Nobody is perfect. The more features of credibility, most likely there will be a higher percentage of conversions. But not everybody has excellent vision, is not time-pressured, and is not tired/exhausted.
There are lots of conditions that make otherwise difficult fraud targets more easy to trick.
And if it can be done at large scale / automated, then small conversion rates turn into many successful frauds (compromised accounts).
I think they’re hoping for coincidences and the higher the numbers the more likely they’ll find one.
I got a real letter from the IRS two days before I got the scam message on my answering machine. The timing was uncanny and I might easily have fallen for it, had I not already dealt with it.
It’s the same for the Chinese language calls, if you speak Chinese it really resonates.
There was a scam in the 90s where you’d call a number and they’d give you sports betting advice. They’d do it for free as a promotion trying to sell their service when you won. They’d tell half the callers bet team A and the other half team B. The numbers made it work.
“Splitting games 50-50 like that—known in the biz as "double-siding"—is the oldest trick in the handicapper's very thick book. That way he knows he has at least some happy customers coming back. “
Agree, I once fell for a scam that I think I otherwise wouldn't because of string of circumstances: Being tired and stressed, it being Christmas time and I had actually ordered stuff but also because I had just upgraded iOS to the first version that put the address bar in Safari on the bottom of the screen instead of the top so I forgot to check the domain!
I've since changed the address bar back to the top…
In the end I didn't loose anything but it was a good wakeup call for sure.
Thanks for this summary. People often forget they (hopefully) have grandmas and themselves sometimes making mistakes as well for -- whoever knows what reason. Sometimes.
Nobody is perfect. The more features of credibility, most likely there will be a higher percentage of conversions. But not everybody has excellent vision, is not time-pressured, and is not tired/exhausted.
There are lots of conditions that make otherwise difficult fraud targets more easy to trick.
And if it can be done at large scale / automated, then small conversion rates turn into many successful frauds (compromised accounts).