Why are people so GULLIBLE?

[ShawnAzizboii]

because humanity was focused this way, to be safe and never expect something negative to happen, it's just unexpected so people don't expect bad things to happen their way.

[rabbitsong]

Originally Posted by oceangaia

But why aren't the elderly wiser? They should be the least susceptible targets. After all, they have lived longer and seen more attempted scams than those younger. If you are wise to identity scams now at the age of 30 or 40, are you going to forget all about it and become naive at age 60?

Perhaps these are widows who have depended on someone else their whole life to watch out for them and suddenly they are on their own?

My mother is in her late-70s. She is a very smart woman. Unfortunately, she's also a very trusting woman. As someone said, this generation was raised to be polite. The same woman in her early 40s who berated a vacuum cleaner salesman for coming to the house after she asked him not to just opened the door to one not long ago.... and BOUGHT the dang vacuum cleaner!

After my father passed away, she started to get junk mail. You know, the ones that look like official notices. She's not very tech savvy, and doesn't understand why everything is moving in that direction. She took her car to a dealership because "they kept sending me postcards" and "they really want to buy my car." No, Mama, they want to SELL you a car!! We have convinced her to take a trusted church friend (who is also a mechanic) with her when she does decide to buy. She doesn't intend to have a car payment, so she thinks the salesman will give her a new $37,000 car for her old $4000 car.

It worries my sister and me. My grandmother had dementia, so we've been looking for signs. She's still on top of things, but this trust issue has us worried.

[HighFlyingBird]

I am a very skeptical 30 something. With good street smarts. Hubby is a very very skeptical 40 something with lousy street smarts (but genius iq).

Many weeks ago we got a knock on the door. A woman made a song and dance. We ended up pledging $375. So much money! But less then 1/3 what she asked for.

Well the next day we researched her company. It was a fraud.

Are we weak, stupid, dumb!? No. We are people who still, in our gut, does believe in the basic goodness of people.

I actually feel angry but ok about that scam. That lady was great at what she did. But at least we still believe in the best of human kind.
On the other hand, we won't fall for it again...real or not.

[The Big Lebowski Dude]

Anyone who scams another person out of their hard-earned money - especially if the victim is elderly/senile & doesn't know any better - is a P.O.S. & deserves a truly horrible & heinous fate - seriously. These scum-bags make me sick.

[michael917]

The first thing I thought of upon seeing this thread are the people who post announcements on Facebook that are, in fact, utter nonsense. I've never been able to discern whether people who do this are trying to trick people, or if they're so ignorant that they believe what they're posting.

Examples:

Someone posted an official-looking announcement reminding people that Daylight Savings was that weekend, and to remind everyone to change their clocks. Except, this was posted a full month before Daylight Savings.

Someone posted a TV-news style weather map showing heavy snowfall totals for our state, indicating that it was a forecast for 5 days from now. The real forecast for that day was 60 degrees and sunny.

And my all-time favorite. Somehow, it never gets old...

"This month contains 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This hasn't happened in over 800 years." Actually, this sort of thing happens roughly twice a year. But apparently people don't care to know the truth. (This one can be substituted with random astronomical facts, such as certain planets being visible, but the indicated rarity of the event is always outrageously exaggerated.)