Accepting friend requests on Facebook from strangers may land you in trouble

BENGALURU: A young lady skimmed my Facebook friends last week. She added herself as my follower. Then she accessed my friends list. She initiated interactions with a distress message, seeking my contact details. For those who responded, she explained that her child needed emergency surgery.

Those who continued to respond soon received her bank account details. Before I woke up to of messages asking me if Archana Rengarajan was genuine, she had received a tidy sum in her bank account from multiple donors.

Pro-social behaviour is seen as somewhat irrational by economists and inexplicable by social scientists. Why would someone incur a cost with no benefit in sight? Why would one move away from the evolutionary need to be self-preserving?

Research has shown that we seem to have two systems in place--the hot, quick and intuitive system that responds spontaneously, and the cool, slow and reflective system that conditions us to decide carefully.

Much of the early work on generosity indicated that we take time to reflect and overcome our need to be selfish before helping others. Recent research, however, has shown that generosity might be impulsive. Our brain dislikes the burden of analysis and creates shortcuts to decide without effort.

Our ability to be generous depends on how we make that decision. If it is a quick response, we do not seek information, but act spontaneously. Questioning recipients of bravery awards have shown that those who jumped into danger to rescue someone else did not pause to think. The common factor was spontaneity. Fraudsters appeal to this impulse of quick action among people.

When a fraudster finds his way into someone's inbox, the person's reaction depends on their sub-conscious rules. Not everyone asks rational questions. Most simply check off a few boxes in their mind. What are the boxes that Archana's story checked? First, research shows donors are more likely to respond to actual photographs. When someone identifies themselves they send out a message that they trust others. Others reciprocate. When people associate a face with a request, they take it seriously.

Second, donors are more likely to respond to a specific cause rather than a generic idea. A specific request citing a child's name, an illness, the name of a hospital, and the treatment made Archana's claims specific and evoked action. It is easy for fraudsters to create a case that appeals to this instinct.

Third, donors act when they sense an emergency, and when they find themselves in a position of positive contribution. By telling her new 'friends' that she was unable to contact me, and that she was seeking them out since they knew me, Archana elicited a psychological response to the need for action. She made her conversations about them, rather than about herself and the child. Research shows that calls for action with positive messages of change evoke better responses than negative messages of deprivation and despondency.

Fourth, donors find it difficult to get out of a situation of engagement leading to a donation. Those who responded to her first message engaged in a conversation with her, which she navigated into a series of interactions culminating in her bank details. Even if the donors felt trapped at that point, they were persuaded to make a token contribution. Given the large catchment area Archana was targeting, multiple donations of small amounts served her purpose well.

Why did the fundraiser not work with everyone on the list? In what is known as the 'bystander effect', people tend to not step up if they find that there are others in the same position as themselves. Those who drive past accidents assume that someone would have called the ambulance.

Some causes do not receive attention due to the assumption by potential donors that it might be futile to contribute. The limitation of Archana's crowd funding enterprise was she was appealing to too many people using the same forum.

When I woke up to this mini-scam at my doorstep, I messaged everyone I found to be on both Archana's friend list and mine. I reported her to Facebook and posted an alert on my wall. I hid my list of friends. As I reflected on it, I felt upset about being used by a fraudster.

The Trojans wheeled the wooden horse into their walled city, gleeful that they had fought the Greeks into retreat after years of war. After the revellers went to sleep, soldiers crawled out of the horse's belly to open the gates to the enemy, bringing down an empire. My little tragic story is also about whom I let in and came to regret it.

The author is Chairperson, Centre for Investment Education and Learning

Source: techgig.com