If you reply, the scammer initiates a friendly conversation. Over weeks, they cultivate a relationship, posing as a successful entrepreneur.

Once trust is firmly established, they casually introduce the topic of cryptocurrency investing. To build credibility, they direct you to download a trading platform that looks entirely legitimate.

Oh there’s many more than that. My SIL just send *thousands* of dollars to one, somewhere, after a year long on-line flirtation which started with an “accidental email.” True story. The SIL is a one time attractive young thing, now a morbidly obese (medical diagnosis) 60-something who got involved with a handsome 30-ish black man who somehow found her interesting.

She did not, of course, tell her husband or son, but did tell her sisters who each and every one told her it was a scam and to drop it. But she wouldn’t, and after hundreds (yes!) of emails back and forth, and repeated warnings from family and friends (including specific “He will ask you for money!” “Oh don’t worry, I’ll never do that”) finally fell for the:

“I’m having some temporary problems making my house payment and I’m going to be evicted, but I have a big contract coming in and I just need a month or two....”

And she drained her savings account. And her IRA. And sent it. He, surprisingly, did not disappear. After several days he ‘needed more”. Then demanded more. Then threatened to tell her husband, at which time the spell was broken, and she told the husband instead, and it ended, TENS OF THOUSAND OF DOLLARS LATER.

(It boggles that people are this stupid, but then ... she is.)

The kicker is that since she also emptied the IRA, she faced a tax bill this past April which she had no idea about, being entirely unaware of how the world works.

I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing you can do for these people, except perhaps track down the perps and shoot them through the eyes, if you could be sure who they are. It is the unfortunate human condition to take advantage of the less intelligent, and for those so identified to push their meager holdings upwards to someone else.

I do not know of a solution. Even the most direct, explicit, and repeated warnings did not work in this case. I don’t think there’s anything that would have.