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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

Yea that’s what I don’t get. I almost can see falling for the “Microsoft tech support” and “I am the IRS” and “Your nephew needs bail money” scams, as they all sound like emergencies and I can see people setting aside common sense to handle an emergency. At least until the iTunes Gift Cards take the stage. LOL.

But “hello Internet Stranger I know how you can invest and make $millions?” LOL how does that make any sense? Put yourself in the scammer’s shoes: you found a way to double your money. Are you really going to tell random people on the internet how to do it? Obviously not.

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You're right of course but the thing is - it's not "Hello, how would you like to make millions" - It's "Hello, how are you?" followed by a period of building the person's trust. And then it's an incidental "Oh btw, did I mention I'm involved in this great investment club". At this point a gullible person is seeing this other person as their friend (or more, a lot of people are lonely). Wouldn't you share your investment strategy with your friend?

Yea I think that also needs to be part of The Talk with your elderly relatives, too: Random online people are not looking to make friends with you, no matter how friendly they seem, they are taking advantage of your loneliness. I can see how the conversation could be unpleasant and you need to be delicate and respectful when telling it.

> At least until the iTunes Gift Cards take the stage. LOL.

Yes, I'm amused by those too. In my experience, the IRS has always wanted US dollars. But maybe Apple gift cards became legal tender without us noticing?

LOL indeed.

Scammers target people who will fall for it; immigrants are already used to using gift cards for various things and reasons, so they are not as likely to immediately recognize it as a scam.

Which is why all gift card racks now have the "IRS IS NOT ASKING YOU FOR THIS GIFT CARD" signs on them; still not good enough.

I guess another, more controversial regulatory path we could go down is:

Does the world really need gift cards? Do their few, anachronistic legit use cases outweigh the scam use cases? I personally believe gift cards are an overall net negative, even just considering the amount of plastic and packaging wasted on them, but add on the scam aspect, and we have to ask: should gift cards even be a thing?

If not gift cards, something else.

They're just currently the most effective "give me some numbers over the phone and now I have money" currently available.

It used to be Western Union, but it would move to something else.

Cash, money orders, PayPal, Zelle, any number of things have been used and will be used.

You’re absolutely right and I can tell you’ve given this topic much more thought than I have. Thanks!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gift-card-scam-get-your-money-b... says that gift card fraud was c. $200M in 2022, and that people have about $20 billion in unspent gift cards. Flow vs stock, but it seems like the majority of usage is legit. (Though maybe not for particular businesses).

> Do their few, anachronistic legit use cases outweigh the scam use cases?

Anachronistic? I still give these as small gifts all the time, and every grocery or department store I go in seems to have a rack of them at the checkout stand.

Often, they won't call them gift cards. They'll use things like "verification card." Newly arrived immigrants are often hopelessly confused already. They'll fall for fake job offers. These "jobs" will eventually require them to get gift cards. It can escalate into blackmail. The victim will have handed over all sorts of private information as part of the job application/interview.

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