One way of those scammers try to scam you through getting your personal informations from you particulary your primary e-mail. These scammers dig up you more infos even personal questions even your birthday and anniversaries. They are more agressive in getting your details and try many tricks to get you attached to them and that you should be aware of.
That's why most sites require you to use a combination of characters, a number, and an alphanumeric character. Back then, people would just use their name as a password or if they're feeling creative, they will use their name but in a backward manner. Some use numbers as well but it's just the date of their date or someone related to them. If a hacker would bruteforce someone that has a password like that, it wouldn't take that much for him to get into the account.
There's also the secret question back then which is quite easy to hack. You just have to know the personal details of the person that you want to hack (i.e. mother's maiden name, first school that have been to, etc.) It's not that hard to get all those details by just talking to the guy either personally or online.