Ways to Get Suckered

By Trish Roberts-Miller

There are certain recurrent rhetorical appeals that people use because they work. They are, however, generally inexact at best and actively (sometimes intentionally) misleading at worst. People use them in all sorts of situations—personal, professional, business, political—and with all sorts of intentions. Sometimes they know they’re being dishonest, but, often, they just haven’t thought about whether their rhetoric is ethical because they believe in the justice of their ends, and they believe the ends justify the means.

The point is to notice when someone uses one of these appeals—an alarm should go off whenever you hear one. On the whole, if someone is using one of these appeals, there’s something very wrong with their product, and you should just walk away.

There are lots of books and articles on this issue. I like Psychology: The Influence of Persuasion best, and much of the following is taken from that book. For a really good site on various cons and hoaxes, go to www.snopes.com.

1. Either/Or Dilemmas

It’s rare for there to be only two options available; in fact, I can’t think of a single situation in which that is the case. When people present you with an either/or situation, one is usually the policy they like, and the other is something they hope you will find unacceptable. While it’s generally at least semi-intentional (they’re trying to force your hand), this kind of argument sometimes results from what is called black/white or either/or thinking—a sign of immature cognition, a personality disorder, or panic.

2. Manipulating people’s unwillingness to admit error

It’s very difficult to admit that one has made a mistake, so it’s easy to do what is called “throwing good money after bad.” That is, rather than admit the error and take the loss, one keeps doing just what got one into trouble in order to try to prove that one was right in the first place. Essentially, there are many people who would rather be wrong than admit error and get things right. Study after study shows that people will cling to a conclusion, especially if they have publicly announced it, even if it is shown that all the evidence they used to reach that conclusion is false. It isn’t clear whether it’s arrogance, or a desire to save face. (People who try to sucker you on this principle will talk about trying “to turn a streak around,” or “you can’t stop now that you’ve spent all this time [or money or energy].”)

3. The bandwagon appeal

If people are outnumbered, they have a tendency to assume that there must be a reason, and so are more willing to change their minds (or ignore their intuitions). This is pretty much the “everyone else is doing it” argument; it appeals to people’s basic desire to be liked, to be one of the crowd. A more subtle version is to insist that everyone in a small, elite group is doing this—it’s still a bandwagon appeal, but a slightly different one.

The “greater fool” theory works much like this. That is the notion that one should buy any product or stock whose price is going up—even when the value is not changing (e.g., the South Sea “bubble,” the tulip mania, the dotcom IPO frenzies)—on the grounds that one will find a greater fool who will pay an even higher price than you paid.

4. Appeals to things that look authoritative

Many ads on TV have someone who looks authoritative, but whose credentials you never hear (e.g., what their degree is in, where it is from); many webpages have a slick, professional look, and some even appear to give citations. That’s an example of this move—as are ads that have people in white coats who look vaguely like doctors, or spam that claims “as seen on NBC, CNN, and Oprah.”. They’re all examples of things that at a quick glance look as though they are authoritative, but really just have the trappings.

One way to make something look authoritative is to include lots of details. For some reason, people are likely to believe a lie when it has specifics associated with it (dates, names, places). Thus, for example, the “as seen on CNN” claim will often be supported by a specific date which is a bald-faced lie. Yet, it works—it might be that suckers think that someone wouldn’t say something untrue if it’s easy to check, but they will. Sometimes people think that laws about truth in advertising keep advertisers from telling outright lies, but 1) those laws don’t apply to media like email; 2) those laws have been changed so that they don’t apply unless you are making claims about curing diseases; 3) if a company is willing to pay a fine, they can engage in false advertising; and 4) con artists are breaking the law anyway, so they don’t really care that something is illegal.

5. Flattery

When we are flattered, our critical brains shut down. There’s some way in which we think, “Oh, if this person is so insightful as to see my qualities, then they must be wonderful.” And a person who fawns over us makes us feel special—they seem very “nice.”

This flattery can take an explicit form (“I have heard from various people that you can be trusted”), or more subtle. When someone praises your “ingroup,” for instance, by saying that “Chesterians are honest” or “Chesterians have a more ethical response to the situation,” they’re just buttering you up. Essentially, they’re identifying themselves as a member of the ingroup, so you’ll feel that you can trust them.

Flattery can make us feel obligated to someone, as though we should give them something back for the good feelings they gave us. They aren’t necessarily smart, they aren’t necessarily nice, and we certainly don’t owe them anything.

Another version of the flattery is to make us feel that we are part of some very small, select group—”you have been chosen for X” Sometimes this move appeals to your intelligence, sometimes to your judgement, and sometimes to your income; it’s just a fancy way of saying you’re in their target market.

6. Appeals to scarcity

The Franklin Mint operates entirely on this principle, and it does quite well. All those sales promotions that say things like “last in stock” similarly appeal to the idea that you have to grab this thing now, or you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it.

Sales for vacation properties often work this way, as do phone pitches that promise a great deal on something, but only if you call back within a certain amount of time. The clock counting down on the television shopping channels is intended to have this effect, and it always operates in an auction situation.

The thing to keep in mind about this pitch is that the people are trying to keep you from having a chance to think carefully about their product—that’s a very, very, very bad sign.

7. Something for nothing

Most cons come down to the promise that you’re going to get something for nothing. You won’t.

This appeal works particularly well when people want something from us that we don’t realize is valuable—our social security number, our bank information, our address(es). It also works when something is initially over-valued and then “reduced” to something still over-priced (but not quite as over-priced as before)—like all those ads that say “a 99.99 dollar value but yours for 3.99!” Who says it was ever worth 99.99?

Sometimes this move is part of what is called the “bait and switch.” A company offers a great deal on something that they either don’t actually have, or of which they will sell out immediately, or which will turn out to be really unappealing once you see it (e.g., a great price on a car that has manual windows, manual transmission, and no a/c). Once they’ve got you in the showroom, they start showing you more expensive things. (This is, by the way, illegal, but very common.)

This appeal works on the principle that we like to get a good deal. Interestingly enough, the opposite appeal works, too—various companies have increased sales by increasing their prices (especially things that are perceived as luxury items, like fine alcohol and jewelry). We have a tendency to assume that the more expensive things are better, and will make a judgment on price alone.

8. Appeals to things that look nice, familiar, and comfortable

The author of Psychology calls this “the friendly thief,” and that’s a great name. This is just like the previous one, except instead of looking authoritative, the person looks “nice.” We have a tendency to assume that nice people will only do nice thing, and study after study shows that people vastly over-estimate our ability to judge whether or not someone is nice. We also have a tendency to assume that bad people look bad (they always do on TV, after all), but they don’t. There are con artists who specialize in working churches—people refuse to believe that someone who attends their church could be up to something bad. Con artists, rapists, even serial killers are often very attractive, friendly, well-dressed, and charismatic people, which is why the neighbors always say, “He seemed so nice!” Even when they aren’t serial killers, nice people are not necessarily the best people for the job—people have a tendency to vote for politicians with the most charisma (or best hair, or nicest wife) when those are completely irrelevant characteristics.

Americans are suckers for “authenticity.” That is, Americans confuse honesty and sincerity, and assume that a person who seems “authentic” can be trusted. This is false on several levels. In the first place, sincerity and honesty are not the same thing—people can be quite sincere while lying (because they believe in the goodness of their cause, because they feel justified, because they’ve persuaded themselves of the lie), and people may sincerely pass along information they believe is true when it’s false (www.snopes.com has dozens, if not hundreds, of examples of this kind of thing—false warnings about needles at playscapes, for instance).Their very sincerity means that they haven’t, and won’t, think carefully about their own sources of information (thus making them unreliable). In other words, a sincere person is not always an honest one, and an honest one is not always a truthful one.

In the second place, pathological liars, successful con artists, actors, and politicians are professionals at looking authentic. That’s their job. Thinking that you can determine whether a professional “authentic” person is really authentic is like thinking you can do better math than a professional mathematician.

This really bothers students when I say it, as we are all convinced that we cannot be fooled. Interestingly enough, research shows that the more convinced people are that they cannot be fooled, the easier they are to fool. People who know that they can be fooled are actually harder to scam.

The success of this niceness/authentic appeal is connected to people’s unwillingness to admit they’re wrong. Most of us are pretty good at judging other people, and some of us are even pretty good at telling when someone is lying. What we fail to recognize is that when you’re dealing with a successful professional criminal, s/he is very, very good at looking nice. Rather than admit that we might be wrong, people will continue to trust someone “nice” even when they are caught in lie after lie. (The more that the person has succeeded in presenting him/her self as a member of the ingroup, the more likely people are to dismiss or rationalize that person’s lies.)

9. Shame

Shame and guilt are powerful motivators. Cons use them in various ways. Sometimes they openly try to make you feel sorry for them, and sometimes they try to put you in the wrong, so that you feel you have to make it up to them. Sometimes they “give” you something and then make you feel that you have to reciprocate (e.g., charities that send you stamps).

Another way that cons use shame is to sell a product that you are embarrassed to buy. They either never send the product, or it is worthless (e.g., penis enlargement pills, herbal viagra). But, they know that you will never take them to court or report them because that would mean admitting that you are under-endowed, etc. Even scams that aren’t related to an embarrassing product can benefit from this—con artists know that people are unlikely to want to admit that they got scammed, and so will often quietly drift off.

10. Trust in institutions

Most of us assume that consumer protection laws protect us, and that institutions, however irritating they are, are more or less honest (if only because they can’t afford the negative publicity). This is used against us in several ways.

In the first place, major corporations will engage in shady dealings. Twice I’ve had major auto dealerships try to pull the “bait and switch” on me—they do it all the time, but no one notices. (I tend to notice because I want a car with a manual transmission.)

Second, the truth in advertising laws have been considerably relaxed. Now, the most common “penalty” is that companies must stop showing the ad, but it takes the FDA longer to investigate a claim of false advertising than most ads run. The wildest claims are made in regard to “herbal” remedies, which are not held to truth in advertising laws at all. Many crucial terms have no legal meaning, such as “natural,” so you can put motor oil in a product and call it “natural.” (So, for instance, you can find refined sugar in lots of “natural” products.)

Third, con artists often claim to be representing a major corporation. This is an old scam, and is sometimes called “the bank examiner” scam. Someone contacts you claiming to be calling on behalf off a company, bank, or the police and claims that you need to “verify” certain information, meaning they want you to tell it to them (such as your account numbers and passwords). Don’t. If a legitimate company really needs to verify information, ask that they tell you the numbers, etc., and then you can say yes or no.

Fourth, cons will sometimes use a slight variation on a well-established name, so people think they are working with one company when they aren’t. For years, there was a group that called itself something like “Cancer Society of America” that solicited donations from people who thought they were giving to the American Cancer Society. This is especially a problem with webpages, as domain names do not always belong to whom you think they should.

I’ve talked about this primarily in terms of cons and con artists, but that’s just where this is most extreme. But, don’t let that make you think that this only applies the few times in one’s life when one comes up against a professional con artist (an event that, thanks to email, happens more all the time). In less extreme forms, these are the appeals that people make in advertising, political campaigns, high-pressure selling, and just day-to-day rhetorical situations. The solution is not to hide yourself in a closet and refuse to speak to anyone unless they provide DNA samples and six references, but just to be aware.

The point is to notice when these sorts of things happen. If a person makes one of these moves, it is often a sign that they have bad intentions—that they are willing to be deceptive in order to gain your assent. Sometimes that’s because they are trying to rip you off (e.g., trying to get you to buy a worthless product), sometimes because they feel so justified in their cause that they think the ends justify the means (an argument I’ve rarely granted), and sometimes because they just aren’t the sharpest pencil in the drawer and they’ve fallen for a bad argument themselves. Once the alarm goes off, the question to ask yourself is: how could I figure out if this person is telling the truth? That doesn’t mean that you should try to sit there and think through if what they’re saying is true—it means ask them what their sources are for their information, have them put stuff in writing, check their assertions through other sources, and test what they say.