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Exactly right. It’s actually a fun exercise in social engineering, and can be a fascinating sociological experiment if you’re into that sort of thing.

The most successful persona unfortunately is that of a slightly senile senior citizen. Senile enough that you seem gullible to the caller, but believable that you have enough money and sense to continue with the transaction.

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I love watching videos of Kitboga and some of the other scam-baiters impersonate elderly individuals and then unmask themselves at the very end.

Correct. Sounding old and slightly senile is what gets them on the hook most effectively.

Unfortunately - when they're calling, they also seem to have all your personal info, and know your name and how old you are. So I put on my best senile guy voice, they confirm my name, and then they hang up.

It's actually quite concerning!

I have several personas that have made the rounds in the underground somewhere. It’s actually kind of interesting - I made up a persona back in 2016 or so and even six years later I’ll get calls for that “person”.

So while sometimes the information is legitimate - especially if you’re not opted out of the major internet people search engines (ref optery which is a yc graduate company) - but you can also “poison the well” enough to get your fake persona disseminated.

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