Email Scammers

I was checking my email a moment ago, and I saw that I had a message on YouTube. Two, actually, and I was, naturally, curious as to what they were about, though it took me a second to realize that the email I was looking at was not the account linked to the YouTube account that I post videos on. Nevertheless, I was interested in what messages I had received.

Turns out they were both the same sort of scam. They said different versions of "Hey Alex, I'm the girl from the gym! Here's my profile on that site I was talking about, message me there ASAP to get this thing going!" And I was like my name ain't Alex and I don't go to the gym. Also, if you addressed me by my name, why do you introduce yourself as "the girl from the gym" and not "Alice from the gym" (one of the messages was from an account that had Alice as their first name). I mean, a vague "hey, I'm that girl you met at the gym" has a better shot, then trying to guess that someone named Alex will fall for this.

My second thought was does this actually ever work? Like seriously, do people forget they had conversations with random girls at the gym? Girls who don't give you their names and then message you on freaking YouTube? Google+, Facebook, email, sure. But a YouTube message? Really? Presumably, you've already hacked someone's Google account, or created fake ones to perpetuate this scam, and you choose YouTube as your mode of conveyance? Like, the only people I've ever interacted with via YouTube messages were people whom I had previously interacted with in the comments. Now that I'm older and wiser, I regret doing so, but it is, alas, far too late for that.

So, why would ever tell someone to message me on freaking YouTube instead of some social media site, or Skype,  or email, or text message? It's literally the last thing I would think of to suggest. Do people actually keep in touch via YouTube messages? Is this a thing?

I don't understand how anyone could possibly fall for such a blatant scam. It's as bad as the ones where the people call you and tell you they heard your computer is running slow, or that they are your credit card company and that your status is good, but they need some information. I just can't figure out why people fall for those things.