Scammers usually don’t deserve our pity. Most of the time we see them as someone to report for preying on the weak and gullible. But once in a blue moon, we see the human side of scammers and realize that it isn’t all champagne, caviar, and Scrooge McDuck-style pools of gold coins on the other end of the line.
Imgur user Eddi3v shared a very human story about how he wanted to troll a scammer named ‘Patrick,’ but ended up listening to him tell his tale about why he scams people while he was ‘breaking down in tears.’
When you’re done with this post, why not check out our previous articles about malicious scammers getting their comeuppance here, here, here, and here. And let’s not forget about this one here.
“I usually troll scam phone callers”
Image credits: ridvan_celik (Not the actual photo)
“Scam caller breaks down in tears”
Eddi3v uncovered the hidden side of scam callers: that some of them are incredibly poor individuals who live in 3rd world countries and choose this line of work out of desperation, a lack of ‘honest’ jobs, and a desire to provide for their families.
The situation makes us pity ‘Patrick,’ but it’s a classic philosophical conundrum that we’ve seen many times over. Do the ends justify the means?
Does a desire to do something good (make sure your family is fed and has a roof over their heads) mean that it’s alright to make others suffer? That fact is, it’s not like ‘Patrick’ was stealing food from his local market; he’s on the phone, scamming strangers half a world away. Whether or not ‘Patrick’ is right or wrong—that’s for each of us to decide. Share your thoughts with everyone in the comments.
Scammers have been changing their approach to match modern technological developments. For example, Forbes writes that one scam artist recently used an artificial intelligence-generated voice deepfake to swindle 220,000 euros (243,000 dollars) out of a UK-based energy firm CEO.
He believed that he was talking to his boss in three separate phone calls. The deepfake was so good that it carried the boss’s German accent, as well as the ‘melody’ of his voice. The times we live in, huh?
Here’s how internet users reacted to the story of the honest scammer
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