most crimes—making the emotional toll (and sense of culpability) much higher.

  • Quote:
    “Without the victim's involvement, most scams would simply fail.” — Angela Duckworth (12:18, quoting research article)

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4. The Advent of AI and Modern Scam Tactics (15:22–18:28)

• AI Voice Spoofing:
  Mike details a harrowing recent story from his neighborhood:

  • A scammer used AI to simulate the victim’s daughter’s voice in a fake kidnapping plot. The ruse lasted eight hours, draining the man emotionally and financially, as he was made to believe his family's life was at stake.

  • The scam's sophistication and scary realism are new, highlighting a rising threat with generative AI.

  • Advice from experts: Establish a family "code word" for emergencies.

  • Quote:
    "He hears his daughter's voice saying, Dad, Dad, help me... He is 100% convinced that was the voice of his daughter..." — Mike Maughan (16:26)

• Aftermath and Community Response:
  Unlike most victims, the family publicized their story to warn others—a rare break in the cycle of silence caused by shame.

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5. Gullibility: Nature, Balance, and Biases (24:43–33:58)

• Admitting Gullibility:
  Angela cheerfully confesses to being "willfully gullible," resisting cynicism in favor of openness. Mike contrasts this with historical gullibility (e.g., "snake oil" salesmen).

  • Fun Quote:
    "What is the most silly, gullible thing you've believed? ...Oh, God, Mike, I would believe almost anything." — Angela Duckworth (25:06)

• Snake Oil Sidebar:
  The hosts take a historical detour into the origins of "snake oil"—an actual Chinese remedy that worked, but was later copied by American fakes.

• Psychological Literature:
  Angela references a review by Hugo Mercier, concluding that humans are not universally gullible due to "epistemic vigilance": we are surprisingly good at rejecting misleading messages most of the time.

  • Quote:
    “This evidence shows epistemic vigilance to be efficient... enables individuals to reject most misleading messages.” — Angela Duckworth (29:45, quoting Mercier)

• Cognitive Biases and Storytelling:
  Mike notes the role of confirmation bias: people fall for scams that align with beliefs or desires, such as wanting to help family, be exceptional, or be loved. Angela adds that not all scams can be blamed on wanting to believe; sometimes, other cognitive and emotional biases are at play.

  • Quote:
    "Human beings are like causation machines. We love stories..." — Angela Duckworth (33:46)

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6. "Confidence" Men and the Power of Persuasion (33:58–37:40)

• Origin of "Con-man":
  Mike explains it comes from "confidence man":

  • Story of William Thompson, who gained people's trust and convinced them to hand over valuables—demonstrating the power of perceived confidence.

• Infamous Scams:

  • Selling the Eiffel Tower for scrap
  • Repeatedly "selling" the Brooklyn Bridge to unsuspecting buyers

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7. Protecting Ourselves: Learning the Psychology of Persuasion (37:40–38:01)

• Angela's best advice: Read Robert Cialdini's "Influence" to understand persuasion tactics.
  • Cialdini, a psychologist, aims to "inoculate" people against scams by explaining the psychological levers manipulators use.
  • Quote:
    "What truly has motivated him is just the idea that his moral duty is to kind of inoculate all of us against scams..." — Angela Duckworth (37:19)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Shame of Being Scammed:
  "There's something strangely…shameful about falling for a scam that, to me, is the greater of the crimes." — Angela Duckworth (04:15)

• On the Trust Dilemma:
  "It's hard to know how to do both those things at the same time... These things are in tension." — Angela Duckworth (09:35)

• On AI-Driven Scams:
  "They've taken her voice... AI then took it and created her saying, 'Dad, Dad, help me.' ...He is 100% convinced that was the voice of his daughter." — Mike Maughan (16:26)

• On Gullibility:
  "Not only would I say that I am gullible, I think I'm almost willfully gullible... I don't even want to be, like, sophisticated or shrewd." — Angela Duckworth (24:46)

• On 'Confidence Men':
  "The original phrase was confidence man… He would ask them this line, 'Have you confidence in me to trust me with your watch until tomorrow?' And a shocking number of people would just hand him their watch." — Mike Maughan (34:14)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:53 – Angela’s family scam story
• 04:15 – Emotional vs. financial costs of scams
• 05:35 – Mike’s near-miss with a Nigerian scam
• 10:14 – Are older people more likely to be scammed?
• 12:18 – Definition and emotional impact of scams
• 15:22 – Scam tactics, data mining, and security advice
• 16:26 – AI voice cloning and a neighborhood scam case
• 24:43 – Gullibility: personality or principle?
• 29:45 – Epistemic vigilance and human resistance to scams
• 33:58 – The origin of the "con-man"
• 37:19 – Angela’s advice: Read Cialdini’s "Influence"

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Takeaways & Listener Advice

• Scams can affect anyone, regardless of age or background—the type of scam may differ.
• The emotional impact is often deeper and longer-lasting than the financial toll.
• Social stigma and shame keep victims quiet, perpetuating the cycle.
• Cognitive biases (confirmation, self-serving, causal storytelling) make us vulnerable.
• The sophistication of scams (especially with AI) is increasing—be vigilant, consider code words for emergencies, and discuss these topics openly.
• Education about persuasion tactics (e.g., by reading "Influence") can help inoculate us against being scammed.

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Episode relevance:
Rich with heartfelt stories, practical insights, and a look at both historical and cutting-edge scam techniques, this episode gives listeners a nuanced understanding of why scams succeed—and how we might resist them. The hosts’ candid admissions and refusal to shame victims provide comfort and guidance for a topic fraught with emotional pain and cultural taboo.

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Transcript

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[Angela Duckworth]

Oh, God. I have not been reading those emails carefully. I'm Angela Duckworth. I'm Mike Mon and you're listening to no Stupid Questions.

[Show Producer / Narrator]

Today on the show, why do people fall for scams?

[Mike Mann]

My brother had just returned from spending the summer in, you guessed it, Nigeria.

[Angela Duckworth]

Oh, God.

Mike, we have a great question that cuts a little close to the bone, at least in my own life. It's from Raymond Chen and he asks, why do people get scammed? Is everyone susceptible? How do we check ourselves before committing to a scam, no matter what stage of life we're in?

[Mike Mann]

You just said it cuts close to the bone. I think it's important that we be honest with our listeners from the beginning. I'm gonna admit one as well, but do you wanna start? Have you ever fallen for a scam?

[Angela Duckworth]

I am sure that I have. But I'll tell you what's at the very top of my memory. My mom, who you know, is amazing and wonderful. So she's 88 now. So it was a few years ago. And it cuts close to the bone because by the way, it was actually more than the money in this scam that was the real cost to her. And then by extension, so somebody calls my mom and I can't recreate the conversation cause it wasn't recorded. So I only have it from my mom's rendition. But some conversation that was like, your grandson is in trouble. And then my mom, I think said something like, oh, my grandson Bill. And then, you know, it's like, yes, your grandson Bill. So I think this conversation ended up convincing my mom quite definitively that her grandson was in jail in Florida and bail needed to be posted in cash immediately by my mom mailing $15,000 to a P.O. box in Miami.

[Mike Mann]

Oh, goodness.

[Angela Duckworth]

And it was successful. I mean, from the scammer's perspective, I think, if I recall correctly, my mom had to make two separate withdrawals. So she had to, like, make two separate mailings, I think, like, one through FedEx and one through UPS to this place in Miami.

[Mike Mann]

And was there some urgency to. I mean, was this. Bill's gonna. Why would she not call Bill or.

[Angela Duckworth]

You or you can ask that question? I cannot fully answer it.

[Mike Mann]

Yeah. Fair.

[Angela Duckworth]

But I think the story that was shared was something like, and you have to do it right now, and if you don't do it right now, whatever. And so whatever they said, I think, I'm sure was entirely plausible.

[Mike Mann]

What I'm not gonna do is ask about Bill and whether it's believable that he would be in jail.

[Angela Duckworth]

Like, for the record, Bill is not in jail and never has been, nor to my knowledge has he ever been to Florida.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Oh, wow.

[Angela Duckworth]

There you go.

[Mike Mann]

As a brief aside, if you', bored, which I know you're not, but one of the most delightful things that you can ever do is just Google Florida man and then see what comes up after it. Because, I mean, I don't know what men in Florida do, but I have.

[Angela Duckworth]

Been educated by the Florida man meme. I was, like, the last person to learn about it. But, yeah, Florida man, in this case, Bill was not Florida man. But, yeah, my mom was scammed. And actually, I think she was really embarrassed. Honestly, I think there was something shameful about having fallen for the scam. But I do know from research that when victims of scams are surveyed, that close to 80% of them will say that they suffered emotionally when only, like, 25% of them. I think the numbers are 79 and 24 here. But, like, 79% of scam victims say they've suffered emotionally. Only 24% say they suffered financially. So there's something strangely, I think, shameful about falling for a scam that, to me, is the greater of the crimes.

[Mike Mann]

Well, that's what's crazy is so many people feel so embarrassed about these. But that's what also perpetuates the ability for the scams to keep going. I do think it's fair that I share with you my scam story. Yeah. So in fairness, I didn't get scammed, but it's like, insanely embarrassing because it's literally the worst, dumbest scam of all time. But let me just put into context. The Internet was relatively new. Ish. Email was at the very beginning stages of ubiquitous use.

[Angela Duckworth]

So what year are we in?

[Mike Mann]

We're like 2003 maybe.

[Angela Duckworth]

Okay.

[Mike Mann]

And my brother. I'm giving it away right now. My brother had just returned from spending the summer in, you guessed it, Nigeria.

[Angela Duckworth]

Oh, God, is there prince in this story?

[Mike Mann]

Like, it's so dumb now, but just give me a little grace here, okay? My brother's just come home from Nigeria. I get this email using my name, and my email address does not have my actual name on it. So they had my actual name and they wrote about this. It wasn't quite the Nigerian prince yet, but there was all this money in Nigeria for me and my family, and I did not believe it, but there was the hint of, like, same. When you play the lottery, you're like, well, it's not gonna happen.

[Angela Duckworth]

But maybe, maybe. Oh, wait, in this case, it's not the Nigerian prince asking you to wire funds. It's that you have somehow struck it.

[Mike Mann]

R. That's how it always worked. It's like, hey, there's all this money here. If you wire this money, then we'll send you all of the riches.

[Angela Duckworth]

Oh, God. I have not been reading those emails carefully.

[Mike Mann]

Now, in fairness, I did email back twice, but I never got to the point of, like. Basically I just asked and I said, how do you have my full name? Like, how do you know what my name is? And they wrote back one more time, and they're like, hey, we need to da da da da da. And I was like, how do you know my name? And then they never wrote back again.

[Angela Duckworth]

Did they say, dear Mike, or did they say dear Mike Mon?

[Mike Mann]

I assume dear Mike Mann would have given it away, but it had my full name in there somewhere.

[Angela Duckworth]

Got it somewhere. They knew and they didn't reply. They didn't tell you how they knew your full name?

[Mike Mann]

Yeah, and that's when we just stopped. But point is, I'm dumb, and I, at the very beginning, engaged with a Nigerian email scam. So yay for me. One thing that is interesting, though, and this is a totally tangential aside, there's this book called yes Man. I think they later made a movie about it. But this guy, Danny Wallace, who lived in London, he was getting bored. His life was getting boring. His friends were worried about him. So he makes this decision that for six months, he's just gonna say yes to Literally everything. So anytime someone says, do you wanna go out tonight? He says yes. Anytime someone offers him whatever, he says yes. And so he gets, of course, an email about some scam and he writes back and says yes. And the story goes that he never actually wires the money, but he does. He's in London, he flies to Amsterdam, he like meets up with these people. And it's just this idea of what happens if you always say yes. It's a very beautiful and somewhat dangerous way to live. But I love this idea that he just was like, look, I'm just gonna go for it. Let's just fully engage with the scam and see what happens.

[Angela Duckworth]

The happy ending. Cause it's a Hollywood film, right?

[Mike Mann]

No, it's a true book that then became a Hollywood movie.

[Angela Duckworth]

Oh, it's a true story.

[Mike Mann]

True story, yeah. Danny Wallace is a real human.

[Angela Duckworth]

And so the real world happy ending is that he goes far enough that he experiences new things, broadens his vistas, makes. Makes new friends, but doesn't lose his shirt.

[Mike Mann]

Right. I think the real world happy ending is that he meets his wife because he said yes to so many things. That has nothing to do with scams.

[Angela Duckworth]

Oh, that is a really good happy ending.

[Mike Mann]

Yes.

[Angela Duckworth]

No, it doesn't. But it's a really good ending.

[Mike Mann]

To all of our listeners who have not yet met the person of their dreams, the way to do it may be through saying yes and through engaging in scams. That's bad advice.

[Angela Duckworth]

I don't think I'm gonna back you on that. Just for the record, I did not agree with that. But I do think what scams reveal is this difficult decision that we have to make continuously. If you're on the knife edge between trust and distrust, between, sure, I'll give it a go, and no, I'm gonna be conservative and risk averse, then I guess there's some wisdom in saying, like, well, if you're gonna be on the knife edge, falling off on the side of trust and yes, and why not? Would not be the bad edge to fall off of on average. That's what's interesting to me about scams. I haven't fully understood the shame of it, but at the same time, as we don't want to fall for scams, I think we also want to give our fellow human beings the benefit of the doubt. And it's hard to know how to do both those things at the same time. These things are intention. You cannot both give people the benefit of the doubt, assume the best of intentions. And what is trust other than Belief without fact. You can't do all of that and prop up American democracy, et cetera, and also be, like, vigilantly scanning the horizon for scammers. I don't know if they're mutually exclusive and that you can't do a little of one and a lot of the other. I think they're pulling us in different directions.

[Mike Mann]

I agree. I think it's a huge piece of how we have to decide how to live our lives and what kind of people we want to be and how we want to interact with others. That said, let's ask a few questions for a second about who actually falls for scams and go into it. So I've got it. True or false? Older people are more likely to fall for scams.

[Angela Duckworth]

Okay, well, I'm gonna test my knowledge. Cause I looked into this a little bit, at least in part because of my own family's experience. And I found this article by a professor of decision sciences named Yanif Hanaud and Stacey Wood, who's a professor of psychology. And they wrote a review article in my favorite journal, one of my favorite journals, Current Directions in Psychological Science. The title of this article is the Scams Among Colon. Who Falls Prey and why? So I'm gonna answer your question with their summary, which is that it's not that the older you are, the more likely you are to fall for scams. I think the pattern that scientists are trying to put together almost doesn't exist. Like, one study says one thing, another says another. So I'm gonna go with no, false. It's not older people, but it's also not younger people. It defies any pattern.

[Mike Mann]

Yeah, I think it's interesting because every. I mean, I talked to a few people about scam and was just getting anecdotal research. And literally every person I talked to about scams, their response was something like, oh, sounds like my dad, or, oh, you should talk to my parents. Because there's this idea.

[Angela Duckworth]

Yeah, it does seem like older people are the ones who are just constantly getting taken advantage of.

[Mike Mann]

Right. They're the ones who actually answer unknown phone numbers on their phone. And then they're like, sure, yes, Billy is in jail.

[Angela Duckworth]

The thing about this research is that I don't think it's very easy to do hypothetical lab studies on scams, because these authors, Yanif and Stacey, they defined what a scam is. And I'm going to read to you from this article. Scams have several features that distinguish them from most, if not all, other crimes. The perpetrators can be, and often are, located Far away from their potential victims. Also, potential victims must play an active role in the process. They provide personal information, send money, keep the activity secret, and fail to report it to the authorities. In fact, without the victim's involvement, most scams would simply fail. Thus, although there is a large scope for researchers to examine the underlying mechanisms involved in individuals engagement with and adherence to scammers requests and demands, there is a paucity of data on the topic. So this elemental feature of scams, that, you know, somebody can pick your pocket, somebody can even mug you, an awful crime that happens to you. But scams have this additional feature where you unwittingly were part of the whole crime itself. Maybe, and I know we're speculating here, but I don't know, Mike. Maybe this is why it's such an emotional burden. Maybe this is why it's embarrassing or even shameful. Because unlike getting your pocket picked or your car broken into or even being mugged, you somehow feel partly guilty.

[Mike Mann]

Well, you participated in. It only worked because you did it right. You played your part, which I believe 100%. And that adds to the shame, which is what lets these things keep going. The U.S. census Bureau put out some data on loss reports by age and fraud type. So older adults, which they define as 60 plus, and then younger adults, which is 18 to 59 year olds. So older adults were more likely to fall victims to scams with a business imposter, tech support. Well, that makes sense. No offense. Prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries, and then friend and family imposters. Younger adults are massively more likely to fall victims to scams in online shopping, investment scams, fake check scams, which by the way, what person under the age of 60 even has a checkbook?

[Angela Duckworth]

I was gonna say, do they even know what a check is?

[Mike Mann]

Well, maybe that's why they fall victim to the scam so much. I mean, literally, there's nothing more frustrating than the one out of 470 million times you go to the grocery store and someone still has a checkbook. You're like, really? It's like a rotary phone.

[Angela Duckworth]

Yes, these technologies have advanced. But your point is, I guess that the nature of the scam varies by age. So it's not like old people fall for scams, young people don't. I think that's also one reason why this is hard to study scientifically. It's not like scammers are doing what they do randomly in the population. When they call people, I don't know who got my mom's number, and I don't know how, but they were talking about grandchildren. They weren't talking about dating. It's happening in the real world, and different demographic groups are being targeted differently. Do you have any idea, by the way? I don't. How do they get these phone numbers? Like, how did that person in 2003, which is a long time ago, or thereabouts, how did they know your name was Mike Mott?

[Mike Mann]

I don't know. But when COVID 19, first came out, everybody starts going to work from home, and everyone's doing zoom from their home office or something like that. I had a good friend who's in cybersecurity who basically said, I can probably figure out everything about you from your zoom background, so be very careful, and talked about putting blurs on or different fake backgrounds, et cetera.

[Angela Duckworth]

Wait, what? From your zoom background? You mean like the books on your shelf books?

[Mike Mann]

But you might have a picture of your spouse or your kids. You might have a sporting insignia that shows that you like certain teams or you live in certain geographies. And scammers are very sophisticated. And so it was like, how do you protect yourself against all that? So one of the latest trends right now is these AI scams, and it's incredibly scary. So a few weeks ago, someone that lives just three neighbors away from me fell victim to this awful AI Scammed scam. His wife and daughter have left to go to the doctor. He has started driving across town where he's going to babysit two of his grandkids, and he gets a phone call saying that his wife and daughter saw a drug deal going down and the drug dealers kidnapped them. So he's thinking to himself, well, maybe this is a scam. But then the man on the phone said, we need you to talk to your daughter. She's having a meltdown. And then he hears his daughter's voice saying, dad, dad, help me. I don't know what to do. And then she breaks into sobs. And he is 100% convinced that was the voice of his daughter. Now, granted, he's in an emotional state, but they've taken her voice because all of us have voicemails. There's some video on social media. You and I have this podcast, et cetera, et cetera. You can grab people's voice. AI Then took it and created her saying, dad, dad, help me. I don't know what to do. And then they made him stay on the phone for the next, like, eight hours. And he had to talk to them every 15 seconds. And so he never could call. And he Went and they said, we'll kill them if you don't send it. So he's getting all this money, same thing, participating in it, and mailing and wiring all this money, until finally he sends the last payment. They hang up. His whole family's been trying to get ahold of him all day. Da, da, da.

[Angela Duckworth]

He's not answering his phone. They're freaking out.

[Mike Mann]

Right to your point earlier, the financial toll was one thing, but the emotional toll was way bigger. And there's this new movement in using AI to model the voice. And so everyone's saying, make sure you have a code word with your family. So if someone says they're kidnapped, it's like, what's the word? You know what I mean? Stuff like that. But it's a crazy new trend.

[Angela Duckworth]

I had not heard of that at all. Wait, really? This actually happened?

[Mike Mann]

Yeah.

[Angela Duckworth]

Okay, wait. And then eventually he's reunited with his.

[Mike Mann]

Family, who was never in trouble.

[Angela Duckworth]

None of this imperiled physical safety. He never got the money back, right?

[Mike Mann]

No, of course not.

[Angela Duckworth]

So in that case, his suffering was happening during those eight hours where. Oh, my God, I can't even think how I would.

[Mike Mann]

Well, and during that time, his family. So he never shows up at his grandkids house to babysit.

[Angela Duckworth]

Oh, right.

[Mike Mann]

So they're thinking he's been in an accident. They're literally calling every hospital. They're driving every road to see if there was an accident. They have the police looking for him. The police are like, well, maybe it's a scam. Finally, at one point. So they are pinging his cell phone. They go look into his bank accounts. They see that he's withdrawn money. They go find the security footage from this bank, and they see him walking out. He's totally in control. It looks normal. But the fact that he just withdrew thousands of dollars in cash is throwing up alarm bells. So his whole family thinks that he's being followed by these people who are making him spend all this money.

[Angela Duckworth]

Did he or they feel embarrassment or shame afterwards? Or was it like, wow, we were the victims of this horrible crime and we don't have the lingering feeling that, like, we played our part. I'm only asking because I know it's happened to other people who are close to me. But did they feel it?

[Mike Mann]

I think theirs is different because they had basically gotten the entire neighborhood and police and everybody engaged in looking for this guy. Cause they thought he'd been in an accident. And so their response was, everybody knows something happened to us. Anyway, so they sent an email a very detailed email out to the entire neighborhood just saying, here's what happened. Protect yourself. Here are the things that you should do so that you don't have the same experience we had.

[Angela Duckworth]

You don't think they're going to do anything differently in the future then? I mean, other than being vigilant about code words?

[Mike Mann]

Code words, not answering phone numbers they don't know, et cetera. But the AI thing makes it really, really scary. It's just a whole different ballgame now. So we want to hear from you, our listeners. Have you ever fallen for a scam? There's no shame here, but you can be anonymous if you want. If so, just record in a quiet place, put the phone close to your mouth and email it to [e-mail] and maybe you'll hear your voice on a future episode of the show.

[Angela Duckworth]

Still to come on.

[Show Producer / Narrator]

No Stupid Questions. How did scams work in the past?

[Angela Duckworth]

I guess family snake oil is just a scam.

[Mike Mann]

Oh, come on, Angela. We were just talking about gullibility. I know you're like, where do I buy some?

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[Show Producer / Narrator]

Now back to Angela and Mike's conversation about scams.

[Angela Duckworth]

You know, I was surprised that there wasn't more research on scamming, but there is, and not that much a little research on gullibility, I think. Not only would I say that I am gullible, I think I'm almost willfully gullible. I don't want to be not Just cynical. I don't even want to be, like, sophisticated or shrewd. I don't know why.

[Mike Mann]

What is the most silly, gullible thing you've believed?

[Angela Duckworth]

Oh, God, Mike, I would believe almost anything. I don't know. I'm very credulous. I mean, almost anything that you told me, I would be like, really? But I wouldn't be like, really? I'd be like, really?

[Mike Mann]

I'd be like, wow, that's amazing.

[Angela Duckworth]

Exactly. I'd be like, that's so interesting.

[Mike Mann]

You're one of those people who would have fallen victim, maybe, to the snake oil salesman back in the 1800s, which.

[Angela Duckworth]

Was, I think, like a real thing. Right. It's not just a metaphor, like oil of a snake.

[Mike Mann]

Oh, no, no. It was 100%. Yes. So what happened is, back in the day, early 1800s, you had all of these Chinese medicines, including snake oil from this Chinese water snake that had really high amounts of omega 3 acids in it and would help reduce inflammation. And so these workers in the US who were working on the transcontinental railroad would come and they'd used it for centuries in China, and they'd rub it on their joints after a long day of work and all these things. So all these crooked Americans start seeing this, and that was real Chinese snake oil, and it really worked. But then you have these people who start looking at it. So this one guy, Clark Stanley, he started making something called Stanley's Snake Oil, which was just based on this idea of the Chinese snake oil, but didn't have any of the omega 3 acid in it. And so he's selling it, and in 1917, the US seizes a whole shipment of his oil, and it's. Do you want to guess what's in it? You probably don't.

[Angela Duckworth]

Baby oil? I don't know.

[Mike Mann]

Great guess. That would have been way nicer and would have smelled way better.

[Angela Duckworth]

Oh, God. What was it?

[Mike Mann]

Okay. It was a mineral oil with fatty oil that was filled with beef fat, red pepper, and turpentine.

[Angela Duckworth]

Oh, that sounds terrible.

[Mike Mann]

It just makes you want to roll around in it, doesn't it?

[Angela Duckworth]

Yeah. Or cook something in it.

[Mike Mann]

No, turpentine.

[Angela Duckworth]

No, the turpentine. But two out of the three things could have made for a nice casserole.

[Mike Mann]

And then the turpentine could have been the like. And you die at the end.

[Angela Duckworth]

Yeah, I was gonna say, I think that's fatal. When you said snake oil, I was like, oh, right. I heard that it was a real thing, but I didn't actually know that it was a Chinese slash Chinese American thing. I did know about Tiger Balm. Have you ever heard of tiger balm?

[Mike Mann]

No.

[Angela Duckworth]

So I know just enough to be dangerous. But when I was growing up, there was these little tins of this ointment called Tiger Bo that doesn't sound at all like Stanley's snake oil, but it would be like a very mentholated version of Vaseline. So you would, if you were sick, if you had a fever, put Tiger Balm behind your earlobes or something. And if you cut yourself, you'd use Tiger Bomb.

[Mike Mann]

It's like the duct tape of balm.

[Angela Duckworth]

It was the duct tape of medicine for my household, and I believe many other households who were either Chinese or I think it was extended beyond China to other Asian countries. I thought what you were going to say is that, like, Stanley's snake oil end up actually being effective in clinical trials. So that's not. I guess Stanley's snake oil is just a scam.

[Mike Mann]

Oh, come on, Angela. We were just talking about gullibility. I know you're like, where do I buy some?

[Angela Duckworth]

See, I was like, oh, my gosh, really? But that's the thing. We're constantly like, are we gonna be gullible or not? And I did mention. So I dipped my toe in this research on gullibility, and there's not a lot on it, but I read this review called How Gullible Are We? A Review of Psychology and Social Science, and this came out not long ago, 2017.

[Mike Mann]

Did it come out on April 1st? Like, are they just pranking me?

[Angela Duckworth]

Did not come out on April 1st. No. And by the way, on April 1st, I never anticipate April Fool's things. I'm always like, oh, my gosh. Really?

[Mike Mann]

Like, you buy into anything that happens that day?

[Angela Duckworth]

Yeah, totally. It could be any other day. It's all the same to me. So I don't think this came out April 1st, and I don't think it's a joke. It came out in 2017. I don't know what day. In the Review of General Psychology. And the author is a research scientist at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences in France, and his name is French, so I'll not even pretend to say it the right way, but it's Hugo Mercier, or I guess I did attempt there. But anyway, Hugo Mercier comes to the conclusion, after reviewing everything that's known circa 2017, that on the whole, and I'll quote the review on the whole, this evidence shows epistemic vigilance to be Efficient in that it relies on sensible cues and enables individuals to reject most misleading messages. So this phrase epistemic vigilance is, you know, epistemic meaning like that which we know, the study of what we know, how do we know what we know? And vigilance. I think his claim is that on the whole, human beings are not so gullible. On the whole, we're not all rubes waiting to get taken advantage of.

[Mike Mann]

I think that's true. I think there are two things I want to point out. One has nothing to do with this, but I think that listeners should know that when Angela gets tired, most people have to think hard to use big words. But Angela, when she's on top of her game, knows she has to, like, dumb it down to a normal audience. But when she's tired, she uses words like epistemic vigilance all the time. And so be wary of talking to her on a day when she's tired, because unless you have a thesaurus with you that you can access very quickly, you will not understand her.

[Angela Duckworth]

If I let slip a multisyllabic term like epistemic, it might be a good day to take advantage of me. Be like, now go.

[Mike Mann]

She is ripe for fraud. Everybody run.

[Angela Duckworth]

Exactly. You know, I was quoting that paper. I don't think that counts. M. That was Hugo Mercier. Yeah.

[Mike Mann]

My favorite was one day you were so tired and I was like, what is going on? I don't understand anything she's saying. You're like, it's really hard for me when I'm tired to not use huge words. I thought, well, that's unique.

[Angela Duckworth]

It is true. It is a very weird inverse thing, and it's 100% true. And don't say that proudly. There's nothing better about multisyllabic words.

[Mike Mann]

Well, here's what I want to say about Hugo Mercier. Just kidding.

[Angela Duckworth]

Hugo Mercier.

[Mike Mann]

Hugo Mercier.

[Angela Duckworth]

Yeah. We don't even say the H if we want to go all like, oh, Mercier. Go on. Yes. What do you want to say about him?

[Mike Mann]

I think that's absolutely right. I believe the research. I'm not going to try to confront that. But there is also the element of confirmation bias. And so when something sort of plays to what we already believe, then we want it to be true. And we want to believe, for example, that we're the kind of people who would help others out when they're really in need. And so if someone's calling and says, hey, X, bad thing is gonna happen if you don't come even if it's not a threat, it's like, oh, this person will die. Or these people need medical care. Or we wanna believe that someone would love us and find us attractive and engaging so we fall victim to these romance scams. Or we want to believe that we're exceptional. So of course someone's bringing us a uniquely rewarding financial investment. And that's where I wonder.

[Angela Duckworth]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I need to say yes for some scams, no for others. So if somebody says something flattering to you or says that you have a family fortune locked up in Nigeria, that might be something that you want to believe. But I don't know that anybody wants to believe that their grandson is in jail and needs bail. I think confirmation bias applies here, but not to that early part where you're like, I want to believe this. I think there are other biases, like self serving bias or positivity bias. I mean, there's a bias to believe things that you just want to be true or that make you feel good about yourself. Then there's confirmation bias, which is whatever you believe to be true, you selectively filter out your subsequent experiences to confirm it. I think that plays a role here. But I don't think that early thing that you said, which is like we wanted to believe it's true. Like, I don't think that's true for all scams, but once they get started, I do think for any scam it's gotta be helpful to the scammer that people are in the middle of it, going to look for evidence to affirm whatever you got them to believe in the first place, that false thing.

[Mike Mann]

And once you're started, you just get deeper and deeper and keep going.

[Angela Duckworth]

So I have to believe that a bunch of cognitive biases allow scams to fulfill their arc, which is kind of at the end, you're like, this is so improbable. How would anybody ever fall for that? But when you're in the middle of it. And there's one more, I think, which is that human beings are like causation machines. We love stories. Not like, we just love them to listen to them. And they make us feel good, but we're always building stories that have very strong causal arcs. Like, he did that because of this, and then this happened, and then because of that, that happened. And these scammers, I don't know if they all read judgment and decision making articles, but they're definitely preying upon that too.

[Mike Mann]

Yes, they do.

[Angela Duckworth]

They paint you a causal story and you're like that makes sense. And I don't think your brain is looking for an alternative causal story.

[Mike Mann]

I think that's fair. I think one thing that related to this, but not exactly on the idea of these biases. Do you know where the name con man comes from? Any guess?

[Angela Duckworth]

Con man. So now I'm thinking, like, convict. Like, okay, no.

[Mike Mann]

So it started with this guy, William Thompson, and the original phrase was confidence man.

[Angela Duckworth]

Oh, so not convict.

[Mike Mann]

No, confidence. Because we tend to believe. You know, I've always said to people, you can get anywhere in the world if you just act confident when you walk in. And this William Thompson would walk up to people, he would make it seem like they had met before. You know, some sort of remembered, have we met before? And then he would ask them this line, have you confidence in me to trust me with your watch until tomorrow? And a shocking number of people would just hand him their watch. He got arrested, and it became a really popular trip.

[Angela Duckworth]

I was gonna say, is he a social scientist? And then he would give it back to them and, like, write something down on his clipboard and move on to the next bar. No, he actually took their.

[Mike Mann]

He really took their watch. And he inspired this whole group of people to become con men and women. And so some of the more famous ones you may be aware of, there's this guy, Victor Lustig. Don't know the pronunciation. Victor Lustig. In 1925, he heard how incredibly expensive it was to maintain the Eiffel Tower. And so he used that as a story to go to these scrap dealers in France and tell them that it's so expensive to maintain, that we're just selling it all for scrap. And. And he sold the Eiffel Tower to this scrap dealer and then left the country with massive bags of cash. The guy was so embarrassed, like we've talked about, that he didn't go to the police. The same thing happened in the US A guy named George Parker sold the Brooklyn Bridge several times. And people would only figure it out when they went to construct toll booths on the bridge. And they're like, no, no, no. I bought the Brooklyn Bridge so I can put up these toll booths now. And of course, no one would let them. So that's where conman comes from.

[Angela Duckworth]

From confidence.

[Mike Mann]

Confidence man.

[Angela Duckworth]

You know, Mike, this whole conversation on scamming, like, who gets scammed? Why do we feel so embarrassed when we get scammed? If I gave Raymond, who sent us this question, why do people get scammed? What's your advice? If I gave Raymond the best advice, I think it would be go read Influence by Bob Cialdini. And I know you and I have both read Influence, and we're both big fans. And the reason I suggest that is that what Bob Cialdini, as a psychologist, did was to document the half dozen basic principles by which human beings persuade other people to do and believe things. And I want to recommend this to Raymond, not only because, like, wow, how do I not fall prey to these techniques? Well, learn them from the master. But when I got to know Bob in the last several years, I came to discover something that I didn't realize from reading Influence the first time, which is that he is, like, the most morally upright person. And I think what truly has motivated him is just the idea that his moral duty is to kind of inoculate all of us against scams and against being had and against being fooled and taken advantage of by writing as clearly as possible about how it is that that happens. And he's not even a cynical person, so he falls off on the knife edge of trust and belief and goodwill, but at the same time, he knows what he's doing.

[Mike Mann]

And Raymond, we just want to say that if you use Bob Cialdini's book Influence for Evil and perpetuate scams, that's not cool.

[Angela Duckworth]

It is not cool. And something really bad is going to happen to you. And we'll figure it out later. But. But yes, Influence for good and trust for good. And Bob Cialdini for good.

[Mike Mann]

For good.

[Show Producer / Narrator]

This episode of no Stupid Questions was produced by me, Kathryn Moncure, with help from our production associate, Lyric Bowditch. Before we wrap today's show, let's hear some of your thoughts about last week's episode on making friends in adulthood.

[Debbie]

Hi, I'm Debbie. I am an expat, and like a lot of expats, I'm adept at making friends for a season. We move so frequently, and we need friends in the present spot so that we can have fun. One thing you mentioned is earbuds and headphones. I try not to use them in public because they get in the way of talking to random strangers. I love Gillian Sandstrom's work on talking to strangers. And I'll keep talking to strangers no matter how much it embarrasses my kids, because I love those brief connections. I particularly love, love airport bars. I get a unique enjoyment from hearing someone's story in a fleeting moment over a beer before we head to different gates and probably different parts of the world. It helps me to continue believing that the world's full of interesting and awesome people. However, I'm finding devices make those encounters more and more rare.

[Lizzie Ng]

I recently moved to Japan for work and it's been difficult making new friends here even though I speak the language fluently. However, I did manage to to make a few new friends, mostly by actively joining group classes and getting curious about people around me, even if it's just a simple hello and what brings you here to the stranger behind me as we're queuing up for drinks at a bar. I also make it a point to catch up at least once a week with acquaintances whom I click with. Though it can feel one sided at times because people are quite reserved here, I find that there will always be folks that appreciate the effort and enjoy turn introduce their friends as well. And that's how we all get to make new friends.

[Mailee Shalafou]

Hi, my name is Mailee Shalafou and I'm from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I have always struggled to make friends. I moved to a new city when I was 17 and it was sort of an awkward time to make friends in a new city on your own. I later found out that I am actually neurodiverse. I was diagnosed when was I was 32. I eventually got a career as a social worker and started a job at a non profit where I was able to meet a lot of people who were just sort of cool with who I am as me. And then I started playing Dungeons and Dragons and that's when I really built my friend group as an adult. So for anybody looking to make some new friends, I highly recommend finding a Dungeons and Dragons group that was respectively.

[Show Producer / Narrator]

Debbie Downs, Lizzie Ng and Miley Lee Shaofu. Thanks so much to them and to everyone who sent us their thoughts. And remember, we'd still love to hear about a time when you got scammed. Send a voice Memo to NSQ Freakonomics.com Let us know your name and whether you'd like to remain anonymous. You might hear your voice on the show.

Coming up next week on no Stupid Questions. Is there value in being mediocre?

[Angela Duckworth]

I need to go and like think about this really hard because it's blowing my mind.

[Show Producer / Narrator]

That's next week on no Stupid Questions. No Stupid Questions is part of the Freakonomics Radio Network, which also includes Freakonomics Radio, people I mostly admire, and the economics of everyday things. All our shows are produced by Stitcher and Men Bed Radio. This episode was mixed by Eleanor Osborne and we had research help from Daniel Moritz Rabson. Our theme song was composed by Luis Guerra. If you'd like to listen to the show Ad Free. Subscribe to Citra Premium. You can follow us on Twitter Sqshow and on Facebook sqshow. If you have a question for a future episode, please email it to nsqreqonomics.com to learn more or to read episode transcripts, visit Freakonomics.com NSQ thanks for listening.

[Angela Duckworth]

Oh, what is it? Peroration.

[Mike Mann]

It's a word that you use when you're tired.

[Angela Duckworth]

The freakonomics radio network the hidden side of everything.

Stitcher.

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[Angela Duckworth]

I had that dream again. My small business needs an office admin, but I don't use LinkedIn and I.

[Mike Mann]

Hire an energy vampire.

[Angela Duckworth]

But also they're a literal vampire. And suddenly my team is spending all.

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Their time sharpening wooden stakes and buying bulk silver and rehearsing ancient chance. And then I wake up.

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[Angela Duckworth]

Check.

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