Who would fall for a scam? Not you. You’re too smart to be suckered by a fraudster’s phone call or a dodgy email. Except… Smartness actually has nothing to do with it, and scammers are actually counting on you believing that you won’t get duped.

Fraudsters use a sophisticated set of psychological tools to manipulate their marks, using social engineering and mind games to get you to share your private information or send them money.

An Example of a Scam That Works

Let’s take a recent scam as an example. In April 2025 SARS warned that “scamsters” (love that word!) were calling people and telling them that they’d been flagged for sending suspicious packages internationally.

The call sounds legit: the caller has your full name, ID number and email address. They tell you that a parcel has been couriered (to Singapore, Mumbai or somewhere else) in your name, containing MDMA (or another illegal drug; the details aren’t important). The caller claims to be from SAPS or SARS or somewhere similar, and you, my friend, are in deep trouble.

It's an obvious trick. They’re counting on you to be scared into making the problem go away by paying them a bribe within the next couple of hours. But if you hang up, they call you back almost immediately, demanding to know why you hung up and telling you that this matter isn’t going to go away.

Breathe. Take a moment, and count the psychological tricks at play. The scammer has:

• Faked legitimacy by providing your personal data

• Impersonated an authority figure (fake, but still…) to intimidate you

• Created urgency by giving you a deadline

• Evoked fear by threatening you with a drug conviction

And that’s just one example.

How the Psychology Works

In hindsight, it’s easy to see that it’s a scam. But in the moment, when you have someone who claims to be a customs official barking at you over the phone, it’s just as easy to be scammed.

That’s not a sign of stupidity. It’s just how human brains work. In their book Nobody’s Fool, psychology professor Daniel Simons and cognitive scientist Christopher Chabris talk about “truth bias”. “We tend to assume that what we see and hear is true unless we get clear evidence otherwise,” they write. “We hear now, believe right away, and only occasionally check later.”

In most cases, this is a good thing. After all, they write: “Without a shared assumption that people generally speak the truth, we’d be unable to live together in communities, coordinate our actions, or even hold simple conversations.”

Unfortunately, truth bias is also the basis for every act of deception – including online and phone scams.

The moral of the story is not to mistrust or disbelieve every person you encounter. Rather, stay informed. Beware of when and how you share your personal data, stay up-to-date on the latest security threats, and always report fraud if you believe you’ve been targeted.