Anatomy of Phone Scams: Victims’ Recall on the Communication Phrases used by Phone Scammers

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-098-5_43How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Communication; Phone scams; Recall; Scammers; Victims

Abstract

Scam activities has existed long before the advent of modern technology and today, it is still a growing concern that is happening across the globe due to the fast-growing technologies such as phones, the internet, and social media. Modern scams can either be physical (i.e., phone scam) or online (i.e., e-mail scam). Although many researchers have attempted to understand the cause and outcomes of phone scams however, very little research to date have attempted to identify the communication phrases used by scammers as part of their strategy to lure victims. Thus, this paper aims to identify the common phrases used by scammers during their modus operandi. Furthermore, this paper explores factors that may explain how and why victims fall for the scammers’ scheme. Based on eight semi-structured interviews with victims of phone scams living in the state of Selangor, we discovered that the different scammers who had scammed the participants used similar communication phrases when trying to trick them out of their money. Phrases such as ‘You have an overdue..’, ‘I can help you..’, or ‘Let’s settle this together’ was commonly used. Contrary to what has often been assumed, the victims are aware of the danger of falling victim to a scam. However, trust and panic are the main factors that made them fall victim. The results also represent a further step towards developing a strategy to combat scam activities by providing information on the language and communication used during communication exchanges between the scammers and the victims.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Farhanim Mohamad Asri
AU  - Tengku Elena Tengku Mahamad
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/08/31
TI  - Anatomy of Phone Scams: Victims’ Recall on the Communication Phrases used by Phone Scammers
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Communication and Media 2022 (i-COME 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 498
EP  - 509
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-098-5_43
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-098-5_43
ID  - MohamadAsri2023
ER  -