ABSTRACT
Fraudsters design fraudulent communication carefully, relying on theories of rationality, cognition and judgmental heuristics, in order to influence our decisions and encourage compliance. While some scams work by evoking powerful emotions, such as fear or excitement, others exploit heuristic and cognitive biases and take advantage of the processes that we utilise when making decisions, and which can sometimes be flawed. This chapter offers an explanation of thought processes and heuristics, which could easily be exploited by scammers in order to influence our decisions. Additionally, this chapter also outlines how our decision-making styles and susceptibility to certain cognitive biases could make us vulnerable to fraudulent communication and situations.
