ABSTRACT
Fraud victimisation can be complex and dependent of many different factors. Sometimes people make cognitive and motivational errors in judgment when evaluating fraud offers. Sometimes they are persuaded by carefully designed persuasion techniques, designed by scammers to encourage victims to process information in a way that is not optimal or in their best interest. At other times, due to the presence of strong emotion, they may be encouraged to engage in gullible acts. But how does it all fit together? This chapter outlines different theories, psychological models and errors in judgment, which may be able to assist in understanding why people fall for scams, and under what circumstances.
