There's Too Many of Them!

At a recent gathering the subject of  internet and telephone scamming was briefly touched on. Each of us commented on the number of scam contacts we receive and how we disregard them, but there were also some examples of family members or friends who had fallen or nearly fallen for a scam and lost money. At one point I commented that the root of the problem is the scum who are doing this. Someone else responded that, "There's too many of them!" Shortly thereafter the conversation moved to another topic. I would have liked to pursue the subject but that's not the kind of thing you do at a social gathering. 

There are a boatload of statistics detailing the magnitude of cybercrime. For example, according to the Federal Trade Commission there are 1.5 million phishing sites set up every month. According to a 2018 report from McAfee, the global cost of cybercrime is almost $600 billion a year. And that staggering figure does not include the billions lost to scams and rip-offs that are not internet-related. There are statistics profiling the types of scams, ages of victims, average money lost per victim and on and on. That's informative but not what I was looking for.

The one statistic I wanted most and was unable to find went back to the "There's too many of them" comment.  What I was looking for is an estimate of the percentage of a given population who perpetrate these frauds. I found nothing. How many people does it take to set up 1.5 million phishing sites in one month? How many people does it take to swindle their fellow human beings out of 600 billion dollars annually? It's more than two men and a woman operating out of the back room of a pawn shop in Toledo. 

There are some 209 million people in the US age 18 and over. How many of them are scammers...internet, telephone or otherwise? Five percent? That would be 10,450,000 people. That number is equal to the entire population of the state of Georgia. But let's say it's only two percent. That's 4,180,000 vultures preying on us, a number equal to the population of Los Angeles. Think about that. 

In an older post I wrote that the people of Peru do not accept corruption, but that it is so commonplace that they expect it. I think that that is where we're at with scammers. We expect it and when it happens we try to ignore it and move on. There have been wars on drugs and organized crime. Let's have an all-out war on scammers, and while we're at it let's throw in hackers and trolls. If these creeps are smart enough to hack into bank accounts, there must be good guys smart enough to find them. It's likely that the FBI and other agencies know about some of the larger internet scam organizations. Maybe they can't shut them down for lack of evidence. I say to hell with evidence. If there is good reason to suspect that an individual or organization is internet or telephone scamming, go get them, and if it means trampling over their civil and constitutional rights so be it. 

I fantasize sometimes, usually about situations that I think need to be changed but am powerless to do anything about. The topic I'm writing about is one of those situations. In one fantasy I am a trillionaire, and somehow magically am able to identify every one of the scammers. I offer each of them one million dollars, with the condition that they face a five-member panel of psychologists and psychiatrists, and present to the panel a rational and justifiable reason for why they do what they do. And saying that they do it because they need the money doesn't cut it. If they're smart enough to set up a scam they're smart enough to earn an honest living. Every one of them...scammer, hacker and troll would have to walk away without the million. There is no justification for what they do.

In another fantasy I have, all of the parasites mentioned above are assembled in the Great Basin Desert. Each of their names are called out so that friends and family know who they are. Then I vaporize them. Poof!....gone! Extreme?...sure but it's only a fantasy. Or maybe wishful thinking. They don't deserve to live among decent people.

Excuse me, I have to go because my phone is ringing. The caller ID says "Unavailable".