First published 2026-05-30 / Last reviewed 2026-05-30 This article is general legal information based on the YouTube commentary above by attorney Roh Jongeon of Jonjae Law Firm and does not guarantee any particular outcome in an individual case. For specific legal advice please consult an attorney.
Why Scammers Target "Those People" — The Psychology of Victims and Perpetrators
This is the second installment in our fraud series. In consultations I often hear an angry question while handling fraud cases: "How could anyone defraud a person like that?" The answer is clear. Scammers typically target the people who are struggling the most. This article frames the reason along three axes: the scammer's decision logic, the psychological state of the victim, and the inversion of widely shared social norms.
Who is most likely to become a fraud victim
In our consultations, the people most likely to become fraud victims share one trait: they are at the most difficult, most desperate moment of their lives, when they need help the most. Scammers detect that moment with precision and approach.
- A person whose health is critical, such as a terminal cancer patient
- A person plunged into deep loneliness after losing family or a partner
- A person in economic desperation after a business failure or job loss
- A person who strongly feels social isolation
Case: a 100 million-won health product for a terminal cancer patient
A typical pattern looks like this. A scammer sells lingzhi or chaga mushroom extract to a terminal cancer patient at a price around 100 million won, claiming "this will cure your cancer." Even when the children try to intervene, the patient often ends up making the purchase decision.
In consultations, patients themselves typically know rationally that "this might be fraud." The reason they nonetheless make an irrational choice is that desperation overwhelms rational judgment.
The scammer's mindset: they "rationally" target the weak
Angry observers often assume scammers are irrational and impulsive, but in reality the opposite is true. Scammers typically run the following rational calculations.
- Success probability: between someone with financial cushion and emotional resilience and someone who is lonely and desperate, who is more likely to fall for a scam?
- Input cost: how much time, acting, and network access does it take to deceive one person?
- Recoverable amount: who is the target from whom the largest sum can be extracted for the same effort?
When these three variables are multiplied, "the desperate and lonely" typically becomes the most efficient target.
Fraud weaponizes "our shared morality"
Our society holds widely shared norms: help the weak, comfort the lonely. Scammers turn those norms upside down.
- "Help the weak" -> approaching the weak with apparent kindness raises no suspicion.
- "Comfort the lonely" -> the trust of a lonely person is easy to earn.
- "Helping the suffering is a virtue" -> fake "cures" and fake "salvation" become bait for large sums.
The scammer is not someone who shares ordinary moral instincts but someone who sees those instincts as "a priced resource" to trade.
The cruelty of psychopathic and sociopathic decision-making
A scammer is dangerous in a different sense than a robber or thief who fails to control impulses. The scammer has typically "decided" three things on purpose.
- Decided to discard moral norms
- Decided to target the weak
- Decided to act while shutting down guilt
Understanding the scammer's "decision-making" matters because it stops the victim from blaming themselves. The recovery point is not "I was foolish" but "I was exposed to a system that precisely weaponizes universal human morality."
Pseudo-religious cults are the same structure in a different form
Pseudo-religious cults likewise promise lonely and suffering people that "if you come into this community you will be happy" and then demand donations and unpaid labor. The core mechanism is identical.
- They offer a "solution" to loneliness, a deficit typically hard to resolve.
- Once a person is absorbed into the community, "leaving" means returning to loneliness.
- They exploit the human psychology of preferring financial burden over a return to loneliness.
A practical checklist for reducing harm
- The more desperate the moment, the more any large financial decision should be reviewed by a "rational third party."
- "Only you know about this" and "this is the one and only chance" are typical phrases to read as warning signals.
- The same scripting is reused across medicine, religion, and investment - "fields with heavy emotional weight."
- If family is trying to stop you and you feel you are "already in too deep," consult an attorney or specialist as soon as possible.
Frequently asked questions
Q. A family member is deeply caught in a scam. How can we help them get out?
A. Direct confrontation typically backfires. The family member is often filling loneliness or a sense of belonging within the community the scammer built. The more effective approach is typically to first review the entire structure of the matter with an attorney or specialist counselor, and then together build an environment in which the family member can fill that loneliness in another way.
Q. I have already lost more than 100 million won to fraud. Can it be recovered?
A. Recovery prospects vary significantly depending on the facts, the flow of funds, the perpetrator's ability to pay, and the possibility of criminal complaint. Recovery typically becomes harder over time, so we recommend organizing the recovery strategy, the criminal complaint, and the parallel civil suit with an attorney as early as possible.
Closing
Fraud victimization is typically not the result of being foolish but the result of being exposed to a system that precisely weaponizes universal human morality. You do not have to blame yourself. In the next installment, we will cover "why scammers are not caught easily, and why they slip away even when caught."
