A survey conducted by Microsoft and YouGov reveals that it is not frightened old ladies, but overconfident young men who are most likely to fall for tech support scams

In an online survey of more than 16,000 people in 16 countries in May 2021, 16% of respondents aged 24-37, defined as millennial men, said they had lost money to scammers in the first few months after January 2020 In addition, 27% said they were happy to have been involved with a scammer

In contrast, only 1% of boomer women (54+) said they had lost money, and only 8% said they would not engage with scammers at all

Scams come via unsolicited phone calls, junk mail, other messages, or pop-up windows in web browsers Many scams involve a phony "tech support person" telling you that there is something wrong with your computer or its software and that you need to purchase or update services immediately

According to research reports, people who call themselves computer "experts," regardless of age or gender, are far more likely to lose money to tech support scammers than those who consider themselves "advanced" or "intermediate" computer users 9]

"Those most affected and most likely to have lost money were Gen Z, millennials, and men, possibly due to the younger generation being more 'online' and engaging in riskier activities," the report said, adding that "those who lost money

adding that "they showed (excessive) confidence in their computer literacy

Such "risky behavior" is commonplace among Internet users under 30

There is another interesting story: while Westerners may blame India for technical support scams because many fake technical support agents have strong accents, a Microsoft/YouGov survey found that victims are overwhelmingly Indian

As many as 31% of Indian respondents to the survey reported being victims of technical support scams The next highest percentage of victims was in the US, with 10%, followed closely by Australia and Mexico

Indians were also the most trustworthy overall: 48% reported being involved with a scammer, followed by 29% in Brazil and 21% in Mexico

Only 18% of Americans engaged with scammers, and 49% hung up the phone or ignored pop-up windows or email messages trying to lure them into a scam

The smartest computer users may be those in the UK Almost as many people in the UK as in the US reported encountering tech support scams (67% vs 60%), but only 8% of UK residents said they engaged with scammers, and only 1% suffered financial loss

Japan appears to have the lowest rate of tech support scams: only 28% of respondents said they had encountered a scam in the past 16 months On the other hand, 69% of Brazilians said they had encountered a technical support scam

The survey was conducted between May 6 and May 17, 2021, among 16, 254 Internet users aged 18 and older in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UK, and the United States The survey was conducted on 254 people