The one-word answer: Presentation!"
It’s also a fairly accurate response.
How a scammer makes a pitch can be as important to its success or failure as the pitch itself.
But that’s changed as of late.
Why are negative emotions increasingly the preferred approach?
Examples of frightening scams frequently reported to the AARP Fraud Watch web connection these days:
1.
DNA Cancer Screening
People like you have died because they didn’t take theDNA testwe’re offering.
The IRS Warrant
You made criminal mistakes in your pasttax filingsand will be arrested shortly.
To answer that, I called Roy Baumeister, a renowned social psychologist now teaching in Australia.
Turns out, he has just coauthored a book,The Power of Bad, on the same theme.
“The mind is hardwired to react more strongly to negative than to positive things, Baumeister told me.
In such a world, he explained, survival depended on giving your immediate attention to threats.
These evolutionary impulses are still with us.
And con artists know that.
Does fear also help end the deal?
Some of my laboratory work found that these emotions caused people to take foolish chances.
They failed to consider the downside risks.
So what’s the best way to avoid falling prey to such tactics?
Pay attention to the downside risk.
What could go wrong?
That can quickly bring you to your senses.
Good advice for us all.
