iTunes Gift Card Scam

I got my first iTunes cards scam emails today, the following supposedly from someone I know: "Here is what you need to do for me real quick. I need iTunes gift cards, can you get some at the store right now? I will reimburse you as soon as i'm out of the conference. Let me know to advise denomination to purchase." Full transcript attached below. Have you had that conversation yet with your parents who may be online but may fall for such things?

Like most change we may wish to make to the world it requires effort and time on an individuals part. Whether it is feeding the homeless, picking up litter, recycling, and so on. The individual effort achieves little but that changes as the number of people participating increases.

Pauls principle of engagement: These scammers have a viable business model largely because it only takes them seconds to skip through huge numbers of potential targets to find the 1 in 1,000 that falls for it. This business would become uneconomic if a larger number of us engaged. This is particularly true for phone scams, the approach should be to keep them on the line for 5 minutes rather than just hanging up in seconds. It won't make any difference if only a few did it, but if "Pauls principle of engagement" became the approach then their business would fail.