The Psychology of Scams: provoking and committing errors of judgement

Prepared for the Office of Fair Trading by the University of Exeter School of Psychology

May 2009

Introduction by the University of Exeter School of Psychology:

"Our aim in the present research was to improve our understanding of why people fall victim to scams, and of the psychology employed by the scammers to influence consumer behaviour.  We started with the basic question of why so many people, so often, react to completely worthless scam offers.

"According to the OFT (2006), 3.2 million people in the UK fall victim to scams, and lose more than £3.5 billion every year.  Why does this happen?  Why do some scam victims even react repeatedly so that some of them lose their entire life savings as well as their psychological health?  However, as well as understanding scams better, we also want to help combat them more effectively.  So we also want to know how an improved understanding of the psychology of scams can play a part in reducing the damage that scams do, for example by informing the development of more effective consumer education
messages".

Please click below to access this extremely interesting and informative research publication.

• The Psychology of Scams