Back in Jan­u­ary Jason pointed to Wikipedia’s list of con­fi­dence tricks; an edu­ca­tional and amus­ing read.

Now, the UK’s Office of Fair Trad­ing has com­mis­sioned some research into why peo­ple fall vic­tim to scams (pdf). Accord­ing to the (260 page) report, here are the rea­sons why suc­cess­ful scams fool us:

  • Appeals to trust and authority.
  • Vis­ceral triggers.
  • Scarcity cues.
  • Induc­tion of behav­ioural commitment.
  • The dis­pro­por­tion­ate rela­tion between the size of the alleged reward and the cost of try­ing to obtain it.
  • Lack of emo­tional control.

For a con­cise (and read­able) overview of the paper’s find­ings, The Psy­chol­ogy of Being Scammed from Mind Hacks is what you should read. Vaughan sums up with:

It’s becom­ing clear that those things that we think make us resis­tant to scams (a keen ana­lyt­i­cal mind) are not what help us avoid being a victim.