The United Kingdom's Office of Fair Trading released another great report on May 17 - I would have posted this earlier, but I only discovered (and read it) last night. You can download the article from The Office of Fair Trading's web site. However, before I send you off to download that report, I should warn you - it is over 250 pages long and certain parts are rather difficult to read.

Warning aside, good psychology research tends to blend the expected with the unexpected and this report is no exception.  Certain conclusions seem like they should be common sense (brace yourself - scam victims are much less able to regulate the emotions associated with scam attacks).  Whereas other conclusions are so far from expected that they border on being unbelievable.  For example, scam victims tend to have better than expected knowledge about the subject area in which they are scammed.  For example, people who know more than average about investments are more prone to fall victim to investment scams! Have you ever heard of a scam and thought 'wow, those people must not have thought that through?' Well, this study argues that the opposite is true - scam victims actually devote more thought to their scams than non victims!

This study has extensive implications for the world of phishing identification and fraud prevention. One of the more interesting aspects of the study was a brilliant word frequency analysis of scam mailings (whether electronic or not). Researchers found 538 mailings from actual scams and analyzed what words were used and how frequently they were used. They discovered that words like 'cash', 'money', and 'guarantee' were abnormally common in scam mailings. Perhaps one day, researchers will be able to use a list like this to develop an intelligent system that will help alert people to a mailing's 'scam potential'.

Finally, I have a particularly sad finding from the study. Scam victims very rarely tell anyone close to them that they are about to respond to one of these mailings. The researchers concluded that on some barely conscious level these people realized they were about to fall victim to a scam.

From our perspective, any research on scams is welcome. The more researchers learn about why people fall victim to scams, the more tactics will emerge to keep people from becoming victims. Research can (and does) lead to real world educational programs and fraud prevention workshops. Finally, I am reminded of the words of a good friend and terrific psychology professor, who used to say, "When in doubt, always go with your gut." If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is.

Have a safe weekend!