Psychology seminar - "Call to claim your prize"

Mass marketing scams (MMS) represents one of the most rapidly growing crimes. It extracts an enormous financial and emotional toll, yet, there is a real dearth of empirical studies examining factors that could help explain the response to scams.

As MMS employ a range of tactics to entice potential victims, in a series of studies, the researchers included a wide range of measures and demographic variables that could help them better understand why some people respond to scams while others refrain. They also studied whether activation fee and cold vs. hot scam solicitations impact response rate.

The studies indicate that consumers are responding to perceived risks and benefits in their decision-making, regardless of persuasion elements used by scammers. Furthermore, the studies indicate that consumers with lower levels of education and high perception of benefits are at increased risk for mass marketing scams.