Scamming has been a growing industry even during a time when knowledge is intended to provide us with a better life. Having high scores, multiple degrees, or a great career can make a significant difference in a swarm of applicants fighting for the same position, title, rank, college, or job. What's keeping this incredibly disliked industry alive has very little to do with one's intelligence or even street smarts. These scammers are getting everyone nowadays. Many scammers succeed because they tap into the brainwashing that is already being done by society and its major players. The technique scammers use will exploit our emotions and lack of knowledge of the subject they are providing.
In the 1700's, Gregor MacGregor developed an international scheme to get investors to give him money to take advantage of a fake country's natural resources (The Economist, https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2012/12/22/the-king-of-con-men). Due to their lack of knowledge with the area where his fake-country resided, MacGregor, was able to fool the investors. In the 1850's, a man named A.V. Lamartine used people's compassion in the heat of the moment to gain the edge. As mentioned in a blog on Schneider on Security, "Lamartine knew his situation would engender medical and financial assistance from kind strangers in the 19th century. The scenarios ended this way, as one Brooklyn reporter explained: ‘He is restored with difficulty and sympathetic people raise a purse for him and he departs’," (https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/04/scams_from_the_.html). Scams are about as old as professions & some of the best didn't get caught until after their death. Thankfully for modern advancements in communication methods has made finding scams faster but it also causes more scams.
Methods that help these pesky scammers are but not limited to the following: old beliefs, stories, books, television, movies, news, radio, schools, societal overview of judgement & even ourselves. The first modern anatomy book, De humani corporis fabrica by Andreas Vesalius, was first written mostly against religious code of the day. If he didn't take the huge risk to find out what our bodies truly composed of, we could still be in belief that a snake inside of us ate the food we ate. Fictional stories have confused people throughout history of books, especially with very well written fictional books. A great example is when a radio station read a book with a small acting cast live on air, which was common at the time. Over the years from 1938 till sometime in the early 2000's portions of the United States of America thought this broadcast caused a major ruckus and even mayhem across many cities. It was mentioned in early cartoon shows and was taught in Oklahoma still in History classes during the 1990's. This is what made it famous, the belief of caused mad hysteria, according to Wikipedia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(radio_drama)).
Since people tend to believe facilitators of the news, as they were taught to, fake news is an ever growing issue. There are many places online that post fake news and sometimes false proof behind their statements. Snopes.com has a 'junk-news' list of fake news in case someone sees fake news than searches for more info will hopefully find snopes point of view before they get caught in the hype (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/category/junk-news/). Walking into a Walmart and going to send money you may see one of these helpful videos of people talking about how easily they get people to send them money. They also tell you they are scamming you than bust-out numbers that sound solid about how many people get scammed in the USA alone but that's also a lie. To find real statistics on scams in the a country please visit the country's government website, like this example https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/about-scamwatch/scam-statistics. Scammers work on more than just information we don't know but they also pry on our languages' words and phrases as well. People have sold ideas and concepts with phrases like, "the golden rule," "help a friend," "thank God," "the extravagant," "the complex," "the cure" & as you can guess these buzzwords go on-and-on but for more example words try, http://home.bt.com/lifestyle/money/money-tips/the-words-and-phrases-phone-scammers-use-to-trick-you-11364033824536.
Besides just teaching false information or hearing slightly incorrect information in schools and within the society system, humans are taught to trust the humans before them. Almost every country, tribe or grouping of peoples teaches children to listen to their parents and elders. Taught to listen to whom builds and/or enforces the law like police, lawyers and judges. Words like city, governments, IRS, Post General & "your bank" triggers something in most people's head that will give them a false sense of trust. This constant teaching to blindly trust instead of verifying reasons has given the scammers plenty of room to see what information people will willingly give up. Information is so important, great scammers needs your information to steal more from you and others around you. They use the information in the same way marketers use your information, accordingly for profit. If a scammer calls a lower to middle class citizen, they most likely will have debts. Posing as a debt collector may give them some bucks but calling upper class as a non-profit organization, a radically new technology or idea of the future will get them the bigger bucks. Every little bit info could help them learn about your area, if the scammers find out your address, how much money you make, how much you store & also looking at public property information they can guess the general income of your area. Now scammers can hit their targets appropriately for bigger payouts. Knowing about new, uprising technology and hot topics can help you detect incorrect information over a topic which is the most common way to spot cons & scams.
When Bitcoin, Crypto and Blockchain technology hit some mainstreaming during the late 2015 early 2016, a company called Bitconnect took advantage of many people and even became known as the biggest exist scheme in cryptocurrency (https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/01/17/bitconnect-bitcoin-scam-cryptocurrency/). There are people that have even taken advantage of people's crave for profit by mentioning current practices that has helped other companies succeed. A current possible scam is where a man is selling land in Nevada he doesn't own. There are laws in Nevada where you can sell land you don't own as long as you're already in process and keep the potential buyer up-to-date over the buying process but the person in question is accused of doing more than just breaking land-processing laws. Besides not buying more land after many new investors have paid but he also advertises he owns more land than he has and is currently buying on the books. You can learn more about this possible scam here https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/a-list-financial-ronald-morgan/las-vegas-nevada-89119/a-list-financial-ronald-morgan-ronald-g-morgan-ronald-morgan-financial-fraud-las-vega-1125761.
This biggest issue of scams is how difficult they are to prove until they are finished. You can help yourself by learning the past big scams, the current scams and learn to verify important contacts like your bank. Here's a helpful link, https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/features/scam-alerts. Recognizing scams can be very difficult, they catch you at the worst times and they hit you until you fold. These scammers are not worried about their victims in any way, it's just business. This is why we need to keep our knowledge of hot topics, buzzwords, new technology and current events up to date. Our best defense against scammers is the same knowledge they use against us, staying diligent with our learning, learning everyday and ask questions.