There is an old proverb - some say of Chinese origin - that goes, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."
I have a question: Who is the shame on, if a person is fooled eighty-six times?
That's roughly how often my elderly father has sent money to Jamaican fraudsters, either directly, or through payment processors (a.k.a. "Money Mules") in the U.S. and Canada.
Confronted with such a number, it is tempting - as posters in several discussion threads have done - to lay the blame squarely on victims, and deem them deserving of everything they lose.
While I've felt that way at times, I must ultimately disagree with this sentiment, because the victim is someone I know, a loved one who, prior to being swindled, was nobody's fool.
The truth is, no one deserves to be taken, least of all an octogenarian blinded by his desire to win big for his family. So blinded, in fact, that he cannot see the truth, or face the fact that he has been fooled incessantly, by those who the shame is truly on.
I have a question: Who is the shame on, if a person is fooled eighty-six times?
That's roughly how often my elderly father has sent money to Jamaican fraudsters, either directly, or through payment processors (a.k.a. "Money Mules") in the U.S. and Canada.
Confronted with such a number, it is tempting - as posters in several discussion threads have done - to lay the blame squarely on victims, and deem them deserving of everything they lose.
While I've felt that way at times, I must ultimately disagree with this sentiment, because the victim is someone I know, a loved one who, prior to being swindled, was nobody's fool.
The truth is, no one deserves to be taken, least of all an octogenarian blinded by his desire to win big for his family. So blinded, in fact, that he cannot see the truth, or face the fact that he has been fooled incessantly, by those who the shame is truly on.
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