Comment by norgie | Hacker News Reader

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Comment by norgie | Hacker News Reader

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Come on, I think you're just looking for things to get upset about (and not engaging with the content in any meaningful way).

Assigning specific (and colorful) names to scams/cons has always been a thing. See

- Pig in a poke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_in_a_poke

- Spanish prisoner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Prisoner

- Badger game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badger_game

- Coin smack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin-matching_game

- Pigeon drop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeon_drop

And anyway, the name seems to come from the scammers themselves in China, so I don't know why the media would be to blame.

I'm not upset, and I don't think your examples are analogous, since they all do have a specific meaning beyond "scam".

I think both things can be true - the term originated from Chinese and became a common term in that region for long conning people over the internet, sure. But, at the same time, the media has also latched onto its use largely for dramatic effect, even when there is no evidence the scammers are Chinese.

I don’t think that’s fair to say the person is not engaging content in a meaningful way. Have you read the article? It’s pretty clean cut aside from understanding who the perpetrators were. The ceo of a bank got conned and went to prison, and there’s emphasis on calling the con a “pig butchering scam”

Absent the etymology described in this thread, I would have had a similar confusion to theirs as to what distinguishes this scam. But now I know it's a regional term for it and I shouldn't necessarily expect a term with an obvious connection to how the scheme works.

It's called pig butchering because the scam relies on a long con where the scammer often "feeds" the mark with either real or fake small wins to entice them to provide more money to the scammer. They're "fattening" the pig.

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