Commentary
“There’s a sucker born every minute.” One hundred and seventy years later, these words—that may or
may not have been uttered by P.T. Barnum—still carry a great deal of truth—especially in the United States.
Last year,
according to Forbes, fraudsters stole an estimated $5 billion from Americans in student loan-related scams. Young people, many of whom are renowned for being tech-savvy souls, aren’t immune to scams. In 2021, according to a
study carried out by cybersecurity experts at Social Catfish, youngsters under the age of 20 lost $101.4 million to online scams. In 2017, those under the age of 20 lost just $8.3 million (
pdf) to online scammers. Since 2018, according to a recent
CoinJournal report, cases of crypto fraud have also risen dramatically.
Scams are
becoming more sophisticated, with Americans of all ages being targeted. Which begs the question: What, if anything, can be done to make the average American more scam-savvy, and more aware of the threats posed by online criminals?
Enter Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, two prominent psychologists well-versed in the area of deceit. Their
new book, aptly titled “Nobody’s Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do About It,” discusses phishing scams and Ponzi schemes, fraudulent science and fake art, con artistry and crypto crime. The duo expertly describe the many ways in which the average human regularly gets taken for the most expensive of rides.
Mr. Simons told me that he and Mr. Chabris wrote the book because they “realized that everyone finds stories of cons and scams endlessly entertaining, and that deception appears to be on the rise.” Rather oddly, “In spite of the many movies, podcasts, and articles about cons, people continue to be fooled in the same ways,” he added.
Why, I asked, is that the case? According to Mr. Simons, “Cons, scams, and deceit across domains ranging from business to sports to games to art all tap into the same cognitive habits and appeal to people using the same types of information hooks.”
A fatal human flaw, as outlined in the book, involves our tendency to accept what we see, and to refrain from forensically analyzing the information we’re presented with. In this age of cognitive outsourcing, where digital devices and slick algorithms often do the thinking for us, we appear to be
losing our ability to engage in critical thinking. Googling can only get us so far.
Mr. Simons told me that scammers are incredibly innovative, “and the scams that are pervasive today will look different tomorrow, at least superficially.” He’s right. We have come a long way from the days of “Nigerian nobility” promising us that unimaginable amounts of wealth are just one money transfer away (although, it must be noted, this scam has
also evolved in recent times).
Some of the more common scams today, according to Mr. Simons, “include phishing emails, text messages, and human or robocalls that can all be the first step in ‘business email compromise.'” For the uninitiated, a business email compromise (
BEC) is a type of phishing attack used to steal money and/or critical information.
Another common scam, Mr. Chabris added, is the call-center scam. This involves callers targeting people who have debt, owe taxes, or have limited immigration status, and threatening them with prison time or deportation if they don’t immediately pay up.
“The scammers,” noted Mr. Simons, “often ask the victim to purchase prepaid cash cards and to read the numbers over the phone (something you should never do—that’s always a scam).”
“A recent horrific form of scam,” he explained, “involved callers pretending to have kidnapped a child and demanding ransom money.”
What can Americans do to protect themselves from the threat of increasingly sophisticated scams?
First off, Mr. Simons insisted, “It’s important to realize that deception spans a wide range, from simply passing along misinformation all the way to Ponzi schemes. Most everyday deceptions are not at the life-changing end of that spectrum, but false marketing claims, political disinformation, and cheating at games and sports all work for the same reasons the grander cons do.”
“Technology,” according to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor, “has made it far easier to spread disinformation and misinformation than it used to be, and it has enabled some forms of fraud to work at scale.”
For example, he continued, the aforementioned “Nigerian Prince” scam started long before email existed, with the scammers sending out letters, then upgrading to faxes. Then, with the advent of email, it became possible for a handful of scammers to send out tens of thousands of lures to reel in a tiny percentage of victims.
“Often,” concluded Mr. Simons, “the best strategy is simply to ask a few questions: Is that really true? Could this be a scam? Or to bring in a friend, colleague, or adviser and have them answer the question with a different perspective from your own.”
In other words, take a step back, take a deep breath, and engage in some critical thinking. Just because the world is full of suckers, this doesn’t mean that you’re fated to become one of them.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
