We're the perfect target for scammers?

Post Reply New Topic

Gullible, and often have no sense of danger.
Do you agree, that we're more likely to fall for a scam?
Is a forum, like this, a heaven for scammers?

I have never fallen prey to any scam yet. I can make out if a person is dishonest, because NTs start over-acting even more than usual. We are able to think logically in face of all temptation, because the temptations are geared towards typical NT weaknesses like greed, envy. But I would love to hear what other aspies' have experienced.

BTW I live in India, we have scammers all over the place.

Probably just the opposite, and one of the few true benefits of AS. Most scams seem to be clumsy appeals to emotions. So clumsy as to only attract the easy marks the scammers want to attract, those with knee-jerk reactions and an inability to think beyond the immediate moment. Anyone who has attention to detail, especially for the written word, can spot inconsistencies and mistakes in scam appeals. People who think rationally, aren't ruled by impulse, and don't act quickly are the least likely people to be scammed.

I have never been scammed either. Because of our obsessions about so many things and mistrust in others, I feel like we are less likely to be scammed. I'm especially vigilant when I see legimate looking emails from what look like stores from Walmart and Target. My spam folder is full of scams. But, when I see scams representing well known places I usually report them.


However, I had to deal with bad businesses and ebay sellers. When that happens I file a complaint with the proper departments. I've always got a refund.

Since I'm not particularly good at reading NTs I tend to not trust them until they've proven to be trustworthy. This makes it hard for a stranger to pull a scam on me. Also as an athiest/sckeptic by nature I tend to not believe what I hear until I spend time thinking about it and its likelihood and/or researching the topic.

I for one would be extremely difficult to scam, with one exception. Once I consider someone a friend (which takes a long long time) I tend to believe things they say more easily.

This thought had crossed my mind recently, too.

If I was a scammer & just happened to come across some information that suggested that people with Asperger's are naive/gullible, then, I would immediately seek-out places like this.

And then I would start posting on here, posing as a fellow Aspie, & attempting to build trust & relationships with the other members.

Eventually trying to scam forum members, in some devious way.

Having said that; I personally am a suspicious type, so I wouldn't be getting fleeced.

I was certainly very naive as a child but I would say I personally am very unlikely to fall for a scam. I was in a Pyramid Scheme presentation and was the only one of the 14 that could instantly see the BS they were peddling and thanks to my logical thinking, detected the 2 or 3 shills planted in the audience trying to drum up enthusiasm. It was easy to spot this scam due to their complete overacting (they were WAY too happy!) and use of vague, unverifiable claims. They would also talk about how you could have up to 8 income streams and I was the only one who seemed to understand it's better to have one stable $20,000 stream than 8 $1000 streams.

Needless to say, they politely got me out of there as soon as they could. I would have blown their barely legal scam apart. Same with chain emails at work. I have to educate even highly intelligent people that they emails are false.

I tend to be much less vulnerable to scammers than the average person. My mother, who also has autism (but undiagnosed, so this is an unofficial opinion) is much more vulnerable. I think it can go either way.

I depend almost entirely on logic when I'm thinking about things. That means I'm a lot slower at thinking than most people are, because emotions are a useful shortcut that are mostly right; but I'm also more accurate. It's a trade-off that I'm not sure is always the best thing, but it has come in handy because I don't detect and thus can't be misled by someone trying to scam me with scare tactics, emotional language, or fast talk. I slow down and think regardless of what they do. At one point I foiled a short-change scam when I was a cashier, without knowing it was a scam. All I knew was that the money didn't match up, and so I wouldn't give them the extra $20 they were trying to get out of me. Only after they left did a co-worker tell me they had been trying to scam me.

My mom, on the other hand, is easily misled. She can be convinced by someone who simply seems intelligent, by a striking testimonial, by emotional language and scare tactics. She seems to be unable to decide things for herself; so she finds people she thinks can decide things for her, and lets those people do it. For the most part, these people are health gurus, religious leaders both Jewish and Christian, and anybody who can convince her of their latest conspiracy theory. I've tried to teach her how to use logic, but she won't have any of it. She just tells me that I'm smart and then won't listen to what I say because I don't sound as convincing as the other people she listens to.

When I was a kid, she married a guy who basically scammed us out of our savings and left us below the poverty line, claimed to be working and going to school but wasn't, etc. The usual deadbeat. At age eleven, I detected his scams... my mom didn't believe me until I was fourteen and turned him in to the police for counterfeiting money, and then the police finally convinced her. I felt very invalidated when nobody believed me. You'd think that as the adult in the family, she'd be responsible for protecting us, but she never could. It always fell to me, even as poorly as I was able to do it as a disabled teenager.

It's confusing to me, becuase you'd think it would be the other way around. Of the two of us, I'm the imaginative one. I love stories, role-playing, and I can use my imagination. My mom has never met a story she liked, was terrified by fairy tales as a child, and never reads fiction. You'd think that the one of us who likes stories would be the one most easily misled by lies, but that's not the case.

So I guess it can go either way--very vulnerable, or less vulnerable than NTs. The best way to scam me out of something, actually, is to simply ask for it. I'm altruistic enough that I'd often rather give something away than keep it myself, even if I need it just as much as the other person does. That's a tendency that's lost me a lot of money to beggars and such (nowadays I carry bus tokens and give those away)... but it's not something I want to change about myself. I know what I'm doing, I know it leads to my "losing" things, but I'd prefer to keep doing it, even though I know people take advantage of it sometimes. It's not because I'm some kind of saint; I just feel very uncomfortable saying "no" to somebody who is asking for something because I know how hard it is to ask for help myself. Only when I know I can't help somebody will I say "no".

Not really, I tend to start from a 'Convince me this isn't a scam' standpoint. Also, I'm just generally difficult to 'sell' anything... If I want or need something, I'll go find and acquire it. Sales = Instant Resistance.

I'm exactly the same way with any presentation or sales pitch. I assume its a scam and need proof it isn't one. I NEVER sign a contract until I have done research and read the contract.

Fact is I can't tollerate sales people. When I go to a store I know exactly what I want and I likely know more about it then all of the salespeople in the store combined.

I am not bad at recognizing scams, but I am very bad at avoiding them (including borderline scams like credit card pushers, telemarketers, etc.) because I don't know how to say no and haven't developed a script that allows me to do so.

I'm a natural cynic I always tend to the line if its too good to be true. I can't be swayed by emotive comments and logical persuasion would work, but I'm stubborn and would check out all the facts obsessively and am very good at spotting someone who is lying (practice to overcome my weakness). I remember one case where a crying (faked) young pregnant girl came up and asked me for bus fare 'so she could get to her moms as she'd had an argument with her bf'.

She was wearing very tight shorts (change in one back pocket of at least 3 pound coins and a £2 coin, think every guy would notice that) and waiting for a bus that didn't go to where she said her mom lived (that stops by a station, and there are transport police there). I kept her talking till the commuter rush had finished then offered to walk her to the correct bus stop and alert the police that she may have and abusive bf after her and to make sure she's safe on the bus. She didn't like that one, apparently though she was back the next day and got several other people to give her money, as apparently you would have to be heartless to resist?

I enjoy social engineering.

Last edited by chris5000 on 15 Aug 2012, 11:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm a sucker for people in the street selling me tat, though that isn't really scamming. Likewise, I fell for a man from Eastern Europe telling me he was homeless and needed 50p for some chips.

I'm impervious to internet scams, I actually scambait.

Same here. I'm a skeptic and a deep thinker, so I never fall for scams.

Poor targets for scammers, I think.

Giving other people what they want without it being my idear to give it to them is not at the top of the list of things that I do.