Why do scammers scam?

[adizzle]

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/wjon.com/files/2010/12/crack_cocaine.jpg

Looks like some chinese Methylone to me

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[marky89]

probably has to do with being a sociopath, imo.

[Armed]

Might be more profitable in the long term. That's not interesting to scammers. Quick cash is king.

[Habeler876]

Some people are simply opportunistic, and go for the short term score -- even when the idea holds promise. Partly, I'm sure, someone who comes up with a great business idea but has no interest in actually operating it, might be tempted to sell the dream...

[Wusolini]

It's simple, because they are greedy and lazy doing regural work to make profit.

[nwfella]

I think it's a combination of factors:
1.) Relatively easy to get away with it
2.) Extreme short-term memory loss regarding those burned typically (most people know perusing these scams is going to take even more time and resources than they are worth..obviously there are exceptions to this)
3.) Greed
4.) Always new people getting into bitcoin (thus fresh meat for the scammers)

[Kprawn]

It's a combination of things.

While we work for our income, most scammers, do not, so they have time, to plan elaborate schemes, to con people out of their money. Some are even too lazy to think of their own scams, and copy cat other people.

Why would you work hard, if you can easily scam other people out of their money? Laziness & Greed.

Well and then you get people, who do it for the kick. {Example  -  White hat hackers, do it, to see if it's possible, but they repair and replace what they have done, and get nothing out of it, sometimes they even report the vulnrabilities, but then you get the script kiddies, who write no code, just copy someone else, and then boast about their hack, amongs their fellow script kiddies, to feel important.}

We will always have people who believe in hard work for money, and those who will lie and steal to get to the hard workers money.

Only thing we can do, is to expose them early and then to report them, for everyone too see.

If you find scammers here, report them here --> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0

[ObscureBean]

Well, I guess it boils down to something as simple as this:

Somebody you don't know and who doesn't know you gives you $1,000,000 to hold for him while he attends to other things. He's gonna pay you $1000 for your time and effort.
If there's no way for him to ever find out who you are and you start to think about the difference between 1 mil and 1000, for a lot of people, temptation eventually creeps in.
Sad but true.  

[Dr. Pepper]

Asking why do scammers scam is silly. Why do people steal? Many reasons but greed. I guess maybe some are addicted to it and get a buzz like gambling or something too.

[DodoB]

To get easy money,obviously,maybe some just enjoy hurting people,but mostly they do it for money.

[magnet007]

To get easy money,obviously,maybe some just enjoy hurting people,but mostly they do it for money.

yes,easy money and by nature even.

[Zuhayr]

becasue they didn't learn to make money by being legit, they think that they are ultra cool by scamming.

[Swimpool]

They are too lazy to make their own way.

[skottiejay]

I think, and this is just imho that a lot of people see $$ and stop thinking with a rational brain, or halt all rational thinking. I've been on both ends, I haven't scammed anyone but I've thought about it. A lot of it for me comes from being desperate and the situation you are in. That's my experience with it, and then there are people who know how gullible a person or people can be, and play on it. It's the human condition, people want to fall for the bleeding heart, I've been watching a lot of X-Factor type shows lately, (I know i'm terrible) and all it seems you have to do is have a sad story and some kind of like weeping and you are in the hearts of millions. I'm not saying a lot of these people don't have legitimate need, but sometimes your thinking gets warped when you are in need.

I know this from experience, never scammed anyone have thought about ways because of all the bad luck I've had in the past couple of years that it would be nice to have some money to actually fall back on.

I don't know that doesn't mean anything I'm doing or have done is out to scam anyone but I definitely have thought about it.

[commandrix]

In the long term, yes, it would be more profitable to be honest. However, my best answer to this question is that the nature of scammers is a combination of laziness and greed. They want to make Bitcoin from their couches without doing any work and that's why you still see the Irish lottery showing up in spam boxes everywhere even though most people who have been around the Internet for a while know it's a scam. It doesn't help that there are still a few suckers out there.

[smoothie]

One word: Lazy

[sile16]

I think there are a lot of parallels to ponzi schemes throughout the years.  A lot of ponzi schemes start at completely legitimate operations.  And then at some point along the path hardship causes people to dip into the reserves/holdings with the thought they can pay it all back.  But then circumstances arise or markets fall enough to push these past where they can hide and everything gets exposed.  I think some of the things in the BTC are just up front plain old scams.  However, it may be the case in the exchanges that some of them died in a similar manner.  Exchanges are under pressure to grow and handle greater trading demands.  If they don't have enough external funding it would be tempting to use account holder funds to help fund infrastructure expansions with the goal of just paying it back with transactions fees later.  However, it the market swings wildly this can get exposed.  Seeing that the end result is the same one has to just decide whether it was intentional or if it was just incompetence which turned criminal. 

[DubFX]

When it would be more profitable to stay legitimate instead?

For example there was Stackcoin. Its dev had an IPO that raised 70 BTC. It had an interesting idea and screenshots were posted showing the concept being developed. Wouldn't it have been more profitable to just develop the coin instead?

Or the Sharexcoin exchange. A lot of development went into that site and the site was a fully functioning exchange which would have been a good long term investment for the site owner. But instead the owner decided to scam its users by closing the site and running off with its users' coins. I think he was later caught trying to sell 24 million QORA on Poloniex which they were able to identify and seize.

It doesn't make any sense.

Well he could have alot bigger profit from sharexcoin exchange since exchanges make alot of money on fees indeed.
And scammers scam cuz they just want fast money to spend them now, not for planning future or anything like that.

[Chrithu]

Short answer:

Because they can.

Or maybe because there's a new sucker born every day?

All the explanations given in this thread basically boil down to one central point:

If people wouldn't fall for scams so easily scammers wouldn't exist.

And why do people fall for scams usually? Because of their own greed.

And yes I am very aware that this is a simplification of matters.

[Soappa]

Scamming happens everywhere, both in bitcoin and fiat. And the only reason I can think of is greed...