So about a year ago I heard they guy in the next cubicle answer a scam call with his heavy Ukrainian accent. His end of the conversation went something like "What? The windows on my home are fine. No I don't want new windows. What? What you mean ... ... ... HA! BULLSHEET!! MY WINDOWS COMPUTER AT HOME IS TURNED OFF!"

He's a bit deaf too, so he's loud on the phone even when he's trying to be quiet.

NPR has been having a series in the mornings where they look into stories of elderly being targeted by financial scams. Even with no signs of dementia, people get more susceptible to these scams as they age and lose their ability to discern trustworthiness.

Not related, but my SO and I were walking by the bust stop one day and a guy came up and said he needed some particular small amount to make the bus. My immediate suspicion was that the story was bunk, but my SO had already given him the few bucks he supposedly needed for the trip. We weren’t even out of earshot before he was asking someone else for the change he just received.

In the early days, before people were more vigilant, I knew a few people who fell for the E-Bay/PayPal fishing emails, the overseas lottery scam, and the overseas "pretty girl wants to date you but needs money for a passport scam." I also once had to talk a friend out of giving a "car auction" company his SSN. Sorry bro. The WS6 Trans Am was too good to be true.

Both my parents and my inlaws still have landlines. The number of IRS, Hospital/Pharmacy, and Bill Collector scams they get are insane.

I once was gonna apply for a job online, only to discover that the company's office was right in a neighborhood I was gonna be in the next day, so I decided to stop in and say "hello" first and drop off my resume in person. The address was real, and so was the office building, but the company was in an office that didn't exist and the person working the front desk said they never heard of them. To this day, I don't know what that was all about, but I'm calling shenanigans.

We constantly have scammers in this are pretending to work for utility companies to try and get in your house, mess with your billing accounts, or switch you over to a different company. The rule of thumb is, if they aren't driving an official vehicle and wearing an official uniform, don't talk to them, don't show them your utility bills, and don't let them into your house. On the occasions that utility companies will have to send over a third party contractor, they notify you well in advance with a written letter telling you who they're sending over, why they're being sent over, the exact day they're coming, and the timeframe you can expect them.

I get robocalls all the time. I don't know if they're scams or not because I never pick up, but I hate them.

I've never been in a situation where something unfortunate happened and I just needed X dollars, even during a time when my pockets were light. If I were in such a situation, I don't think I'd get very specific with my story. I assume the longer the story, the less likely it to be true.

Do we only want to give money to people that really need it? If someone is conning for pocket money, maybe they fit that definition.

A followup story, from October 2014 e-mail:

I just finished getting soaked for another twenty while walking back getting lunch. As before, as each minute passed from the completion of the transaction, my confidence in not having been scammed dropped from about 90% to something below 50%. I record this story as a case study with the goal of forming actionable goals should this situation arise again.

So I was on the short walk to the office on E Street from Subway on a nearby corner, wondering why cash register drawers still pop open at the conclusion of a credit card payment, as they have since I worked in retail.

A guy positioned himself alongside my path and began talking directly in a way I would have felt awkward to ignore. I noticed roughly in order: a complexion compatible with playing a race card, a jean jacket, some kind of dark shirt beneath, a neck lanyard of the kind worn by government employees and contractors, clean shoes and the generally kempt appearance.

He was talking somewhat rapidly, though politely, and, one might say, smoothly. He works at the the Department of Homeland Security or some such agency. He was driving his wife and kid and hit a curb and got a flat tire. He doesn't have a credit card, or "they" don't take them, and he needed some weird anchoring number like $18.97 to something something resolve the problem. His name was something something and he would give me his information and pay me back tomorrow he was coming down the road and made a U-Turn and struck the curb (here seeming to gesture at E Street, and my mind processing between the fact that E Street is one-way but yes sure enough there are tire marks on the far curb) and the wife and kid—

So I interrupted to ask "So what are you trying to do?"

I am a legitimate and fair mark because to give my mind a moment to process I interrupted the patter, but only to ask for a boatload more patter. He had "currency" and pulled out a small wad with a twenty on the outside and he said he was short for the tow and to buy a spare tire. I was already hooked, he knew, but he still had to reel the fish in.

I had stopped walking to listen, and now turned back the way he had looked when talking about his stranded loved ones, and I said "Let's go take a look." This suddenly was not practical, he was actually parked in front of something something monument and something. I am getting a little annoyed now typing this but want to put it down for science.

I was long since decided on what I would do even though my mind was in some complex eigenstate on the truth value of this guy's proposition, so I walked a few steps to set my drink down and told him I would give him my contact information. For some reason that seemed like the better way to do it. I pulled out a vanity card which won't get him more than my cell number, name, and if he is clever about WHOIS my previous home address. I passed it over and then the banknote and nodded and probably shook hands and he said I would be hearing from him and I said "That's great, good luck" and before or after that he said something like "okay I can get the other four pretty easy now" like some kind of attempted upsell.

There is some consolation in the fact that I didn't put on a convincing display of credulence and could plausibly have felt sorry for a random dude who resorts to trickery to score lunch (or other) money.

What I did that was good:

• Suggested my own method of verifying one of his claims.

• Turned a bit aside while retrieving the ransom, to make a smash and grab operation marginally less obvious.

• Did not loan him my credit card or cell phone or get into any enclosed space with him or give him much more than what a lesson in street smarts might plausibly be worth.

• Gave a needy person money?

What I did that was bad:

• Became utterly mesmerized by his patter while trying to understand the situation.

• Failed to recognize that he immediately dissuaded me from gathering intelligence that would bolster his story.

• Gave a conniving jerk money?

Action items for future encounters:

• Slow down. If you are in a hurry, grunt an apology and move on. If you stop to talk, deliberate. Any time pressure from the other side smacks of tactics.

• Remember the lesson of the Wason selection task. Disregard confirming evidence and seek disconfirmation. The scammer selects only information that is consistent with genuine need, and this information is useless in making the important determination of honesty.

• Tune out the patter. Ask for clarification. Don't rush.

• Think of some piece of evidence and ask for it. Ask to see the called number log on his cell phone. Ask what kind of car it is, then ask to see the car keys.

• Recognize high-risk cliche scams. Car trouble, but no visible car. Short on money, need an uncomfortable but not-worth-calling-authorities amount to pay some urgent need.

Just today my wife got a call from "Social Security" telling her that her SSN had been suspended for suspected fraud. She was told to Press 1 to speak to an agent to get it reinstated.

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I have yet to receive better spam than this offer to join the Illuminati.

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I visited an outlet mall back in 1996 or so. Every shop, every booth, had a warning about "counterfeit 20s" that were going around. They were $1 bills that had the corners from a $20 bill glued on one side. Maybe '94 or '95 this was featured in a "world's dumbest criminals" email or something to that effect - the first time I saw it I asked if it was a joke. "Counterfeiting is not a joke," the clerk informed me sternly. "You realize that the 'fake' $20 you have pictured there cost $21 to manufacture, right?" I asked. "It doesn't matter, crime doesn't pay," he said. To this day I think someone in security said "hey joe, let's see how many of these morons are too stupid to get the joke" and the answer was all of them.

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I rarely give the homeless any money. But I gave one $40 once and it was a valuable lesson.

here's another for you, in the category of 'was I being scammed? if so, how?'

I was pumping at a lonely gas station in north Texas, late at night, and a guy came up to me and offered to repair the hail damage on my car.

it was dark, my car was in the shadows, and anyway it had no signs of hail damage. it had hailed in the area, tornado season, fairly recently. so maybe he was just blind pushing his business to everyone. at a nowhere gas station? 11pm? without any flyers, cards, or evidence of business ownership?

I said, "my car doesn't have any hail damage." he said, "yes it does." I looked at my car. he looked at my car. finally I said, "I'm good thanks" and he walked away.