The Psychology of Scamming
First of all, most scammers are not bad people. They are stupid people. They fell for a scam, and thus refuse to believe they are that stupid. Therefore, they try to catch somebody else with the same scam to make themselves feel less stupid.
If you have ever been the target of a scam attempt, often the scammer will screw up the trick and try for a do over. ("Oh wait wait wait!" or "Ha ha, you're too smart for that one eh?" being most common.)
There are actually very few true scammers. In reality, there are thousands of stupid people catching each other with the same tired tricks over and over again, thus, like a virus, expanding the number of scams being perpetuated. Imho, they are so stupid they can't even see the criminality of the act. There is only a little bit of vocabulary protecting them from being arrested for theft, which is the difference between an item and a virtual item. A virtual item can have value, and thus if it is stolen, you should be persecuted under the same laws that rule shoplifting or fraud. That the law only covers physical items is temporary and is bound to change, especially as virtual items start costing thousands of dollars.
So, the next time somebody tries to scam you, don't get mad. Feel sorry for the little bugger who wasn't sharp enough to figure out what happened to them first. I'm usually polite and say "Sorry you fell for that, but it won't work on me. Try somebody else." In general, this makes them feel 100X worse.
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