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Trustworthy Fraudsters?

Trustworthy Fraudsters?

"You can't con an honest john" – The Streets

Taken at face value, this is clearly not true. Research shows that this is nothing more than an alliterative lyric. Leonardo di Caprio is a name everybody knows. His talent and grace on screen rarely fail to charm the audience. However, how come two of his most coveted roles are that of scammers? Inspired by real-life events, Leonardo effortlessly played the roles of Frank Abagnale and Jordan Belfort. These scam artists have been immortalised in the movies “Catch me if you can” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

What is it about Di Caprio that lends him to take on the role of such people? Maybe the answer lies in his charm and grace itself. Perhaps it is his creativity on the screen which lends to be the perfect personification of such scam artists. We effortlessly get dazzled by the creativity and become more lenient towards such artistic masterminds than other fraudsters. They find it easier to excuse such acts if they are clever, ingenious, and out-of-the-box! Di Caprio inhabits this creativity as an actor, seemingly why he fits right in such roles.

However, behind this glorification of scammers lies a dark truth. The number of bank frauds and phishing scams is taking off with each passing day. What does the rising number of scams tell us? Are a few people getting super bright to fool others? Or are others getting dumb enough to get scammed? The targets are no longer inexperienced or gullible but educated people. What is it about human behaviour that concretes the way for deception?

let us get more into it..

Let’s take the example of Jordan Belfort and Frank Abagnale as an attempt to answer these questions.

Mr Belfort’s rise to fame was unprecedented. He quickly became known as ‘thewolf’, a nickname warranted from his journey. Running penny stock scams, for example, through intelligent marketing, increasing the price of stocks and then dumping the same in the market, soon turned to make millions. Cunning blended with charm helped him upsell one of the risky investments – penny stocks. He soon hired over 1000 stockbrokers under the roof of his firm – Stratton Oakmont. Jordan Belfort was arrested for scamming over 1500 investors for an estimated cost of 200 million dollars.

Even Frank Abagnale junior is often pointed out as being charming and charismatic. He was smiling his way into becoming eight different people, including a doctor, a pilot and a lawyer! This is no mean feat, but it becomes more shocking after knowing that he did all this before his 18th birthday!

It doesn’t matter whether you are educated or not! Anyone can scam anyone. This is clear by looking at the case of Ana Sorokin and Simon Leviev. Both are scammers with a Netflix show, ‘Inventing Ana’ and ‘Tinder Swindler’, respectively. Both of them were masters in manipulating people. They used to take advantage of people’s generosity and kindness and scam them out of thousands of dollars just by being confident and sophisticated.

Indians also did not back down in this sickly indulgence. Harshad Mehta is another infamous stockbroker who scammed the Indian public out of crores. He was responsible for the unprecedented increase in the value of stocks in 1992. He used market loopholes, fabrication and the help of corrupt officers to drive the prices of stocks up by 40 times. Depicted as a charming gentleman in both a movie and TV show (Scam 1992 and The Big Bull), the Indian public sees him as an anti-villain extraordinaire.

Though not all con artists can get away so quickly. Vijay Mallya is on the run from the Indian government for duping people of over 9,000 Crore Rupees. Nicknamed “the king of good times”, Vijay Mallya owns a beer company and an airline under the same name. He was known for throwing extravagant parties. Always surrounded by influential people, the visage he had built of being unrealistically wealthy came tumbling down sooner than he would have hoped. In January 2017, all his scams and deceit were displayed to the public, like an art gallery full of lies. The word of him laundering money and taking unsecured loans worth crores spread like wildfire. He was forced to run to the UK to escape the wrath of the Indian government and the public. All his exploits have been documented in the Netflix show “Bad Boy Billionaires: India”.

The matter is much more severe than a few episodes of an exciting show one can binge-watch with a bucket of popcorn. Microsoft’s global tech support scam research has shown that 7 out of every ten people in India have faced tech support-related scams. Cyber-attacks are more prominent than ever, and about 31% of people fall prey to them. The graphs below show how bad the situation is, showcasing how much money has been lost to scammers; sadly, not much has been recovered.

Source: Outlook Money

These episodes raise an essential question. How can these people scam people so easily? Much research has shown that scamming involves psychological aspects native to human nature. Fraudsters often take advantage of little ticks and traits we follow to help themselves. Often, fear of missing out (FOMO - something we all experience repeatedly) is used as a whopping weapon. Apart from that, the perception of emotional connections is another tactic.In some cases, studies show that fraudsters assume positions of authority to compel people. They sometimes also excuse the lack of time to make them feel flustered. Errors of judgement play a significant role here since we are just out to earn a livelihood.

Source: Outlook Money

Humans are inherently cognitive misers. And when things get complex, we use the rule of thumb and make automated decisions based on what others do. In such a scenario, social proof may quickly transition to competition. The message by fraudsters to get people on their side is no longer that everyone likes them; it transitions to who gets to like me first. Likewise, people enter a direct competition to be in the circle of the mastermind. Competitiveness act as a contagion. And voila, before we realise it, we are in the maw.

Perhaps falling for scams is easier than one might imagine. It is more convoluted than simply sharing a password. It is literal psychological warfare. And it’s not just limited to a specific gender. According to an article, 94% of thepickpockets in Indian metros are female. This is also reflected by the fact that people find women more trustworthy than men. A scamming mind can take advantage of this fact; before you know it, you have an empty pocket and a bare hand. Beyond gender binaries and age distinction, one must be careful of falling prey to such frauds, as it may be as natural as blinking an eyelid.

An interesting resource to think about how not to get conned is this article by Neil Farber
Thank you for reading The Behavioural Review.

Contribution by Fazli


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