Phone scam unveiled: insights from a systematic literature review

Aqilah Hairul Anuar, Afida Mastura Muhammad Arif, Elistina Abu Bakar, Sharifah Azizah Haron, Syuhaily Osman and Zuroni Md Jusoh

Journal of Financial Crime, 2025, vol. 32, issue 6, 1173-1190

Abstract: PurposeThis study aims to review systematically over ten years of journal articles on phone scams to understand why people from all walks of life fall prey to phone scams and how important it is to devise effective prevention strategies to minimize the incidents of scams.Design/methodology/approachGuided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement review method, a systematic review of the Scopus, Web of Sciences and Google Scholar databases was conducted, resulting in 23 relevant studies published between 2014 and 2024.FindingsAn in-depth analysis of the selected articles uncovered five primary themes: the interpretation of phone scams, scamming techniques, scam vulnerability, reporting attitudes and self-protection practices. An integrated, multi-stakeholder approach is essential to effectively combat phone scams, enhance consumer protection and build societal resilience against evolving fraud tactics.Originality/valuePhone scam operations represent a form of impersonation fraud, usually use artificial intelligence technologies and sophisticated social engineering methods to deceive the victims. This study emphasizes the significance of self-protection measures as a way of protecting oneself against phone scams, as no individual is immune to such scams.

Keywords: Phone scams; Scamming techniques; Scam vulnerability; Reporting attitude; Self-protection practices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/jfc/article/32/6/1173/1276 ... ts-from-a-systematic (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/jfc/article-pdf/32/6/1173/ ... c-03-2025-0078en.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:eme:jfcpps:jfc-03-2025-0078

DOI: 10.1108/JFC-03-2025-0078

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Financial Crime is currently edited by Dr Paul Gilmour

More articles in Journal of Financial Crime from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().