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Comment by JKCalhoun | Hacker News Reader

I, tiptoeing here, kind of agree. Am I missing something or do these scams operate on a person's greed?

To be sure, I invest in order to see a return. That's greed, I guess? Or maybe not?

I think having (unrealistic) expectations of doubling your money in anything shorter than ... about a decade ... should be sending up red flags for anyone. "Make money fast" should fire the same neurons as "Put it all on zero and spin".

I had a friend who began to believe he had written code that could play the stock market and rake in the cash on trades (he was testing it on historical data and doing very well). The best way I could try to reel him in was to simply suggest that if it were so easy, everyone would be doing it.

Same goes for any get rich scheme.

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Scams operate on any character flaw, with varying degrees of effort required. They exploit the human mind. They might target greed, or loneliness, or insecurity, or even fear of loss.

But we all have character flaws. Everyone. So we are all vulnerable. Not to the same scams, but to some scams.

Sure but can you admit some people are more flawed than others? I don't think it's useful to just handwave this away and act like we are all the same.

Yes, some people are more flawed than others. My point was that if you believe you are immune to scams, you're not. In fact, arrogance is another character flaw that scams routinely exploit.

My dad isn't a gambler. He invested in the stock market, but never anything like options. I've never known him to buy a lottery ticket. He's not greedy.

He is, however, pretty trusting. It took them months to get to the point where he was putting money in. I think he (naively) just trusted them. I wish he would have trusted us instead.

> I think he (naively) just trusted them. I wish he would have trusted us instead.

Probably he trusted people who spent more time talking to him. I don't mean it as an way to blame anyone, I just think it's the way the trust mechanism is wired into the human brain, and this is why these scams work so well.

Ironically this mirrors the parent's frustration of "I wish my kid trusted me and not his dumb-ass friends".

No, you're absolutely right. I had the same thought afterwards - but also, we're both introverted and definitely not phone-talkers. I don't really blame myself on that front.

Some of these scam victims are duped into trying to help someone they trust with a financial problem. In that case, the victims are being the opposite of greedy. The only character "flaw" I can think of in these cases is being naive/too trusting.

I don't know how common the "savior" victims are vs. the "get rich quick" victims, but they definitely exist, at least according to various mini-documentaries on pig butchering I've watched. Maybe these victims were modifying the story to seem more sympathetic, I can't say.

Bitcoin has done 4x in some years and 10,000x in a decade. Unfortunately that has led people to believe that crypto is magic. Classic Ponzis and such mostly don't work any more but if you add in crypto suddenly people are willing to buy in.

Classic Ponzis are still very much around too. The SEC prosecuted a fun one last month (https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-71) where they raised $91 million pretending to trade international bonds.

100%. That's why I'm so mad when influential people repeat the "crypto is the future of finance" nonsense. It is this uncritical hype that makes so many people vulnerable to crypto scams. Trump is doing it, Blackrock is doing it, it must be the best thing since sliced bread, right? No.

> The best way I could try to reel him in was to simply suggest that if it were so easy, everyone would be doing it.

Alas, most good entrepreneurial activities violate the efficient market hypothesis. Ditto for many investments. Some people are more alert to opportunities, have better deal flow, etc.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28029044

That's a common enough take, and I think there's some truth to it, but I think it's overly simplistic. I think there is certainly a motivation that such scams target, but I don't know if "greed" is necessarily the right word. Some of it is not necessarily knowing what is or isn't realistic, given the stories that we hear on the news. Some of it is feeling stuck, and trying to go out on a branch, and picking the wrong one. Not all of these cases are immoral, or at least not the same level of immoral.

With romance scams it's ego, especially with men. My neighbor needs to beleive that 25 year old blondes taking selfies on yachts are interested in him. Nothing in the universe could convince him otherwise. He would have to change so much of his personality and life to accept who he is or become who he would need to be. It's impossible. I think this is actually a question of thermodynamics at this point.

Disagree. I used to work with a guy that got scammed by a girl in Vietnam. They met online. He flew there to meet with her multiple times. He met her "family". They were even intimate. After a few months, she convinced him to invest in some sort of restaurant. He even went with her to talk to "lawyers" (in Vietnam; she never came to the US). Then she took all the money and vanished. I think it was close to six-figures.

He's a reasonably intelligent, humble guy. But he was also the perfect mark. He had just gotten divorced from a 10-year marriage, and he was lonely. So I wouldn't call his situation ego. I would call it loneliness. And I think that's how a lot of people get scammed. Everyone wants to feel loved.

I should have said it's often* ego. It can be either or both and other factors. I wouldn't rule it out entirely in your case though but you didn't mention the relative attractiveness of the people. I was talking about a 65 year old man, out of shape, in debt, poor skills with and understanding of women.

The difference between a good salesman and a fraudster is intent. This is weaponised grooming.

These scammers don't have code of ethics, they will push whatever emotional button they think will get the result they want. You're conditioned by society to respond to certain patterning, they take advantage of that in full.

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