Why are there so many robo calls and scam calls..One reason only...They work on some people.

[csziggy]

1. It reminds me of a classic horse race betting scam

The con man sends 1000 people his recommendations for the winner in a horse race - five horses racing, so he sends each horse name to 200 people. Whichever horse wins, he sends those two hundred people recommendations for the horses in another race, again, one horse name to each group of people.

Each time he narrows his field of dupes down as with each win, the dupes become more impressed with his predictions. Finally he offers to sell them the name of the winner in a really big race, one in which the winnings could be spectacular.

Then he disappears with his money. It doesn't matter how many he ends with, his investment is not very much, and whatever he makes off the marks is gravy. If there are only five people left and he offered to sell them the name for $1000 each, he's made $5000.

The phone scammers are working with a much larger group - millions of people across the world. They share lists of phone numbers of people who will answer. They may even sell each other lists of people who have fallen for scams in the past. Since computers do most of the work, dialing, playing a robocall mesage - I think some are using an AI for calls - if 0.01% fall for it and pay them, they make money off the scam.

That's why the YouTube videos of people who waste the scammers time is so satisfying. The more time they scammers are investing in a possible scam that they do NOT make money off of, the fewer people they can try to steal from.