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As a thought, you might find Robert Cialdini's book "Influence" useful:

https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Rober...

He gave a talk covering the same subject matter too, which is faster to grok if that's your kind of thing.

After reading/watching this stuff, these kind of scams become incredibly transparent. And it's fairly ugh to see fellow humans subsequently get sucked in by them.

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Thanks. I'll check it out. I'm quite immune to the tactics myself due to watching my father fall for way too many of them growing up. As a result of seeing that at an early age I've become quite immune to the tactics. But I could easily see how the less immune could readily be drawn in to something they likely could not afford.

Paul Wilson gave a talk at DEF CON 20[1] - he said something that stuck with me (which I'm paraphrasing now):

"The way you spot a mark is to look for the person who thinks they can't be taken. They're the greenest grass to a con man."

I'm sure it's in the video somewhere :-)

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkz1ItKLAvk

https://youtu.be/rkz1ItKLAvk?t=247

also

https://youtu.be/rkz1ItKLAvk?t=492

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