Woman loses thousands of dollars to romance scammer posing as astronaut in distress, police in Japan say
After some exchanges, the scammer one day told her he was "in space on a spaceship right now" but was "under attack and in need of oxygen," the official said.
The scammer then urged her to pay him online to help him buy oxygen, and successfully hoodwinked around 1 million yen ($6,700) out of her.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/woman-romance-scam-fake-astronaut-distress-japan/Open linkView original on discuss.online
23 replies
How can something be so funny and sad at the same time.
It's in our DNA🎭
Scammers often make their scams slightly unbelievable so they only hit people who aren't entirely with it anymore. Dementia makes great targets.
reminds me of stories of when they would target wrestling fans. Like they would pretend they were WWE wrestlers and talk to fans and get them to send them money cause they'd be broke. Then one time of the fans actually went to a show to confront one of the wrestlers about paying them back. jumped the barricade and everything.
Just blows my mind that it always seems to be mentally ill individuals that have a ton of money and they can just easily hand it out like that.
If you're sufficiently mentally ill you can just give your rent money to them. But also many of them are retirees losing their minds and living off savings
A lady I know got facebook scammed by someone pretending to be like a favorite actor of hers. She had brain damage from diabetes.
Ugh, why are people so shitty? There should be a special place in hell for scamming the elderly.
x2 for scamming people in Japan. IMO they are the nicest people and would literally give you the shirt off their back. Sucks when others take advantage of naivety and kindness :/
E: typo
Would literally give the shirt off their back
... To other Japanese folks.
Japan's racism makes America look tame.
Sometimes to white people as well (who are, of course, not Japanese, but OK as far as barbarians go). Chinese/Koreans (including Japanese-born, Japanese-speaking descendants of Korean migrants who are nonetheless not racially Japanese) are regarded with disdain, and Africans are often seen as borderline subhuman. (Not by all Japanese people, but these attitudes are common and people will admit to them in a way that few will in the USA/Europe.)
People are shitty because grifting is easy. If I had a few million in available spending cash and no morals, I could grift people left and right without them even knowing it. The average person is just too incompetent, naive, and/or trusting.
The ease seems less important here than the morals, tbh. It’s easier to make people aware of scammers than to make them care about each other, unfortunately.
Oh you sweet summer child...
My heart goes out to her.
I hope she finds people that care for her kind heart.
Considering it's formerly your heart, now hers, I completely understand why you want someone to care for it. And you gave away a kind heart, no less. Bless your
kind heartchest cavity.You made me correct my post, to include the definition of the idiom. Bravo.
Life is easier if you just ignore or block shitposters like me. 🤷♂️
I like banter actually. I honestly didn't mind.
It’s just missing something to make it funnier.
Maybe more heart🥁
What a fucking moron
Octogenarian means they are 80+ years old. I hope nobody ever finds themselves in a position where they need to rely on compassion from you.
lol Trump is 79 and runs the country, what does age have to do with anything?
Same goes for you too 🙏
Would you call Trump mentally sound?
Lol Trump literally gets scammed everyday and the American public is paying the price. His dementia has progressed so far he doesn't even need a third party to scam him.