Had one of my staff fall for one of these scams while at work one day. Very nice old lady. My boss and I tried to stop her, but the scammers told her they had her son, and if she didn’t send the money they’d kill him. She basically ran out screaming and crying. My boss ran out to the parking lot to stop her, but she sped off. The crazy thing is, my boss had literally seen the scam the night before on something like 60 minutes.
Mark is an incredibly smart guy. He worked for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for several years, which included collaboration on the Mars Curiosity rover. He has also worked at Apple.