If you live in Melbourne, Australia, you may have seen some of the crazy scams that have been happening to both people and businesses. One of the latest local scams is people printing their own bar codes to steal thousands of food from the grocery store, and costing these stores massive losses.
Then we move to problems to that of online companies like Google and Facebook being victimized. Recently, there has been a report that “Facebook and Google were conned out of a $100M in phishing scheme.” This is very alarming as if these big companies were also victimized, small businesses are most likely more vulnerable other types of scams.
What Seems to Be the Root Cause?
Some experts say that technology is not enough to stop scamming because it’s a social phenomenon, and its human psychology. In an experiment conducted by a Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960’s stated that there was a setup where a teacher would ask students a question and would administer a 450 volts shock when answers were incorrect.
It was expected that only 3% of participants would be willing to be administered 450 volts shock, and surprisingly, 65% went through it. What does it mean? It only means that human obedience is very high, and human nature is what scammers use; they take advantage of such human weakness to fool anyone.
Can We Reduce Human Obedience?
Human nature is difficult to change and control; aside from that, it’s difficult to find a tool or authority to reduce human obedience. For every individual, it’s easier said than done as you can say you won’t just yield to anyone even if you trust no one. Keep in mind that we still have a concept of trust, and we trust what we think is credible.
On the other hand, not trusting anyone is a psychological problem commonly known as paranoia. This means we should all be paranoid in order to reduce human obedience.
It just happened that scammers are smart enough to take advantage of such human nature. We don’t need to change our human nature. All we should do is to be careful.
What to Do to Get Rid of Scams
- Use Existing Technology
Many people love to use the latest advancements in security for their computers, vehicles, and now even businesses and houses as a form of security protection. Precision locksmith in Melbourne points out that digital and fingerprint locks are some of the safest forms of locks for businesses.
It’s true that the use of technology will never guaranty protection. However, it’s worse if we don’t use any. Developers won’t stop creating sophisticated technologies in light of the fact that it will help or prevent someone from being scammed.
- Be Conscious and Alert
We can all establish a culture of alertness; sometimes, being a little paranoid may help us. If we are able to become a little more paranoid, we will most likely discourage scammers at some point.
- Don’t Spread Your Private Information
Only give your personal or confidential information to trusted people or sites. Analyze whether or not it is important to provide personal information, and track the sites or the people whom you give your personal details.
Final Thoughts
Scamming is possible in an environment for people who easily obey others. We are all vulnerable to scams, and if you have a business, you have to organize all your data and select only trusted people to manage and help you run your business.
