I'm trying to figure out how this scam works. Why in the world would you give someone collateral that was asking you for a favor? And why would you give cash as a collateral to hold someone else's cash for a bit. Alarm bells would be ringing the second someone asked me to hold a bag of anything, especially without me looking in the bag first. It is the same as someone asking you for a loan and demanded that you give them collateral before the cash was given to them. It's just stupid. The correct answer to these guys should have been "I don't owe you sh*t mf! If you don't trust me to hold your cash then f-off!" I could understand if this women was senile or maybe even if these people were related to her. I think the media might be leaving out some details here.
But even in Switzerland they are warning from these type of scams. Seems even working in better educated countries.
Lots of incidents also in Japan. Over the phone the caller pretends to be the grandson who is in trouble, sometimes in a traffic accident. I had a call one time around 10 pm but before he could finish his talk I hang up. We call it "ore, ore sagi" here.
You're missing an important point. The people who are getting scammed are stupid. Finding stupid people with money is most of the work. Any jackass can try to scam people, but it's only through hard work and diligence can a a scammer find that special person with more gold than brains (though in this city, that wouldn't have to be much gold).
It´s a shame but it happens every were in the world even in the America or Europe and I not think the the victims are stupid, the scammers are professional and they find victims everywhere in any country.
I wouldn't say most are victims are "stupid". (Though many probably are.) Ignorant and/or gullible would certainly describe a large percentage of scam victims. I don't think it has anything to do with the geographic location. The West has no shortage of stupid/ignorant/gullible/naive people either.
