After some exchanges, the scammer one day told her he was “in space on a spaceship right now” but was “under attack and in need of oxygen,” the official said.
The scammer then urged her to pay him online to help him buy oxygen, and successfully hoodwinked around 1 million yen ($6,700) out of her.
People are shitty because grifting is easy. If I had a few million in available spending cash and no morals, I could grift people left and right without them even knowing it. The average person is just too incompetent, naive, and/or trusting.
The ease seems less important here than the morals, tbh. It’s easier to make people aware of scammers than to make them care about each other, unfortunately.