A psychologist told how scammers work on the phone and what to do when they call

According to the latest according to the Central Bank, in the second quarter of 2023, fraudsters stole 3.6 billion rubles from bank clients. The share of crimes using social engineering in this figure is 46.5%. The media and banks report on new fraudulent practices almost weekly, but the main schemes have long been known and clients have been warned about them many times. Nevertheless, educated and seemingly intelligent people regularly fall for them. How do criminals manage to influence them? And what should you do to avoid getting caught? About it Natalia Leskova spoke with a senior researcher at the Laboratory of Speech Psychology and Psycholinguistics at the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladislav Latynov.

— Vladislav Viktorovich, today there are probably no people who have not received calls from various kinds of detectives, senior investigators, prosecutors and other officials, and, probably, there are no people who have not been warned about possible fraud. Nevertheless, people regularly come across them, including smart, educated, scientists. Why does this happen?

— Human behavior is based on ideas and attitudes. One of them is connected with the fact that they cannot be deceived, they will always understand, they will see through a swindler, and will not allow themselves to be fooled. On the other hand, they have a subconscious trust in authorities, and if at the other end of the line someone introduces himself as a police officer or prosecutor, the thought arises: what if it’s true? And they start listening.

This is confirmed by psychological experiments. 40–50% of people usually give in under pressure from so-called social authorities, which is why scammers use references to government institutions. Back in the 1970s, psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment inducing people to inflict pain in response to an incorrect solution to a problem – for this, the experimenter shocked the subject. The subject was a decoy and in fact did not experience any pain, but the participants in the experiment did not know this. He screamed in pain and nearly fainted when the readings allegedly reached 400 volts.

At the same time, the experimenter encouraged such punishments, and about half of the participants, at his suggestion, approved of this, although in ordinary life this did not correspond to their ethical standards. Before the experiment, when they were asked what numbers they would reach, they answered: 100–130, and if it hurts, we will stop it. But in fact, under pressure from the experimenter, they reached much higher numbers.

— I remember an old Soviet film, how children in kindergarten were fed salty porridge and were told that it was sweet. Most, wincing in disgust, said: yes, sweet, delicious. And they ate. And only one child, shedding tears, said: “No, the porridge is tasteless!” “Well, all the kids are eating, isn’t it delicious for everyone?” – “But I won’t.”

– Yes, this is a similar experiment repeated on children, because they are even more susceptible to influence. Or an experiment with two lines, when you need to show which is longer. When he is alone, he clearly shows. When there are other people nearby showing that the line that is actually shorter is longer, the same half of the subjects begin to doubt, follow the lead of the group and in the end show the same way as everyone else. This is the pressure of social authority. It is believed that this is more developed in our country than in the West, since we have a traditionally developed collectivist culture.

“But now the understanding has already taken root in the mass consciousness that this is being done by scammers and they cannot be trusted. Grandmothers at their doorsteps and scientists at academic institutes talk about this. And you are talking about some kind of public trust.

— We are talking about the trust in social institutions inherent in a person at a basic level. If you are told that they are calling from the Investigative Committee, trust arises spontaneously. It’s not for nothing that you often come across not young people, but older ones, brought up with the idea that people who call from the police cannot be scammers!

— Are people who lack self-confidence more susceptible to this?

“On the contrary, they are overly confident in themselves, thinking that they will survive.” When a person is too confident in something, he develops an inadequate idea of ​​​​the degree of his stability, and it is easier to be confused.

It also plays a role that these people live their whole lives in a more or less fair society, where it is not customary to deceive. Let’s call it a good world. An ordinary person rarely encounters attempts to deceive him.

Maybe before they only weighed it in the store and didn’t add enough beer.

— But what about MMM and all these “Russian Houses of Selenga”, which many have gone through? Have they forgotten all this?

— Not much was invested there, and that was already 30 years ago. Many were inclined to believe that the company simply went bankrupt. And there were those who continued to believe – remember how Mavrodi was carried out of prison in his arms? People brought money there themselves, expecting profit. Here it’s completely different: scammers come to their home, and it’s very difficult to believe.

“In the situation that prompted me to have this conversation, the deceived person was waiting for a call from the police, since shortly before that she had applied there with a statement on another matter. Could this have played a role in her starting to talk to them?

— Of course, this situation played into the hands of the scammers. The man was morally determined to talk to them. This is a rare, not very typical case. Such basic psychological foundations provide well-fertilized soil for scammers. They know that among their potential “clients” there are 40–50% who may be amenable to their merger. They only change schemes and social institutions – the essence remains the same.

Until recently, it was common to talk about financing a special operation at your expense or, conversely, transferring your money to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Now, as far as I know, they often call allegedly from the Central Bank, less often – from the Prosecutor General’s Office.

“Recently I received just such a call, supposedly from the prosecutor’s office, and, to be honest, they were talking such nonsense that I never understood the logic. Apparently, they couldn’t come up with anything worthwhile.

– No, everything was thought out there. A person has two types of reactions. The first type is an analytical response, when you need to think carefully, weigh everything, and ask questions of interest. And the second type is the so-called heuristic response, when a person has no motivation and simply listens to the interlocutor without turning on his brain. They tried to lead you along this path.

At the same time, there is a lack of time, artificially created interference, when a person is rushed to resolve the issue as soon as possible, otherwise it will be too late. The goal is to switch a person from analytical to heuristic analysis, when a person reacts to some external stimuli – the same social institutions or product advertising.

Network marketing often works this way: you are given five weak arguments in favor of the product and one strong one. And this one weighs outweighs in the case of an analytical type of response. And with the heuristic type, it doesn’t matter which arguments are weak and which are strong: the person simply accepted them and decided to buy this product, even if he doesn’t need it.

— Could some keywords be used? For a friend of mine, for example, this word became “power of attorney.”

“It wasn’t the word that hooked her. Here we move on to another technique. The first technique, as we understand, is switching from an analytical to a heuristic type of response, and the second is intimidation, when fear is activated. What does it mean – a power of attorney has been forged? People are scared: your money is about to be stolen, you need to save it urgently!

Here the person becomes even more involved in the heuristic process and is even more susceptible to influence. She was scared – and that’s understandable. Research on fear appeals has shown that their goal is not just to intimidate a person, but also to provide an easy way out of this situation. And they give it to you: transfer your money to a secure reserve account and it will soon be returned to you. The person is intimidated, he no longer analyzes the situation and often goes for it.

– At the same time, do not consult with anyone under any circumstances, do not call anyone – this will be a disclosure of trade secrets.

— Of course, they immediately cut off the channels: if a person starts consulting with someone, his analytical channel will turn on again.

“It is clear that scammers will not go away; they will come up with new schemes and deceive people. What to do to avoid falling for this bait?

— More activity of banks and government agencies is needed here. After all, the amount of losses is huge not only for ordinary people, but also for banks losing interest on deposits. Almost all fraudulent schemes have one similar point: transfer to a protected account. Why not create something like a public service announcement, where it would be explained to everyone that such accounts do not exist?

— What should an ordinary person do when they call him? Just hang up?

— At the simplest level, don’t start a conversation. Although our older generation has a certain politeness: it is not good to hang up when someone addresses you by your first name and patronymic and says hello, you must definitely listen to the interlocutor. And if he also says that he is a colonel of justice, even more so. Older people will readily tell you everything: where his money is, and in what quantity.

Do not do this! If you can’t just hang up, invite your interlocutor to write all the information as an SMS message. If he says he’s from the police, let him summon him with a summons.

Be sure to discuss everything with your loved ones and relatives. By the way, they can promise that they will call the squad if you do not obey them – recently my wife was intimidated like this. There is no need to react to this.

Don’t follow their lead.

– And if you ask them for their phone number, they say, let me call you back myself?

– Here they can tell you that they have a protected number that you cannot reach. But this is also nonsense – of course, each of them has telephone numbers, and this can be checked. But the problem is that not everyone can check it.

Therefore, the first and main advice is not to engage in conversation, the second is not to convey any information, the third is to say that first you will discuss everything with your relatives. Most likely, these scammers will not call you again.

Interviewed by Natalia Leskova