The foreword of this book contains a chilling statement “If you haven’t been caught out yet, it’s not because you’re too clever but simply because you’re lucky. Eventually, the right scam will get you on the wrong day.”
That is reiterated, again, at the end of book. Mr. Stapleton implies that each and every one of us will at some point, get scammed. It’s a chilling thought.
This is an informative and useful guide to scams, past and present, that are violating our world today. So, in that sense it is a very depressing read. It is simply dreadful to contemplate that there are so many millions of people out there making a career out of stealing data and money from decent, honest, hardworking folk. What kind of world have we become?
Something else that I found very interesting in the book is that Nick Stapleton puts the scammers’ point of view forward as well! He managed to secure some testimonies from some scammers who expressed regret at what they were doing but they implied that they had no choice. Some of them were intelligent, educated people who could not secure employment in their own countries and turned to scamming to live. Some of them had the attitude that it was simply payback to white people for what they had done to their country in the past!
There is no doubt in my mind that scamming is big business worldwide. And the Internet is largely to blame together with smart phones etc. and social media. Of course, postal scams, door to door scams, rogue workman are continuing and are probably some of the earliest scams, predating the internet.
This book gives us some background on the scam business worldwide. Then there is a part entitled The Scam Compendium which goes through each type of scam, what happens and how the scammers operate. And there’s a final part that aims to help you help yourself if you’ve been scammed, reporting scams and talking about scams. There's also an acknowledgement that AI could further render a greater degree of sophistication to these scams. Horrific.
It's a useful book but it is so sad that there is a need for it.
My thanks to Tandem Collective for my copy.
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