Can You Spot a Scam? Measuring and Improving Scam Identification Ability

Elif Kubilayⓡ, Eva Raiberⓡ, Lisa Spantigⓡ, Jana Cahlíkováⓡ, Lucy Kaariaⓡ and Lisa Spantig

No 10239, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: The recent expansion of digital financial products leads to severe consumer protection issues such as fraud and scams. As these potentially decrease trust in digital services, especially in developing countries, avoiding victimization has become an important policy objective. In an online experiment, we first investigate how well individuals in Kenya identify phone scams using a novel measure of scam identification ability. We then test the effectiveness of scam education, a commonly used approach by banks and institutions for fraud and scam prevention. We find that common tips on how to spot scams do not significantly improve individuals’ scam identification ability, i.e., the distinction of scams from genuine messages. This null effect is driven by an increase in correctly identified scams and a decrease in correctly identified genuine messages. We interpret this as an increase in caution. In addition, we find suggestive evidence that genuine messages which contain scam-like features are more likely to be misclassified, highlighting the importance of a careful design of official communication.

Keywords: consumer protection; consumer fraud; digital financial services; scam susceptibility; scam education; Kenya (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D14 D18 G53 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-exp and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp10239.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Can you spot a scam? Measuring and improving scam identification ability (2023)
Working Paper: Can you spot a scam? Measuring and improving scam identification ability (2023)
Working Paper: Can you spot a scam? Measuring and improving scam identification ability (2023)
Working Paper: Can you spot a scam? Measuring and improving scam identification ability (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10239

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().