IV

They have time.

As I mentioned, scamming is a game of patience and persuasion. Jamaicans are already prolific storytellers, born from our long days of telling and retelling interesting facets of lives so we have persuasion, wordplay, pitch etc. perfected. Patience is something we have in abundance because we have time in abundance. The average call centre shift lasts 12 hours, think of scamming as working in a call centre but with much better pay and you can work all day AND night. Western Jamaica isn't exactly known for having a lot of jobs; to be honest, you have roughly 4 options:

Work in tourist industry where if you're entry level, you will more than likely end up selling weed or sexing white women/men to get by.

Learn a trade/Open your own business. Mechanic, Plumber, carpenter, taxi driver, bar owner, shop keeper etc.

Planting weed

Go work in a call centre.

If everyone is doing one of these 4 options then competition is stiff and with the tourist and call centre industry being what they are, you receive shit pay and are easily replaceable. A few lucky ones escape and get to move to other parishes or overseas with more opportunities or college/universities. The vast majority aren't that lucky as this requires you to have subjects, experience or "links", the first two lacking as we are not blessed with many places of employment that take on interns in the summer and the last being influenced by who knows who for long from which family. Also, our schools are grossly underfunded and social stigmas still surround about what high school you went to. Petersfield? Grange Hill? Mount Grace? You better learn a trade, get those subjects or excel in sports otherwise a dark future stands waiting for you and God forbid someone gets a child. But don't think that subjects get you anywhere, one of the most prolific scammers is a young man I grew up with. Graduated at the top of his class and packing his 6 double units of CAPE, yet couldn't get funding to go to college and most places took one look at his resume and decided he was "too qualified." You can't pay a qualified man shit and expect him to be content, he will eventually rile up the other workers about what they should be getting.

l I digress but I want you to fully understand what we face. The scammers have time because it's an option of joining the already fierce competition for jobs/income and try to get by, begging or sit by the roadside. Most have to sit by the roadside, not by their choice but as it is the only road they have. So they turn to scamming, they can afford to be patient. The alternative is far worse to them.