Scam artist uses affiliate business as cover

[The Buzz]

This is the sort of stuff that gives the industry a bad name. Affiliates bilking old people out of their money. Not good at all.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...n/4762765.html

[CityGuard]

The stories I hear about scams often seem to involve the elderly. I just stumbled across an article about a new study finding the elderly process anticipated loss differently than younger people, so this may indicate some of the reason people like the scam artist in this story are able to pull off their

While it may have some implications about this kind of case, there are also some broader implications in terms of helping understand the choice of gambling as a recreational activity. Losing sucks equally for young and old, but the unfulfilled possibility of losing upsets young people more.


And I would definately recommend reading the full article here. It goes into a lot of interesting information that can't be captured in an article teaser like this.

Study May Explain Why Elderly Are Easy Scam Targets
By Jeanna Bryner

New research reveals that while both young and old adults had similar levels of brain activity when anticipating rewards, certain brain regions in older adults didn't activate when responding to a potential financial loss. ...

...

"When you tell them you might lose some money, the younger adults reported being really stressed out. They were pretty anxious about the potential to lose," Samanez Larkin told LiveScience, "and brain activation in these regions just ramped up."

Those brain regions, called the caudate and the insula, remained "silent" in older adults, who also didn't report anxiety over the possibility of losing money.

"This is just anticipation — nothing has happened yet. They may or may not lose money," Samanez Larkin said. "When they do actually lose money, they showed indistinguishable activation."

....

Read the full article at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,269289,00.html

[Amateur]

That is realy interesting to me. I have an elderly relative who is always getting phone calls from conmen. And she listens to their crap, even when we tell her to just hang up, or tell them not to call her anymore. Fortunately she doesn't have control of her money, or they would take her for a ride for sure!!

Thanks for posting this.

[WinYourWayKyle]

This kind of behavior is what gives the online gaming industry a bad name. Most people are looking to make money, but a majority of us are doing it in an orderly fashion, and everything is legit.

I hate to see these types of stories, and especially when elderly people are investing their retirement money into this kind of investment.