Comment True story, mostly (memory isn't what it was) (Score 5, Interesting) 150
I guess many people have tried to mess with the scammers: one day when I had nothing much to do I got a scam call from 'Microsoft Tech Support'. Judging by accent and idiom alone (I know), I'd say south-east Asian. I strung him along for a few minutes figuring that time he was wasting with me (and my Mac) he wasn't using to scam vulnerable people.
The further I got into it, the angrier I got - he was convincing enough to fool older people in my life. I started to see this guy as a malicious threat.
Eventually he got to the bit where I download malware and I called a end to the game, pretty much exploded at the guy:
"You have parents, right? You are trying to steal money from old people: people like your parents. What would they think of what you do for a living?"
- surprisingly, it got through to him, and he became defensive, tried to explain himself:
"My parents are very proud of me. I have a job, I work in an office. I can take care of my family"
- we talked for a little while longer, and while he was still a crook in my mind, I got a little of his perspective. It's a white collar office job to him, he didn't have a range of opportunities. He's aware of the massive wealth disparities in the world and that the older people that he's scamming (even the poorer ones) have 100x (probably 1000x) the wealth that he and his family could ever have.
No moral, really, apart from crooks have lives too, but it is interesting to see the world in their eyes for a moment. I wish this article wasn't paywalled, I bet it's pretty good...