The problem is that many scammers now groom your brain into trusting them before they even mention money. This is a psychological thing where you can’t necessarily just tell yourself “I’m not going to fall for that.” There are reports from professional scambaiters who, after engaging with a phone scammer for a while, found themselves inexplicably clinging to the belief the scheme was real.
This is possibly due to how our brains are wired to trust an already-established narrative and due to the effect that repeated interactions have on trust. When the scammer eventually steers the topic towards money, phenomena such as the Semmelweis reflex [0] may have already kicked in, which can make it super difficult to re-frame the person as a scammer.
This is possibly due to how our brains are wired to trust an already-established narrative and due to the effect that repeated interactions have on trust. When the scammer eventually steers the topic towards money, phenomena such as the Semmelweis reflex [0] may have already kicked in, which can make it super difficult to re-frame the person as a scammer.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelweis_reflex