You'd never fall for a phone scam... right?

I don't know about you, but I am up to my eyebrows in spammy text messages, and it's making me a mite testy. [1] I get SMS spam every day, more if I go on WhatsApp or Telegram. Most of the spammers are really lazy: Hi, Hey, Hello, How was your weekend? (Really, is that the best you can do?)

But some get pretty creative:

Occasionally I'll respond as Joan or Lisa ("Why, yes, I would be happy to design your new wedding dress/schedule your manicure") as if, against impossible odds, they'd actually reached the world’s foremost gown-designing cuticle specialist. If I'm truly bored or procrastinating, I will go deeper into the conversation and try to interest them in investing in my own crypto venture. [2].

Of course, all of these messages want one thing from me, and it isn't fashion advice. They're trying to seduce me into making some very bad financial decisions. [3]

Yes, I know. I need better hobbies. 

My point is that I cannot imagine falling for one of these scams, just as I'm sure you can't imagine falling for one. But that doesn't mean you or I won't.

Last month New York magazine's The Cut published a first-person account from a woman named Charlotte Cowles, who was taken for $50,000 by a pig butchering scam (so named because they take you for everything but the giblets, leaving you squealing).

The tale is pretty harrowing. It started with a phone call allegedly from Amazon, saying her identity had been stolen and some thief had racked up millions in debt in her name, and concluded with a faux CIA agent convincing her to hand over a shoebox filled with $50K to an anonymous person in an SUV. All in the space of a day.

Turns out this woman is not what one normally thinks of as a scam victim. She's a professional journalist who happens to write the financial advice column for The Cut. (I applaud Ms. Cowles' courage in coming forward, but there's no way in hell I'm taking her advice on money. Sorry.)

Yet $50K is change lost between the cushions compared to other victims' stories. "Last Week Tonight" host John Oliver recently did an entire episode on these scams, which is worth a watch:

The victims in Oliver's 24-minute segment lost anywhere from $300K to $2.5 million. And that pales compared to Shan Hayes, CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank in Elkhart, Kansas, who caused his bank to fail after he (allegedly) embezzled $47 million to invest in a crypto scam.

As Oliver points out, the scammers sending you these spammy texts may be in worse shape than their victims; many are being held captive and forced to work in overseas scam boiler rooms. It’s just ugly all around.

Who looks stupid now?

Here's the weirdest thing. Like me, you probably have a mental image of a classic phone or text spam victim (and they look exactly like the people you imagine answering political polls): Old, poor, uneducated, and one Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese away from a heart attack and the hereafter. 

A new report that came out earlier this week says otherwise. The Harris Poll surveyed 2,000+ Americans on behalf of anti-spam app maker Truecaller, asking whether they'd even been taken in by a phone scam. 

Overall, about one in five had lost money to a scammer over the previous 12 months. But adults age 18 to 44 were three times as likely to fall victim as folks age 55+. One out of four of those Gen-Zennialls had been scammed more than once. And this is despite the fact that this demographic gets half as many spam calls as us geezers.

Turns out that when you get older you learn a few things — like not picking up the phone if you don't recognize the caller. Three quarters of respondents age 65+ don't pick up; they're also more likely to download and install caller ID and anti-spam apps than their younger cohorts.

Me, I came out of the womb a skeptic. I've spent large chunks of the past three decades researching and writing about Internet scams. I think I'm immune. But if I somehow still fell for one of these things, I'd never stop throwing up. 

Cowles' story concludes: 

I still don’t believe that what happened to me could happen to anyone, but I’m starting to realize that I’m not uniquely fallible. Several friends felt strongly that if the scammers hadn’t mentioned my son, I would never have fallen for this. They’re right that I’d be willing to do — or pay — anything to protect him. Either way, I have to accept that someone waged psychological warfare on me, and I lost. For now, I just don’t answer my phone. 

I think not answering the phone is an excellent start. 

Quick show of hands: How many of you actually use your phone as if it were an actual phone?

[1] Yes, I sound like Andy Rooney. (Readers under the age of 50: Who's Andy Rooney?)

[2] DanCoin: More stable than Bitcoin, less furry than Doge. 

[3] Honestly, after all the election-f**king related spam I'm getting, these scams are a nice change of pace. And if I contributed money as often as I've been asked by candidates I couldn't pick out of a police lineup, I might as well be pig butchered.

[4] The full report, titled "America Under Attack" (the folks at Truecaller are nothing if not dramatic), can be found here. It also breaks down differences in spam/scam patterns for people of color and by gender.