How dumb can you be?

[kombuchakid]

Anyone come across this sort of looniness?

A gang suspected of fleecing four tourists out of $190,000 in a series of scams was arrested in Yau Ma Tei yesterday.

The three men and a woman - all Filipinos aged between 36 and 55 - were taken to Tsim Sha Tsui police station after a raid on a guesthouse in Shanghai Street.
Police said the syndicate preyed on foreign travellers at shopping malls. They told the tourists their relatives would soon leave Hong Kong to work or study in the travellers' countries.
They would invite the tourists to meet the relatives at their homes and then lure them into playing cards with them for money.
The victims were encouraged to draw money from ATMs to continue the games. Those unable to draw money were persuaded to buy gold items at nearby shops with their credit cards and to gamble with them.
"The suspects would then insist the victims did not have enough money to carry on with the poker game and persuade them to leave some of their personal belongings behind while they went out to withdraw more money," a police spokesman said.
When the tourists returned, the gang members would be gone with their belongings.
Police said three cases implicating the suspects and involving four tourists from Canada and Japan had been reported in the past few months.
When the guesthouse was searched at 10am yesterday, the four suspected syndicate members were allegedly in the process of trying to cheat a 31-year-old Canadian tourist. A small amount of US dollars and several credit cards were seized.

[kostas]

When it comes to dumbness, the sky is the limit and there is no glass ceiling..

[dougp]

You'd think that the time and effort involved in finding enough people that dumb would make the scheme uneconomic - but apparently not. Sad.

[littleblom]

Maybe it's a bit irrelevant.. but cases like those always make me think of the classic question again:

Are human beings evil in nature?

Sad enough..

[Lammarite]

Evil in nature?

I think the question should be- 'Are people really so stupid?'

[kostas]

Maybe it's a bit irrelevant.. but cases like those always make me think of the classic question again:

Are human beings evil in nature?

Sad enough..

Master Meng (Mencius) argued about the goodness of humans and he believed that it is society's influence that cultivates a person's character and that's why good and proper education was top priority for him.

There was a famous argument between Mencius and Gao Zi about the nature of human beings. Gao Zi used water as a metaphor when he said that human nature is neither good nor evil but it's like water that can flow in either direction. Mencius then argued back saying that Gao Zi was correct but water always goes naturally downstream if not being forced to do otherwise by any other means. So by nature humans also tend to be good at first unless something changes their course during life.

[Valencia1]

This is an aged old trick employed by local and mainland gangsters, now copied by the filipinos. I wonder if they can lure American tourists, since they're more skeptical. Yesterday someone asked me to donate $20 for rice coupons for the poor, telling me it's a registered philanphropist organisation. My mind woke up telling me it's a scam. Want to meet these scammers, take a walk in Mongkok.

[slimpig]

this begs the question.... how do fools get money in the first place?

[kirlex]

Evil in nature?

I think the question should be- 'Are people really so stupid?'

No, people are stupid by nature. I an equally annoyed with the victims as I am with the scammers. If people stop falling for these scams, then all email spam and unsolicited called would stop. The victims (in this case Canadians and Japanese) were greedy and thought they could make a quick profit.