We have a lot of questions asking "is this a scam", and in most cases the situation and the answer are the same. Someone giving me free money and:
Should we try to write a canonical question and answer to cover these situations, so that we can close future questions as duplicates?
Yes, but it should be short, because the people asking the questions probably have very short attention spans.
For example, take the latest sugar daddy question. Does anyone really think this is a question posed by a scholar of logic? I almost think the question itself is a scam, laughing at serious, literal us.
On English Language and Usage, we get some extremely basic questions, badly posed, with no evidence of research. But these are posed by earnest students of English as a second language, often burdened by a semi-literate teacher, and one should be thankful that one is not among this group, and try to help them. This is done by some with a short answer to the Q in a comment and then immediately downvoting and VTCing, or if the question is elementary but shows some research or thought, voting to migrate to English Language Learners.
Is rapid downvoting and VTCing impractical here? Why did the sugar daddy question get a net of 12 upvotes and a star? How many downvotes did it get besides mine?
I suppose all this attention was because it got on the HNQ. Any way to prevent idiotic questions from going on the HNQ?
This is perhaps the fourth such question I have seen since becoming fairly active on this site, and I am getting tired of them. Not to mince words, they are a slum neighborhood in an otherwise great site.
We do
I agree that something needs to be done. The similar question was discussed nearly 3 years ago, and was part of the motivation for creating the FAQ which sits in Meta. As I look at that, we have 4 questions for scams there. If I recall correctly, these were chosen to try to cover a few different types of scams which would cover some large percent of the new questions. (If we need to edit any of these 4 or add other examples that differ, let’s do it) This is what the FAQ shows -
Scams scams
Most common types of financial scams an individual investor should beware of?
Is this person wanting to pay my credit card trying to defraud me?
I received $1000 and was asked to send it back. How was this scam meant to work?
Scam or Real: A woman from Facebook apparently needs my bank account to send money
The FAQ, in my opinion, serves two purposes. To offer common questions, which can be used as the target for closing new ones as duplicate, and as a place a new member can be pointed to see examples of our best work.
If we attempt to write a fake, broad, canonical “Is it a scam?” question with a “Yes, scam” answer, I think it will be difficult to write one that is convincing and covers a wide variety of situations.
The details of scams are constantly new and changing. If our canonical question is too detailed, it won’t match the new questions and will cause new OPs to think, “That doesn’t match my situation.
If our canonical question is too broad, new OPs will look at it and think, “But my contact said this, which isn’t mentioned here, so does that change things?”
Closing as duplicate is tricky. If there is any room for the OP to think that the duplicate question doesn’t match his situation, then it is probably better to leave it open and offer a new answer.
The issue to me is that to the question "Is this a scam?" the answer is yes. It really borders on being a stupid question, every time. The answer is yes and the person asking already knows the answer and is really just looking to be reassured.
The question could MAYBE be worth answering if the person actually cared what the scam was; but these are one word answer questions.
"My stranger sugar daddy wants me to forward money to some other stranger, is this a scam?"
Yes.
It borders on offensive to even expect anyone to read the whole scenario laid out in the questions. It has nothing to do with personal finance apart from involving money by simple virtue of being a scam. Should I buy a size 10 shoe or size 11 if I normally wear a 10.5 but this brand doesn't make half sizes? Is equally close to being a personal finance question as it takes money to buy shoes.
These questions wouldn't be irritating if they were less frequent. It hardly feels valuable to entertain a bad question from a 1 rep newcomer who will never come back after being reassured of the scam they've found themselves involved in.
If immediately deleting these waste of time questions is untenable then having "a mark as duplicate" catch-all is the next best thing.
If a canonical Q&A is created, I suggest it be in the form of outlining the 'smell test', similar to what I've laid out in my answer here https://money.stackexchange.com/a/88217/44232.
Focussing on the mechanics of how any given scam works would not be broad enough to cover any possible solution; instead such an answer should focus on laying out the principles that allow the general reader to immediately see that a scam is in place. Links below each section to typical questions with these situations may also help.
1) No one will give you money for nothing - if a 'job' would take you 5 minutes to complete, it won't earn you a full day's wage; if you've never met someone they won't give you their inheritance; and no 'investment manager' is able to earn guaranteed high returns on your quick investment.
2) Never transfer money on someone else's behalf - even back to that same person! This can be a sign of money laundering, or an attempt to defraud you (see links to check clearing fraud).
3) Online evidence is easy to fake - websites, photos, documents, anything you see online can be created to give you a false sense of security. Don't believe anything you get from someone you've never met.
4) Anyone who opens up, out of the blue after never having met you, to offer you money [either as 'job offer', 'investment plan', 'inheritance', or anything else] is a scammer.
etc.
In the case where it's a real person answering the question, a personal answer means much more than pointing them to a FAQ. They're looking for validation probably, more than asking a real question. Maybe both: a short personal answer referring to a "it's a scam" community answer.
