"Hi it's me listen I'm in trouble big trouble need money fast oh please Mama — HELP!'
Somehow it won't go away, this infamous ore-ore telephone scam. It preys primarily on the well-to-do elderly. A fast-talking con artist pretending to be the target's son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter or some other family connection or connection of a connection (at first it was usually a son or grandson; "ore" is an informal masculine first-person pronoun) relates a tale of woe (pregnant girlfriend, trouble with gangsters, heavy debts, car accident) in such rapid-fire speech as to be scarcely comprehensible, then, in tears, begs for a cash bailout — typically to be transferred into a specified bank account.
Variations have proliferated over the years as practitioners hone their techniques, but it's all fruit from the same tree, and you have to wonder, considering the huge amount of publicity the scam has received and the dire warnings so widely broadcast: Why are people still falling for it?
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