Mass-Marketing Fraud: A Growing Concern
Open accessAbstract
Mass-marketing fraud is a growing international problem. Victims of this crime often experience a double hit, losing money as well as being psychologically affected. Understanding how criminals exploit online communication to develop trust and persuade individuals to give up their money is key to future work on the development of prevention programs.
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The romance scam is of particular concern given the numbers of victims reported worldwide.
“The romance scam (also referred to as the online dating romance scam or the sweethearts scam) is of particular concern given the numbers of victims reported worldwide. 1-6”
From Do You Love Me? Psychological Characteristics of Romance Scam Victims (2018) · cites this paper as [5]
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LOW SELF‐CONTROL, ROUTINE ACTIVITIES, AND FRAUD VICTIMIZATION*
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“Kristy Holtfreter and her colleagues looked broadly at consumer fraud victimization and 14 are considered sensation seekers aren’t more likely to be scammed by the online dating romance scam; rather, for those who score high on the Romantic Belief Scale, ideal-ization is more associated with the…”
BackgroundNot a victimless crime: The impact of fraud on individual victims and their families
Button, M., Lewis, C., & Tapley, J. (2014) · Security Journal · doi:10.1057/sj.2012.11 · Cited by 268 · see citing works
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Whitty, M. T. (2013) · British Journal of Criminology · doi:10.1093/bjc/azt009 · Cited by 209 · see citing works
Self-citationWhitty, M. T., & Buchanan, T. (2016) · Criminology & Criminal Justice · doi:10.1177/1748895815603773 · Cited by 200 · cited 1× · see citing works
“7,11 In explaining the success of mass-marketing fraud, scholars mostly draw from social psychological Trading report offers the most comprehensive explanation the psychology of scams.”
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Do You Love Me? Psychological Characteristics of Romance Scam Victims
Whitty, M. T. (2018) · Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking · doi:10.1089/cyber.2016.0729 · Cited by 177 · see citing works
“Buchanan and Whitty15 found in their research on online dating romance scams that individuals with a higher tendency toward idealization of romantic partners were more likely to be scammed.”
BackgroundSelf-citationThe psychology of the internet fraud victimization of older adults: A systematic review
Shang, Y., Wu, Z., Du, X., Jiang, Y., Ma, B., & Chi, M. (2022) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.912242 · Cited by 86 · see citing works
Is there a scam for everyone? Psychologically profiling cyberscam victims
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- Authors
- Whitty, M. T.
- Affiliations
- University of Leicester (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Whitty, Monica T.
- ORCID
- Whitty, Monica T.
- Venue
- IEEE Security & Privacy
- Published
- 2015-07
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 84-87
- ISSN
- 1540-7993 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1749210822
- Semantic Scholar
- 5d027d10f1bd9fa3a491b643255d35c62c49c633
- Cited by
- 43
- References
- 12
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 1 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 9.82
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- figshare.com
- Locations
- IEEE Security & Privacy (publishedVersion)
- Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (acceptedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Leicester Research Archive (University of Leicester) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/H036571/1)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Cybercrime and Law Enforcement Studies
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Spam and Phishing Detection
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Keywords
- online fraud, financial fraud, persuasion, fraud prevention, online communication
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