'How I Got Scammed Out of $50,000' Essay goes viral

[just444]

i try really, really, really hard to never to assume I'd be better than someone at navigating their own circumstances BUT man this article is testing my limitshttps://t.co/rCPChqLUc2
- Sophia Benoit (@1followernodad) February 15, 2024

source 2

The financial-advice columnist for The Cut Charlotte Cowles got scammed out of $50k, and she wrote about

Comments

[indy788]

scams are becoming insane now so i can sympathize with her but girl....

also i would never admit this if it happened to me.

[marsdiamonds]

One of the reasons scammers manage to make lots of victims without getting caught is that people are too ashamed to come forward about being scammed. This is why I never make fun of victims.

These scammers are really talented at making others believe in anything and they get people at a fragile point in their lives.

[indy788]

i wasn't really making fun. i also just meant that i'd never admit it because i'd be too embarrassed. makes sense though!

[ghettoluvpr]

Maybe normal people, but if I had HER very specific job… absolutely not.

[genbu_no_miko24]

I agree but she's actually a finance expert. She even admits she was not in an emotional or despondent state like many others who've been scammed and she is aware of those types being the most vulnerable.

[januarysix]

I think some of us have a "rule follower" mentality from school or society. I know it happens to me that I don't question things enough.

I almost got scammed one time on insta but luckily my bullshit meter woke up.

[genbu_no_miko24]

She actually mentioned something like that in the article but idk near the end (and a bit of the beginning) she was trying to find ways to excuse her actions. I mean I get it but also like throughout it all she did have a few moments of saying "this is fake".

I think because she works in the area is why people are like ???????

[veritas_44]

People do need to talk about it but some of these people do not deserve sympathy. An 80 year old who has barely used the internet in their life and who has never really had a job? Nope, not clowning them. But a 50 year old financial reporter who believed that someone reading her SSN to her was legit? Come on.

I do believe that everyone is capable of falling for a scam but we have got to stop telling grown adults that it's ok to be willfully ignorant.

[ohokaysure]

[veritas_44]

Oh that definitely makes it worse lol

Generally speaking, I'm so damn tired of 45+ year olds acting like computers were never a part of daily life until like 10 years ago. Even from a personal perspective, that was never true. From a 2001 NYT article- Census figures showed that 54 million households, or 51 percent, had one or more computers in 2000, up from 42 percent in 1998. It was the first time computer ownership surpassed 50 percent, the report said.

[ohokaysure]

[veritas_44]

It does highlight the embarrassingly gross trend we've seen get progressively worse since Reagan where people are proud of their ignorance. Basic ass reading is now seen as "liberalism/socialism" by damn near half the population because we tell people that everyone is entitled to their opinion when the opinion entitlement concept is actually a logical fallacy.

[ohokaysure]

[veritas_44]

The like, sad, and angry emojis are all fitting to that sentence

[hellojeds]

I'm that age and there's no way most people didn't use computers in the late 90s or early 2000s, especially if they worked in an office or had a business.

Plus if you were a school kid or uni student at that time you would have very, very likely used one. Even if you didn't have your own computer, libraries, schools and universities had computer rooms at that time, and many if not all of my professors wanted typed essays.

[hannahstarr]

also i would never admit this if it happened to me.

I read the article and at the end she mentions that after telling her story to various people she found out that nearly all of them have a scam story (not quite on this level though). And everyone is deeply ashamed at how they were scammed. So I think she wrote this article to point out that this is happening more often than anyone wants to admit.