Why are deaf people scammed against more than others?

Topic says all..

We have a big collection list of scammers who pop up here from time to time. And we talk about those folks. Now's to talk about them all in general.

I keep seeing more scammers pop up. Anyone out there who uses the internet frequently has probably came across a scammer once or twice.
Why is it that scammers try harder to work on successfully looting the deaf?
I have noticed a lot of IM/email convos of them trying to be a particular advocates for deaf people or something, just to get figured out easily.




There was this one scammer who contacted me last week. I played a social experiment him/her, they pretended to imitate a deaf female for love and an everlasting marriage. I noticed they try real hard to get 'accepted', there's a real person behind it all trying to talk and get me to "help" her out.

Other non-deaf scams seem pretty straightforward and it's hit or miss, if they lose they don't try again, it seems (feels that way personally).

I was with my friends in the van and one of them have some of paper that says "Deaf Men Baseball Association Donation" with the list of blank lines where people who donate sign their signature and the dates.

I was the only one who got in argue with him over that, and other thought it was funny and cool to scam people for money. He told me "Well I need some of foods", and other was like "Ohh why not?!", it pissed me off the most when he told me that he just need the foods.

I was trying to tell him that he should have gotten a food stamp card or went to the food banks, or the free resturants at some churches, or something because those kind of companies WANT to help and WILL give the foods, the people don't want to be scammed to help, duh of course.

But they ignored me and going on scamming others at the neighbors, offices, bars, etc, it took like 2 to 3 hours for me to sit in the van and waiting for them to finish with the scamming. Then they brought me to the resturant that they plan to use the same money to eat, I used my own money and refused their offer to help me with the money. Later, they got pissed off at me for not hanging out with them and scamming the people with them, they feel like I have no fun.

What a brat spoiled, uh?

It's something that I couldn't stand to understand, but I won't let them fool me to be a scammer or to be fooled by the scammers.

naisho said:

Why is it that scammers try harder to work on successfully looting the deaf?

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I think the reason these scammers are working hard to loot the deaf people is because often time, they will probably think that most of us are not well informed or well aware of what the scammers are capable of. In overall, I also think it's because since most scammers are from Nigeria/Middle East/Europe area and they probably are usually not well informed or educated of how deaf people are to a certain degree. Perhaps that is why they find it easier to loot on the deaf people due to being able to scam them out.

They probably think that deaf people are easier to scam than hearing people?

Jolie and Vampy covered what I have thought why they (scammers) are targeting the deaf.

I find this to be interesting read - a rather long read: Advance-fee fraud

Jolie77 said:

I think the reason these scammers are working hard to loot the deaf people is because often time, they will probably think that most of us are not well informed or well aware of what the scammers are capable of. In overall, I also think it's because since most scammers are from Nigeria/Middle East/Europe area and they probably are usually not well informed or educated of how deaf people are to a certain degree. Perhaps that is why they find it easier to loot on the deaf people due to being able to scam them out.

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I think i agree. i know a few of my friends' deaf single mothers who went in trouble when they were helping someone by paying. well friends mother got scammed and ended up paying a lot of $ for nothing. Poor her and my friend had to teach her deaf mother not to do it ever again. She lost a lot of $. I feel bad for them. I know one of my friend who went through similar like this. I told her that i thought she knows better and asked me not to talk about it. =X

While I was in Greece recently, I saw one of those "deaf people" who came up to people in a restaurant giving them a card that says "Let me know if you want to buy one of the things from me (he had clocks, flashlights, etc). I am deaf." So I was wondering if he was faking it, so I attempted to use ASL (I am not fluent) with him. He did know some ASL (he was fluent in whatever Greeks use). We chatted for a bit and turns out that he's a really nice guy.

As for scammers targeting on deaf people, why do I get the feeling that not only scammers think that deaf people are clueless, but the scams actually work on deaf people more than hearing people....

Scammers usually go for what actually works, not what they think will work.

I don't think deaf people generally are on equal level of awareness as hearing people. It's not their fault, just bad services/environment and whatnot.

I agree so...

Yet so many hearing people were scammed as well... just look at $65 billion pronzi investment scam (by Madoff) and another scam at $8 billion done by another person. I haven't heard a deaf person scammed by those scams as of yet but lot of them were involved with the hearing people. Not only those but others were scammed by online scammers as well.

A deaf man, Marvin Cooper scammed some $4 million on deaf people (think hearies involved, too)... cruel and shame of him!

Though I do agree with you guys that it might be easier for some certain scammers (aka Nigerians) to target on deaf people, whom some don't read well, that worked for them. But I think more and more deaf people are now becoming more aware of them than they were before.

Daredevel7 said:

While I was in Greece recently, I saw one of those "deaf people" who came up to people in a restaurant giving them a card that says "Let me know if you want to buy one of the things from me (he had clocks, flashlights, etc). I am deaf." So I was wondering if he was faking it, so I attempted to use ASL (I am not fluent) with him. He did know some ASL (he was fluent in whatever Greeks use). We chatted for a bit and turns out that he's a really nice guy.

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Ohhhh OK. I'm sure that not all of those people with the cards asking for money are faking it. There are probably some genuine deaf people who feel they have to do it, unfortunately. The majority of the stories I've heard of with those people, though, usually result in them being fake.

I took the time to think about this for a bit before replying.

You know how some of us are flustered at people who consider being deaf as a pitiful, sorrowful thing?

These "deaf scammers" and people who intend to scam them uphold to the idea that deaf are poorly incapable of doing anything in life correctly, easily attempting to make deaf overall look incapable of doing anything.

In response, normal people get the doppler effect when they see a deaf person around. "Oh! I'm so sorry to learn you are deaf!" That may be one of the influences of deaf=dumb seems to stem from.

And it's not really helping that the beggars/low-life types continue to uphold to that form of mentality along with the scammer upholding to the view of them.

Gotta do something about this, but I have no idea what nor how. Just 2cent observations so far.


Btw, Brian, interesting link. I read through most of the Nigerian parts and I have to say, if I was a Nigerian I'd rather be doing things more worthy of my time...

Sucks! :roll:

Let them scamming me and I'll prank back to them.

PowerON said:

Let them scamming me and I'll prank back to them.

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don't forget to take pictures and videos of you and scammer.

Me thinks it's just the misconception that scammers regard the deafies as not only "deaf....but dumb as well"!....There! I've said it!....It's 2009, and still some deafies are mainly regarded as "dummies".

They probably think deaf people are easier prey...the "weaker" ones usually are targeted.

Frisky Feline said:

don't forget to take pictures and videos of you and scammer.

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I don't know if I can take picture before I hang on them.

Frisky Feline said:

I think i agree. i know a few of my friends' deaf single mothers who went in trouble when they were helping someone by paying. well friends mother got scammed and ended up paying a lot of $ for nothing. Poor her and my friend had to teach her deaf mother not to do it ever again. She lost a lot of $. I feel bad for them. I know one of my friend who went through similar like this. I told her that i thought she knows better and asked me not to talk about it. =X

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Yikes, that really sucks about few of your friends who were duped in the scam.

I have known of several other deaf people who were scammed as well. There was one that I knew who had kept sending like $1,000 (or something, not sure of the exact amount) and only to realize that the money is long gone.

As for scammers, All we can do is be well informed and to read between the lines to find red flags in there in order to protect ourselves from being duped.

The message is simple....

Dont give money to strangers.

I have never been scammed! Elders get scammed a lot! I once got a phone call that I won something but I had to give some infor about myself first! I told the person to send me the details , and they hang up! I never heard from them again!
I think this a funny! Years ago I was at my girlfriend's house and two men came to the door , one guy was 'blind' My friend's mother asked what they wanted, the guy that was not blind said they're selling brooms to help his 'blind friend'. My friend's mother did not buy a broom , but all three of us ran to the front window and saw both men running back the car! The 'blind ' guy was running pretty good for being blind! We knew the whole thing was a scam!