“CIVIL servant loses over RM700k in a scam” read the heading of a news article (The Star, March 1) last week.
Many, reading such stories, perhaps just raise their eyebrows and shake their heads, wondering how people can be so gullible.
Whether it is the Macau scam involving a “high ranking official”, the love scam where the “dashing” con artist defrauds the victim of their savings, or the e-commerce get-rich-quick scheme, scammers seem to be having a field day.
Even my friend Kumar, who meticulously avoids opening suspicious emails and does not answer phone calls from unidentified numbers, found himself cheated.
He bought a phone jacket for RM150 through a popular e-trading platform, after reading rave reviews of the product on that platform.
Much to his disappointment, he discovered that the product delivered to him was of poorer quality than the one advertised, and in fact, was being sold at the local pasar malam (night market) for RM20!
No one is immune
There is often an assumption that victims of such scams have specific traits.
Perhaps they are elderly, less well-educated or are particularly vulnerable, having been recently bereaved or are socially isolated.
Retirees too are targeted because of their accumulated wealth.
The truth is, nobody is immune to fraud, and sometimes, people simply fall for scams due to the psychological techniques employed by the fraudsters. Sophisticated scammers rely on social engineering, a form of psychological manipulation to get someone to perform a specific action, such as divulging confidential information.
The cornerstone of this technique is to create a sense of urgency. Common examples include being interrupted by an annoying phone call just as we are about to have lunch, or waking up to a suspicious message in our email inbox.
Sometimes, the attempted fraud is downright ridiculous, such as an exiled prince needing help to transfer a million dollars.
We wonder how anyone could fall for such an obvious money grab. The fact is, such marketing scams persist because they do work, judging by the pervasiveness of such attempts. Scammers are very good at crafting situations that cause the brain to perceive it as an emergency. This is because they know fear, urgency or threatening behaviour can trigger a reaction in the brain that compels a person to react before any rational thought can kick in. This results in one complying with the scammer’s request before the brain gets a chance to notice any red flags.
This explains why intelligent people fall for seemingly obvious scams.
Methods of influence
Psychologist Dr Robert Cialdini, who has written extensively on the science of influence, identifies scarcity, authority, and credibility as the principles of influence scammers use to subtly persuade people to do certain things.
The scarcity of time is perhaps the most obvious interpretation of creating a sense of urgency.
Targets are presented with a situation that requires immediate action.
An example of this would be that your online account (bank, email, etc) will be deleted unless the password is entered immediately. In online scams, the scarcity of the product is often emphasized, knowing that people are generally worried about missing an opportunity.
When pitching for financial offers, scammers will claim that the offer is only valid for the moment, and as soon as they put the phone down, the offer will be gone – again, the principle of scarcity is at play here. Scammers will also often pose as authority figures to make demands on their targets without being questioned. Common impersonations include inheritance lawyers, income tax officers, and enforcement agents.
Some of them utilise their fraudulent power of authority further by using threatening or aggressive behaviour to bully their targets into compliance. In one especially manipulative example of using credibility as a tactic, scammers will scan social media posts to figure out when someone is overseas. Then, posing as that person, they contact friends, relatives, or work colleagues, and request financial help. Because the person is in fact overseas, the request gets a boost of legitimacy that makes victims get deceived by the scam.
Pandemic mindset change
Recently, the Royal Malaysian Police’s Commercial Crimes Department announced that commercial crimes through online means had almost doubled in 2021, compared to the preceding year.
This corresponds with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
People falling prey to scams during the pandemic is not just a simple case of complacency, but representative of wider shifts in societal beliefs, attitudes and behaviours in relation to finance and technology.
Behaviourally, people have been conditioned to deal less in cash currency.
With the increased use of credit cards and bank transfers during the pandemic, we are less inclined to see money as a tangible commodity.
With more people going online, investing in cryptocurrency and trading on stock markets have been made available to regular consumers. There is an increased tendency to see our digital position as a series of numbers to be played with.
Additionally, we spend so much time on devices for work and play that it becomes natural to increasingly trust these platforms, thus making it easier to fall prey to scams.
People also want to connect to life despite the pandemic. I had a patient, a retired man who was getting some form of connection online that he was not getting in real life. It was not that difficult for him to be groomed to fall victim to a love scam. The pandemic has also conditioned us for immediate gratification.
Now, on our electronic devices, we can open an app to get food delivered to us hot and fast; so why not manage our finances the same way, that would be the natural thought process. It is not surprising that due to the stress of the pandemic, we have limited our ability to think critically of our online activity.
The need for personal safety from infection has normalised online shopping.
In the past, Kumar would have walked out of a shop having seen and examined what he purchased. Now, he places trust in a company to supply an item he has not seen or handled himself.
As a consumer, where does he go to complain about the dubious phone jacket he received instead of the one he thought he had ordered?
While there are certainly avenues to do so, most are probably unfamiliar with them or might not wish to face the hassle of the process, and simply resign themselves to the fact that they have been cheated.
Pause and think
While it is unlikely that any of these psychological ploys on their own would be sufficient to persuade someone to do something against their best interests, in combination, they can be powerful tools for a con artist to use.
Even though scams can occur via different communication methods (email, phone, in-person, etc), the similarities are clear.
By being aware of the simple psychological principles at play and the tactics used, we are far more likely to be able to resist them and avoid being scammed.
When presented with a stressful situation, we need to create an opportunity for ourselves to pause and think before acting.
Dr. Andrew Mohanraj 