Scams

-Phishing emails are a very common tactic. These emails often imitate banks or other companies that are giving you some type of warning of possible punishment. This is often where scammers get personal and will use your name and information to make it appear as legitimate as possible. When that information is perceived as threatening and urgent it triggers the immediate emotional responses discussed above, which is how scammers trick those who aren't paying attention. Another method phishing emails use is to deceive the victim into believing that they won a prize, but they have to act quickly to claim the prize or else they'll lose their chance to claim it. That operates on the same method of using strong emotions to elicit an immediate response without a thought of what could be wrong with it. 

-Telephone calls are another tactic that is common to see. Phone scammers can be effective because talking to another person live is more persuading than an email. When someone is on the other end of the phone they can adapt to the conversation to make it as appealing as possible to the individual they're calling. While phishing emails usually use fear or excitement phone calls often use empathy, but they do use fear as well. This type of scam relies on people that have weaker cognitive function and can be made to believe what the scammer is saying. One common phone scam is someone calling and saying that they would like to give you some money. They will then manipulate what you can see on screen to make it seem as if they have accidentally given too much money. They'll then request that you send it back or they'll lose their job and many other things. Upon going to return the money they'll take whatever you gave them and leave the call with that much more since they never "accidentally" gave anything. There are many other phone call scams, but nearly all of them rely on empathy and fear to manipulate the victim.

-Catfishing can range from relatively harmless to having quite severe consequences. Catfishing also relies on strong emotions, but usually less so on the quick responses that many other scams utilize and more so on long-term emotions and attachment (Mosley et al., 2020). It is common for people to begin a catfishing scam by getting a message or friend request online. Gradually a "relationship" is built, except for only the victim of the scam who believes it to be real. After messaging online for a while without ever meeting the scammer will claim that they are in need of just a little money and could really use the help. That process of asking for just little amounts of money can continue to grow and accumulate until the victim has lost quite a bit of money. From the outside looking in it seems very easy to see as fake, but it can be very difficult to tell apart from a real profile when actually exposed to the situation. It can be easy to quickly lose money such as this man who lost $8,000 before he realized his mistake. Catfishing can also lead to dangerous in-person meetups, however, those are less common because they require more work and more exposure for the scammer. Catfishing also relies greatly on the personality of the individual that is being scammed, and those with attachment anxiety are often the most susceptible (Mosley et al., 2020). 

-Websites are usually filled with advertisements from top to bottom with little space in between. There are so many advertisements that we often don't even pay them any mind, however, advertisement scams are quite common, especially when downloading software or applications online. Li and others name these ad scams as malvertising, an appropriate term (2012).  Although misinformative ads are present along with normal ads, the way that they catch attention is by posing as the item that we want to interact with. Unlike other scams, this one relies less on emotion and is generally very subtle, trying to trick people into pressing it without realizing what they've done rather than feeling pressed by excitement or fear.  By redirecting the user to a malicious website the scammers then download malware on the computer and can gain access to all kinds of information that they shouldn't have (Li et al., 2012). Guarding against this scam is more of a matter of recognizing it and having anti-malware on the device. This scam in particular is scary because it is so easy to fall for and can give the scammers so much personal information.