Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2008,
pp. 73-78
Weapons of Fraud: A Source Book for Fraud
Fighters
Anthony Pratkanis and Doug
Shadel
Seattle, WA: AARP Washington,
2005. ASIN: B000IZ8UH2 (paperback), available free of charge from AARP. 241
pages.
Reviewed by Colleen Russell,
LMFT
All of us, at some time in our
lives, have wished for that magical solution to our problems, whether it be
money, a new car, or an extended trip to a faraway land. As Jiminy Cricket
sang, “When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are, anything your
heart desires will come to you.” Our desire for an easy solution that will make
our dreams come true increases our vulnerability to exploitation and devastating
loss.
Weapons of Fraud, A Source
Book for Fraud Fighters, by Anthony
Pratkanis and Doug Shadel, provides a disturbing but fascinating study of
social-influence tactics that common criminals use in fraudulent telemarketing
techniques. According to research conducted in several statewide surveys around
the country, these methods have victimized 26 percent of the entire U.S. adult
population at some point in their lives. Every year, these victims, 57 percent
of whom are over the age of 50, lose a total of $40 billion to telemarketing
fraud alone, according to a 2001 AARP survey.
Basing their research on a
social psychology model, the authors’ primary focus is to educate seniors about
fraud and how to protect themselves. As a licensed psychotherapist specializing
in cult recovery, and a former member of an “Eastern” cult in the ‘70s, I
believe that Weapons of Fraud has a broader appeal: to educate those who
have been significantly affected by cultic groups or relationships. Reading
this book and listening to its attached CD of actual recordings of “con
criminals” (the term the authors use rather than “con artists”) at work, I
recognized that the social influence tactics employed are akin to those used by
some cult leaders. Con criminals might pose as CEOs, entrepreneurs, employers,
even cult leaders. Regardless of the role these criminals take—supposed
officials promising a $250,000 cash award, or self-proclaimed “spiritual
masters”—they work to establish trust with the victim, make the pitch seem
legitimate, and close the deal, thus exploiting basic human nature. We
instinctively want to trust those who seem to be “friends,” to expect honesty
and concern from those in our social group, to believe authority figures, and to
take advantage of a rare or time-limited opportunity.
The authors of Weapons of
Fraud studied 645 undercover audiotapes of telephone communications between
“con criminals” and undercover investigators who posed as elderly victims who
had fallen for multiple scams and had received numerous calls each day. Many of
the chronic victims were retired women, often widowed, aged 70+ who lived alone.
These recurring victims respond to any and every type of phone and mail
solicitation, and they are unable, or unwilling, to stop answering the phone and
writing the checks. Friends, family members, and professionals are often highly
frustrated when they try to influence the victims’ behavior because their
thought and behavior patterns and/or cognitive impairments make change
difficult. The defrauded use the psychological defenses of denial and
rationalization to protect themselves from making the painful admission that
they are victims of scams and have actually lost most, if not all, of their
money.
These defensive behaviors may
involve the following: The more you do something and the more committed you are
to believing it’s helpful, the more you need to defend its helpfulness (even
when confronted by facts to the contrary) in order to justify having done it in
the past and continuing to do it in the future.
In reading the above, I’m
reminded of my own process in extricating myself from the cult in which I was
involved, and discovering the fierceness with which remaining or newly recruited
members defended the cult, despite clear evidence of the leader’s deception. And
I’m aware of the deep emotional pain of my clients who seek professional help to
recover from their cult experience or to help loved ones currently controlled by
cultic groups or cultic relationships. With cons and cults, “it’s all about the
money.”
Cautioning the reader that
anyone and everyone can become a fraud victim, Weapons of Fraud
demystifies and unravels how even the most “street smart” person can be
taken for a ride. One of the main ways con criminals succeed is by creating a
“phantom” or “wonderland of the mind,” and what social psychologists call “the
power of the situation.”
These terms refer to an
artificial situation or a fantasy of something that people want but can’t have.
An example is what occurs when passengers board a boat at Disneyland’s popular
“The Pirates of the Caribbean” ride. Each person is quickly taken to a different
time and place where “it’s a pirate’s life for me.” As they listen to the
pirates singing, and they observe all the details, these newly recruited
“pirates” focus on the ride—what is inside the situation—and do not concern
themselves with the rationality of their experience. Social psychologists have
found that, in such artificially created situations, people will do things they
wouldn’t ordinarily do. Although the entertainment at Disneyland is harmless,
the situation created by a fraud criminal can be disastrous.
An elderly woman who was part of
the book’s study had lost $300,000—her life savings—about 18 months after she
responded to her first fraudulent sweepstakes mailing. She had been encouraged
to buy merchandise to increase her chances of winning the big prize. The
mailings, which contained pictures of others who had won “big money” seemed
compelling. Soon she was spending almost every minute of every day involved in
sweepstakes activity, responding to a huge volume of sweepstakes-related mail
and answering 12 to 15 phone solicitations a day. She didn’t think she was
sending money to a criminal; she thought she was participating in a legitimate
game of chance that would increase the size of her nest egg.
My gut tightened as I listened
to the recorded abuse of an investigator posing as an elderly victim while the
con executed what the authors call a “Free Prize Pitch.” (Social-influence
tactics are in bold type in the following descriptions.) The criminal uses an
artificially created situation, or phantom, for a woman who has been
victimized in multiple scams: He promises her a $50,000 cashier’s check. Next,
he uses fear and intimidation, authority, and scarcity tactics. He
warns her that he is the person who allocates the awards, and if she doesn’t
comply with him, he will give the award to someone else. He doesn’t reply
directly when she asks, “What does it cost me?” Instead, he threatens that she
must be “courteous and kind with me, as I’m certainly set out to do with you,”
or her $50,000 check is going to someone else. The criminal profiles the
victim, or collects information to ascertain what money is available to
her. He uses the tactic of reciprocity in telling her that her taxes on
the prize will be covered, and she must cover the bonding, insurance, and
registration fees before she will receive the money. The con criminal feigns
friendship (I’m on your side), saying he will take care of her, and he
alternates this tactic with fear and intimidation:
I need some cooperation from
you. And if I don’t get it, you’re hurting yourself. This is enough money for
you to set up anybody that you care about and go to your grave knowing that you
went and did the right thing, and you can go and meet God with a clear
conscience. Now what do you want to do? Do you want your winnings? Or do you
want me to just go ahead and hang up the phone with you and forget I ever saw
your name?
Coincidentally, I recently saw a
film of a cult leader using the same tactics toward a member, alternating
kindness and threats, manipulating through the phantom or “wonderland of the
mind,” using her “special status to assert her authority over the member’s life.
I was struck by the similarity between the bullying and ridiculing tone of the
con criminal and that of the guru.
Imploring victims of fraud not
to blame themselves, the authors of Weapons of Fraud remind us to have
compassion for ourselves: “It is not something you did, but something the
criminal did to you.” They provide readers with ways to avoid victimization: 1)
Don’t divulge personal information for a contest. This information could become
part of a list to be sold online to other con criminals. 2) Firmly tell
telemarketers you don’t want to talk to them, and hang up if they persist. 3)
Don’t send any money for trinkets or for taxes on the “big prize.” 4) Be aware
of social-influence tactics as weapons against fraud. And 5) learn the Seven
Scam Types listed below:
- Investment Scams: Scams in
which the con is attempting to get the potential victim to invest in a new
company, technology, Website, movie deal, and so on.
- Coin Investment Scams:
Scams in which the con is selling the victim gold coins as an investment.
Usually the victim receives the coins; however, the con greatly exaggerates
their value, and the victim pays considerably more than the coins are worth.
- Reload Scams: Scams in
which the con claims that he or she can recover money that the victim
previously lost to fraudulent companies. The victim is responsible for
paying “taxes” or “fees” for this service.
- Credit Card/Identity Theft
Scams: Scams in which the con offers protection from identity theft or
from credit-card theft. Usually, the protection covers only fraudulent
charges to credit cards or unauthorized bank transactions. The purpose of
these scams is for the con to obtain the victim’s credit card numbers,
banking information, or Social Security number to use in making unauthorized
bank withdrawals or credit-card charges.
- Sweepstakes Scams: Scams
in which the con claims the victim is the winner of a sweepstakes contest;
prizes may be cash, cars, vacations, electronics, jewelry, and so on.
Usually, the victim must pay “taxes” on the prize or make a purchase from
the company. In many cases, the victim may receive a prize that is
considerably less valuable than the con originally claimed.
- Lottery Scams: Scams in
which the con criminal sells tickets to play in lottery clubs. In these
clubs, the victim plays a set of numbers with a number of other players. The
con misleads the victim on the odds of winning and the amounts to be won. If
there are winnings, they are split between all members in the club and are
therefore usually very small amounts (sometimes less than $1.00).
- Travel Scams: Scams in
which the con is offering various travel packages. These packages usually
involve a one-time fee, and frequently the packages cover either airfare or
hotel, but usually not both. In cases when both are covered, the victims
have to attend an information session about some type of time-share
opportunity while they’re on the vacation. The scam sometimes involves
taking the victims’ money and never providing any benefit at all.
Weapons of Fraud
provides vital information about social-influence tactics that can be used to
sell a vacation or a lifestyle. and it clarifies how people can be vulnerable
to common scams while it offers potential victims concrete ways to protect
themselves.
Related
|
