I'm not so sure about "dark" - I mean, scams are designed to take advantage of our innate sense of guilt and/or greed. From a performance standpoint, the low-level conman is deliberately refining for stupid. From a social darwinism standpoint, you've got guys running an 800-seat VoIP scam out of a sweatbox call center in Bangalore vs. fat dumb americans willing to believe that the IRS takes payment in iTunes gift cards. You can say "vulnerable" but one man's "vulnerable" is another man's "fuckin' idiot."
Agreed. I've so far not been targeted by any phone scam like this. Then again, any time I get a call from a number (or area code) I don't recognize, I ignore it, or hit answer and then end. ...cue Obi Wan Kenobi, "I am not the idiot your are looking for."
"We are looking for the owner of computer. Are you the owner of computer?" "...yes, I am 'owner of computer.' Are you the keymaster or the gatekeeper?" "Sir this is Microsoft. Your computer has a virus." "That's interesting because it's running CheezOS. What sort of virus?" "A very bad virus sir. We will need to clean your computer." "Great. Lemme get my Windex." "No sir not that kind of cleaning. We need to clean the files of the computer." "I'm going to guess that costs money." "...sir it is very important that your computer is clean of viruses." "I never should have given it shore leave in Port Au Prince." click I have a contact in my phone named "spam robodialer." It's got about a dozen phone numbers.
As soon as I asked "which one of my computers has a virus?", that was the last line of the conversation. Now I'm blacklisted, I guess. Odd numbers never leave me voicemail either, I think my acoustic cover of Lil' Wayne's "Ms. Officer" scares them off before the beep.