Comment by Normille | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Normille | Hacker News Reader

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It's amazing how some people can't seem to spot a bot/spam post, no matter how obvious.

One of the websites I host is for a retired elderly middle-aged academic who pens articles about his former field and invites comment.

Almost every week I'll get an email from him along the lines of "Is this worth following up?" and attached will be either a comment reading something like "I love your article. So much good info and useful to me.." or an email from some g3gergergew@gmail.com address saying "We love your site. It has much good infos and is useful but we are notice your CEO could being better..."

No matter how many times I tell him to look for the telltale signs...

* Random gibberish email from address

* Half a dozen links in the comment

* Broken English

* Generic text which could apply to ANY article or website in the bloody world

...he'll still forward them to me and ask if they're worth getting in contact with. Every time, I'm gobsmacked how he can fall for such inept spamming.

Ironically, there is another side to this too: you have to teach people that if they want a response, they need to include relevant information that relates to the person you are reaching out to, a "serious-looking" e-mail address, a proper greeting, good grammar...

Especially young professionals struggle to understand why any of this is important, and are left wondering why they are not getting a response.

The ineptitude of the spamming is actually a sign of eptitude -- they intentionally include the signs you look for because you're a waste of their time. They have figured out the precise line to walk where bad marks like you avoid them but easy marks like him engage.

I've heard that's the thinking behind the infamous and infamously 'reeking of scam' Nigerian Prince email scams too. And the fact that people still fall for them shows it's a seemingly a strategy worth pursuing.

[But a discussion here on the ridiculously obvious scam that people fall for all the time is probably too off-topic --even for HN!]

PS: Upvote for "eptitude". Even if it's not a real word, it ought to be. [And I'm not going to spoil things by looking it up]

Aptitude and ineptitude are the now divergent pair, for your interest. Apt was turned into ept

ah TIL

I suppose that makes some sense; anyone who will fall for the most blatantly obvious scams will probably be pretty gullible, much more willing to hand over money.

Intentional or not, they have figured out a kind of clever selection bias.

Many people never look at email addresses (just like they don't look at full URLs - the programs have made it harder to see them by default).

Many - most - native English speaking people don't really know 'bad' English. People I've known my entire life who've grown up in the US and went to university still have trouble writing more than a few coherent sentences. Folks are bad at writing, and I think tend to not look critically at bad writing.

I think part of the reason he "falls" for it is the contents of the spam are things he wants to be true. In other cases he'd see the warning signs and know it's spam, but with things he actually wants to be true, he would rather someone he trusts to tell him there's no way.

I hope you're charging him for your time.

Not everything is about money.

Money in this case would be a tool to teach the client to value the person's time more highly and fend for themselves. If it costs the client $100 every time he forwards a comment for consideration, the client might actually put in the effort to learn the patterns the person has been explaining to the client.

If the client doesn't stop, at least the worker is compensated highly for their trouble, so it's a win/win.

Normally I would agree, but I don't know in this instance. Ignoring any personal relationships that the above commentor could have with the author, if the author goes to him first it keeps money away from the scammers.

That seems like a decent goal.

More like they will just stop asking and get scammed.

Why is it so hard to want to serve others?

This is an old person who would otherwise fall victim to a scammer, and all it takes a little bit of someones time every now and then. Suggesting we charge them $100 every time is ridiculous.

If you've only a handful of users doing this, the load's manageable. At scale, or for the ones who never learn, it eventually becomes a burden. Either you've got real costs to support or you need to incentivise learning on the part of clients. For a large cohort improved comms are net net a liability and risk with no upside.

Just count it as a victory that he asks you first, rather than handing out his bank details.

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