why do scammers only target specific people?

[Zombiekiller4yo]

so i ended up falling for a what is normally an obvious scam but tbh i was tired af and didn't wana have to deal with any ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in the morning lmao, obviously got my account back now but noticed scammers really only message certain people, i'm curious if anybody has any information about why they do it and what's the end goal behind it because my account has never had anything valuable on it ever so there's zero point in even targeting an account like this, like do they just get some sort of enjoyment out of it?

[SLG]

Scammers look at public profiles to see what is in your inventories. Also they look at what games you play especially the ones where you can buy in-game items. They see what groups you are in. Some groups are exactly setup by scammers.

[Zombiekiller4yo]

SLGray님이 먼저 게시:

Scammers look at public profiles to see what is in your inventories. Also they look at what games you play especially the ones where you can buy in-game items.

that makes more sense, they probably saw a lot of potential in the fact i played cs go but i mean most valuable skin i have is like 8 bucks 💀

[SLG]

It seems that many people from that game have been scammed.

[Tito Shivan]

For the most part scamming works in the same way as spamming. They throw a vast net on the hopes of catching someone. They may be selective in the way they cast their nets on certain groups (People on trading or giveaway groups are a fan favourite for scammers, or people playing games with tradable items)

[Zombiekiller4yo]

Tito Shivan님이 먼저 게시:

For the most part scamming works in the same way as spamming. They throw a vast net on the hopes of catching someone. They may be selective in the way they cast their nets on certain groups (People on trading or giveaway groups are a fan favourite for scammers, or people playing games with tradable items)

it was weird, guy randomly messaged me saying he false reported my acc and shi and supposedly needed to talk to a steam dev or whatever

[peppermint hollows]

Zombiekiller4yo님이 먼저 게시:

SLGray님이 먼저 게시:

Scammers look at public profiles to see what is in your inventories. Also they look at what games you play especially the ones where you can buy in-game items.

that makes more sense, they probably saw a lot of potential in the fact i played cs go but i mean most valuable skin i have is like 8 bucks 💀

Here's the thing, even if your account doesn't have any expensive items on it or anything like that, doesn't mean that it doesn't have some value to a scammer. Scammers very frequently use accounts they've hijacked to help them hijack even more accounts. Having access to your account means having access to your friends list, and a common occurrence is that once an account is stolen, it will be used to send phishing links to every other account on the victim's friend list. It increases their odds of stealing more accounts, especially because some people are more trusting of their friends than strangers and may click on those phishing links and enter their credentials.

[Zombiekiller4yo]

peppermint hollows님이 먼저 게시:

Zombiekiller4yo님이 먼저 게시:

that makes more sense, they probably saw a lot of potential in the fact i played cs go but i mean most valuable skin i have is like 8 bucks 💀

Here's the thing, even if your account doesn't have any expensive items on it or anything like that, doesn't mean that it doesn't have some value to a scammer. Scammers very frequently use accounts they've hijacked to help them hijack even more accounts. Having access to your account means having access to your friends list, and a common occurrence is that once an account is stolen, it will be used to send phishing links to every other account on the victim's friend list. It increases their odds of stealing more accounts, especially because some people are more trusting of their friends than strangers and may click on those phishing links and enter their credentials.

yup they actually tried using my account to phish others but i locked them out of my stuff thankfully also got my hind saved cuz this account uses my moms email since i was like 12 or 13 at the time of creating this acc so that saved literally everything

[[N]ebsun]

Zombiekiller4yo님이 먼저 게시:

why do scammers only target specific people?
so i ended up falling for a what is normally an obvious scam
why they do it and what's the end goal behind it because my account has never had anything valuable on it ever so there's zero point in even targeting an account like this

They target people who they think will fall for the scam.
Why did they target you ? they saw something that told them you would fall for it, and they were right.
Zero value is relative - anything they can get is something to them, even just a few cents - if they think they can take it, they will try. They can use your account to target your friends, sell it, sell the items on it, steal info from it, etc.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

I tried to make scammers target me on Discord, but I failed :p

[Tsubame ⭐]

What they do? They try to find people who will fall for their ruse.

As for how they do that, by sweet talking or convincing people.

As for specific people, they are looking for ones that they think they can scam, but usually for every one that falls or is more or less willing to trust them, there are many others that ignore them, and you may have missed that.

Regarding value, for people on other countries, low cost inventory may be valuable enough, or even just using your account to test cheats.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Hope this help make some sense to you what scammers do it, which already know they do anything to make a quick buck no matter what.
- If play game that allow trading = Target.
- If show having a lot things = Target.
- If take part in groups that give things, or share info like having money on account, or items they want to take from you. = Target.

Otherwise
- They check how active you are to see if they can time their scam to steal your account, then try sell off your account to someone dumb enough to buy it off them.

[Lilim]

They even targeted me!

I'm sure they were trying to steal my precious Sakura emoticons .

[Kargor]

Yeah, there are target audiences that are more attractive to scammers. CSGo players in particular -- they hang out on "skin sites" anyway, and they pretend their items are worth millions, if not billions -- in actual currency, mind you.

For myself, I can only more-or-less validate one scam attempt. While I have ignored friend requests anyway, most of them can be directly traced back to a post on the forums that I have replied to, so probably not a scammer, just someone filling their friend list with trash.

However, one case in particular left a comment on my profile telling me to add him because he wants to trade -- I gave him my trade link instead, and never heard anything from him ever again.

[↑↑↓↓←→←→BASelect]

Hide your games/play time and make your inventory private or friends only that way they can't see if you have anything of value.

[BJWyler]

You answered your own question with your own post. You fell for the scam. Any scammer is going to target what they think is the easiest mark. And unfortunately, the greed and gullibility of the average person makes it a very lucrative business.