What’s a scam that people still fall for?

"direct sales" is one that irks me a lot.

Yeah, I’ve seen “network marketing” a lot!

I can recall 35 years ago when I was in my early years of working professional office jobs and I worked for a company that had divisions in many states. I was at work and got a call from one of the guys from the state next to us who was at our office for training with a few other people from their office. We all had worked on remote projects and got along. So after work, we all went out to dinner. It turned out that the entire lot of them were involved in Amway and it was that guy's turn to spin the recruiting thing and I was the target. But they didn't call it Amway. I didn't know what to say. I had no idea about pyramid schemes. Fortunately I didn't get sucked into the excitement and told them I would think about it. They wanted me to put a deposit of money down on "the investment." (This was back when people still carried their checkbooks everywhere). I had a good stack of brochures and a book that he insisted I take home to read. I still lived at my parents house and mentioned the dinner to my mom and showed her the brochures, etc. This was years before the Internet was available at home. She helped me to see what it was. The next day at work, I gave all the paraphernalia back to them and told them I wasn't going to "invest." I was never assigned another project with them...

It’s usually a check scam or they ask for money up front in order to start the job

There's several versions, but a common one is the fake check scam. Employer sends you a fake check to cash to buy supplies. Either you have to buy it from their "supplier" (aka the scammers in disguise), or you are supposed to "send back" unused funds. Well once the bank realizes the check is fake, which could be days after it "clears" (bank has to make funds available immediately), they claw it back and close your account for fraud. So you're not only out the money from the check, but the money you sent to suppliers or back to them. Another version they want you to do a fake job for very high pay, like translation or data entry. And then they tell you your pay is in an account on a fake website. Once you try to withdraw it, they tell you you have to either pay to "activate" your account, or that they have to "pay taxes". And the point is to get you to keep spending to get your money out, until you give up.

It serves four if you intend to leave four people disappointed with their appetizer proportioned meal.

I too identify as a family of 4

I'm a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and have had a few patients who are unfortunately targeted for these. I've shared concerns with all of them, but it's like you said- their situation is always "different." It's disgusting that there are people out there who will target lonely and desperate individuals for this. I have a patient going through this right now, I've voiced my concerns and shared some things that I recommend they look out for, but they are not in a place to even consider that this amazing person who just happened to randomly find their profile on social media and professed love for them within 2 weeks of talking could be anything other than genuine.  I know if I press the issue more it will just damage our relationship and drive the patient away, so I'm just waiting and providing the payment cautious support in the meantime. It's a classic scam setup, but the perception of love and hope of companionship is a powerful thing. 

[relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/713)

In this case, they engineered my mom fairly well over the phone. Started with "grandma, I need help". She then said " is that you?". And then it was on.

Because it’s still 100% better for them than where they are coming from. Wages are so low in the countries immigrants come from.

100%

La verdadera estafa fue invertir mi tiempo en este hilo

Exactly