Most people probably consider themselves too smart, savvy, and world-wary to ever be victimized by a con artist or a scam. And yet there are so many blatant scams way too many people fall for , which suggests that humanity is by its nature trusting and willing to believe the tall tales and sob stories of strangers, a quality that scammers and criminals exploit to get others to willingly part with huge sums of money. The ability to execute scams via online methods and social media, because they can be done remotely and anonymously, is a tragic development of modern technology, especially considering just how many ridiculous internet scams and hoaxes have actually worked .

Con artists can get especially audacious. In 2025, a woman in Japan lost a fortune to a scammer who pretended to be

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