Fraud Victimisation

Fraud Victimisation

Fraud victimisation is the study of who loses money to scams and why. Two findings run against intuition: victims often know the subject of the scam well, and people who have been scammed once are more likely to be scammed again.

What it is

The UK Office of Fair Trading's 2009 report The Psychology of Scams, prepared by a University of Exeter team led by Stephen Lea, combined interviews with victims, analysis of 583 scam communications, two surveys and a mailed simulated scam. In the interviews, victims often had better than average background knowledge of the scam's area, such as lotteries or investments. Victims also reported more effort analysing scam material, which the authors read as a sign of being drawn in. Previous responders were more likely to respond again.

A 2013 paper from the same programme, led by Peter Fischer, found victims differed in their response to very large prizes, their pleasure at the thought of winning, their reliance on signs of authority and their self-confidence.

In effect

Familiarity is not verification. Offers in a field a person knows well deserve independent checks through channels the sender did not supply, and anyone who has been caught once should expect to be targeted again.

What it does not say

It does not say knowledge causes victimisation. The expertise finding is qualitative and unquantified, and a 2020 study of 1,220 older Americans found financial literacy was not significantly linked to fraud victimisation, though greater wealth was linked to investment fraud.

Sources

  1. Office of Fair Trading (2009). The Psychology of Scams: Provoking and Committing Errors of Judgement (OFT1070). University of Exeter: Lea, S. E. G., Fischer, P., & Evans, K. M.
  2. Fischer, P., Lea, S. E. G., & Evans, K. M. (2013). Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43(10), 2060-2072. doi:10.1111/jasp.12158.
  3. DeLiema, M., and colleagues (2020). Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 75(4), 861-868. doi:10.1093/geronb/gby151.