The economics of scammers are kinda fascinating. They deliberately aim low so that they don't waste a bunch of time on someone who will eventually figure it out - if you bite the hook at "GREETINGS TO YOU FROM DOMESTIC PRINCE OF ZIMBABWE" they have a reasonable suspicion they can outsmart you out of your money. "Send me 50 $99 checks" is the phisher's equivalent of a spit-out hook. There's a reason your phone messages are all about your social security number being suspended, anyone who goes "...the government doesn't do that" is too well-informed to get fleeced and they're playing the yield game.

Sad but true, I had a friend call me up saying "what should we do about Mike?" "What do you mean," I said. "You saw the email, you were cc'd on it."

"Oh, you mean the scam email where we end up wiring five hundred bucks to a western union office that's actually in Lagos, not London?"

"You mean it's a scam?"

"Of course it's a fucking scam. Haven't you gotten like a dozen of these lately? That's why I have embedded images demand-load in my email and you should, too. I told you I got one from you last month or have you already forgotten that?"

"But..."

"But what?"

"I mean, 'I'm writing this to you with tears in my eyes' is exactly the way Mike would write."

"You seriously think Mike would spam his entire contact list from Europe because his wallet was stolen?"

"You don't?"

"Have you tried calling him?"

"Have you?"

"I fucking hate Mike and he knows it. Why would he ask me for money?"

"Hmmm. Maybe I should call Mike..."

______________________________________________________________________________________

That guy? That's the guy they're looking for. He's the guy who will totally wire $500 to Lagos. He was the guy who spent five nights teaching a Chinese "investor" about cinematography because they were totally going to fly him to China to shoot a movie for him because as we all know, there's no indigenous talent in a country of 1.3 billion people so they have to surf for names on Mandy.com.