Tag Archive for: scam awareness

How to Stop Being Manipulated: Free Hard-to-Fool Card

You’ve watched someone get taken by a scam and thought, I’d never fall for that. Almost everyone thinks that, and it’s exactly what makes people easy to fool. When you’re sure a trick won’t work on you, you stop checking.

The people who rarely get played don’t give themselves that exemption. They also have three other habits: they judge an ask separately from any favor that came first, they ask who benefits even when the advice comes from a friend, and they never make a decision on someone else’s deadline.

I learned the third one the hard way. In 2002, a business partner took more than $200,000 from me. He made money every time our money moved through his shop, and I never asked who benefits. I’d been building persuasion campaigns for years, and I still didn’t see it.

This card turns those four habits into four questions you can ask in the moment. And it gives you the sentence that does most of the work when someone pushes: “I’ll get back to you tomorrow.” A good offer survives a day. If you get pressure or guilt instead, you’ve learned what you’re dealing with.

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Tag Archive for: scam awareness

Why You Buy More When You’re Sad (Impulse Buying Psychology)

You’ve probably done your own version of this. It’s been a rough week, you go out for one thing, and you come home with three. And the person who sold them to you could see that rough week on you before you’d noticed it yourself.

That isn’t a hunch. In one experiment, people who had just watched a sad scene from an old movie offered almost four times as much for a plain water bottle as people who had watched a calm film about a coral reef. It was the same bottle. The only thing that changed was their mood.

I spent 30 years in marketing, and a big part of that job was knowing what mood the customer would be in. Here’s what that looks like from the other side of the counter, and what you can do about it.

The one idea: a hot state

When a feeling gets strong enough, it starts doing some of your thinking for you. I call that a hot state.

The clearest test of it I know comes from Amsterdam. Researchers asked about 200 office workers to pick a free snack they’d get a week later, either fruit or something like a candy bar. Some chose right before lunch, when they were hungry, and some right after, when they were full. The snack was a week away, so how hungry they were that day shouldn’t have mattered. It did. The hungry group picked a lot more junk food.

That’s the catch with a hot state. While you’re in it, you assume you’ll feel the same way later. And anyone selling to you would much rather you decide now, while the feeling is still running the show.

Mood 1: Sad, lonely or worn down

Back to the water bottle. Here’s the honest part: that first study was small, only about 30 people. Ten years later, the same lab ran it again with new people. The effect showed up again, but it was smaller. So sadness does make people pay more, just not four times more every time. The researchers’ explanation is that sadness turns your attention inward, and buying something feels like a way to fix the feeling.

What gives it away: you say more than you meant to. “It’s been a hard year,” to someone who only asked if you needed help finding anything. You stay and chat longer than you need to, because you’re buying company as much as the product. Romance scammers build a whole business on this, and so do a lot of the “opportunities” that show up right after a funeral or a layoff.

In fairness, plenty of people who notice you’re down are just being kind. More on where the line is below.

Mood 2: Angry or feeling wronged

Researchers have found that people who tend to run angry expect things to go their way. They rate risks as smaller and are more willing to gamble. A large replication with almost 800 people found the same pattern.

What gives it away: you walk in with a grievance. “I’m so done with my current provider.” You tell the story of how the last company ripped you off, and what you want most is for someone to take your side.

Here’s how it gets used. The pitch opens by agreeing with you. “Oh, those guys? They do that to everybody.” Now the salesperson is on your team, and you’re about to make a big switch while you’re still mad. Sometimes you really were ripped off, and switching is the right call. Just make that call after you’ve cooled off, not while you’re still on the phone with the person who agreed with you.

Mood 3: Excited or in a hurry

This one has a tell on the seller’s side too. The friendly small talk before a pitch (“How’s your day going? Any big plans this weekend?”) is partly there to find out whether you’re in a good mood.

What gives it away: you lean in, you’re nodding before they finish the sentence, and you ask how soon you can have it before you ask how much it costs. A skilled salesperson keeps that excitement up on purpose, because the feeling has an expiration date. Sleep on it, and the hot state cools off, and so does the sale. That’s why the deposit “to hold your spot” shows up right when you’re most excited.

Real deadlines exist, and sometimes the excitement is right. The check is simple: was the deadline there before they met you?

The scam manual, in one line

At the end of 2025, Reuters reported on two handbooks recovered from raided scam compounds in the Philippines. They’re step-by-step guides to building a fake online relationship and then moving the person into a fake investment. On day one, the plan is to share “emotional experiences.” Money doesn’t come up for days. One line sums up the whole strategy:

“As long as the emotions are in place, the client’s money will naturally follow.”

In other words, they read your mood first, and the pitch comes second. Nobody can read your mind, and they don’t need to. Your mood is showing, and they’re trained to look for it.

The fix: name the weather

You beat them to it. Before you make any decision that costs money, check your mood the way you’d check the weather before you leave the house. Say what mood you’re in, out loud, in one plain sentence. “I’m sad and I’m shopping.” “I’m angry and I’m about to switch.” “I’m excited and they want a deposit.”

It sounds too simple to work, but there’s decent evidence it helps. In one study, people who were afraid of spiders spent time close to a big, live tarantula, and some of them were asked to describe what they were feeling out loud. A week later, facing a different spider in a different room, those people got less physically worked up than the people who had tried to talk themselves out of the fear or distract themselves. They still said they felt just as scared. Their bodies just didn’t react as much.

Putting the feeling into words gives you a little distance from it. Once you’ve named it, you can ask the question the seller is hoping you won’t: would tomorrow-me say yes to this? If you can’t answer that, say “I’ll get back to you tomorrow,” and let tomorrow-you decide.

Naming the weather is also the first move of the Source Test, the check we use on this channel for anything that wants your money or your trust. Stake: who gets what if I say yes today? Source: is there anything behind this deal besides how I feel right now? Steelman: giving the other side a fair hearing. If I still want it tomorrow, maybe it really is a good deal.

Where the line is

Here’s the strongest argument against all of this: everybody reads moods. Every good doctor does it, and so does every good friend. A salesperson who notices you’re upset and says, “Come back next week,” is using the same skill for the opposite purpose. What matters is what they do with what they see. Do they slow you down, or hurry you up?

I’ve been on the other side of this. Right after the holidays, I ran campaigns built on one idea: you didn’t get what you really wanted, so take the gift money and buy it yourself. When gas prices spiked and people were furious at the pump, I sold commercial electric vans into that anger. The vans were a good product, but the anger is what got me the meeting. And every spring, when tax refunds landed, I pushed a luxury item nobody needed. I never had to read anyone’s mind. The calendar told me what mood people would be in.

You can’t hide your mood, and you don’t have to. You just have to notice it before anyone else does, and say it out loud.

Questions people ask

Why do I buy things when I’m sad?

Sadness tends to turn your attention inward, and buying something can feel like a way to fix the feeling. In one small study, people who had just watched a sad film offered almost four times as much for the same water bottle. A later rerun by the same lab found the effect again, but smaller.

What is a “hot state”?

It’s any moment when a feeling is strong enough to do some of your thinking for you. While you’re in one, you assume you’ll feel the same way later. In one study, hungry office workers picked far more junk food for a snack they wouldn’t get for a week.

Does being angry make you take more risks?

It tends to. People who often run angry rate risks as smaller and are more willing to gamble, and a large replication with almost 800 people found the same pattern. Salespeople use it by agreeing with your anger, then pitching a big switch while you’re still upset.

How do scammers use emotions?

They read your mood before they ask for anything. A scam manual recovered from a raided compound in the Philippines, reported by Reuters, tells workers to share “emotional experiences” on day one and wait days before mentioning money. Its summary line: “As long as the emotions are in place, the client’s money will naturally follow.”

How do you stop impulse buying?

Before you spend, name the weather: say your mood out loud in one plain sentence, like “I’m sad and I’m shopping.” Then ask whether tomorrow-you would say yes. If you can’t answer, say “I’ll get back to you tomorrow” and let tomorrow-you decide.

Sources

  • Cryder, C. E., Lerner, J. S., Gross, J. J., & Dahl, R. E. (2008). Misery is not miserly: Sad and self-focused individuals spend more. Psychological Science 19(6), 525–530.
  • Garg, N., Williams, L. A., & Lerner, J. S. (2018). The misery-is-not-miserly effect revisited: Replication despite opportunities for compensatory consumption. PLOS ONE 13(6).
  • Read, D., & van Leeuwen, B. (1998). Predicting hunger: The effects of appetite and delay on choice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 76(2), 189–205.
  • Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2001). Fear, anger, and risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81(1), 146–159.
  • Lu, Efendić & Feldman (2025). Registered replication of Lerner & Keltner (2001), n = 780. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
  • Kircanski, K., Lieberman, M. D., & Craske, M. G. (2012). Feelings into words: Contributions of language to exposure therapy. Psychological Science 23(10), 1086–1091.
  • McPherson, P., Huang, H., & Levine, A. (Dec 31, 2025). A scammer’s guide: How cybercriminals plot to rob a target in a week. Reuters.
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How to Not Be Manipulated: 4 Habits of People Who Rarely Fall For It

You’ve seen the story. Someone wires money to a fake grandson, or reads their bank password to a stranger on the phone, and the thought shows up right on cue: I’d never fall for that.

I thought that too. In 2002, a business partner took more than $200,000 from me. By then I’d spent years building persuasion campaigns for a living. I knew exactly how people get played, and I still didn’t see it coming.

Here’s what I’ve learned since about the people who rarely get played. None of it requires being a genius or suspicious of everybody.

The blind spot almost everyone has

Try this. On a scale of one to ten, how easy are you to manipulate? Now, how easy is the average person?

If your second number is higher, you’re in good company. Researchers call it the third-person effect: almost all of us believe persuasion works better on other people than it does on us. It’s one of the most consistent findings in media research, and it’s exactly the opening a manipulator needs. If you’re sure it won’t work on you, you stop checking.

Habit 1: Assume you can be fooled

In 2002, a team of psychologists tried to teach people to resist ads that use a fake expert, someone who looks like an authority but has no real reason to know. In one ad, a model dressed as a stockbroker gave investment advice. Explaining the trick helped. But the people who became hardest to fool were the ones who were first shown that they had been taken in by the ad themselves.

Another study points the same way. In 2006, researchers gave the same money-knowledge quiz to investment fraud victims and to people who’d never been scammed. The victims scored higher. Knowing more didn’t protect them, and it may have made them more confident going in.

This isn’t about distrusting everyone. It just means you stop giving yourself an exemption. And if you’ve been fooled before, don’t bury it. That memory is some of the best protection you have.

Habit 2: Judge the ask on its own

In 1971, a psychologist paired volunteers with a man named Joe, who was secretly working for the researcher. In some sessions, Joe came back from a break with a Coke for the volunteer, unasked. Later, Joe asked them to buy raffle tickets. The people who got a Coke bought more, and it didn’t matter whether they liked Joe or not.

That pull to pay someone back is called reciprocity. You feel it after a free consultation, or when a salesperson says they’ve already taken something off the price just for you. The habit is one question: if the gift had never happened, would I still say yes?

Habit 3: Ask who benefits

This one is harder, because it’s usually aimed at people you trust. Before you act on advice, ask: if I believe this and act on it, who gains, and what do they gain? People can believe every word they tell you and still be the ones who profit.

My $200,000 lesson came from skipping exactly this question. Two friends and I had opened a marketing agency. We had clients but no building, so a friend of one of my closest friends gave us space above his print shop and came in as a silent partner. Everyone vouched for him. He printed all our client work at a small markup. A year and a half later, the money coming in and the money going out stopped adding up. We audited the books and found he’d been skimming our receivables.

More than one person had told me to watch the books. I didn’t, because he came recommended by someone I trusted. The answer to who benefits was written into our deal from day one. I just never asked.

Habit 4: Never decide on someone else’s clock

Your account will be frozen in an hour. The investment closes Friday. Rushing you is the move that shuts off the other three habits, because there’s no time to wonder whether you’re being fooled or who benefits. The Federal Trade Commission’s scam guidance puts it plainly: scammers want you to act before you have time to think. It also says something I’d put on every fridge: honest businesses will give you time to make a decision.

The one sentence

When anyone pushes you to decide right now, say: “I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

It’s a no that doesn’t sound like a no, so you don’t need confidence or an argument to say it. It buys you the time the other habits need. And it’s a test. A good offer survives a day. If you get pressure, guilt or “this won’t be here tomorrow,” you’ve learned what you’re dealing with.

If the call might be a real emergency, like your bank, the move is the same, just faster: hang up and call the number on the back of your card.

The honest part

Sometimes the deadline is real. Sales end, and good apartments get rented by somebody else. But look at the trade. Wait a day and lose a real deal, and you’ve lost a deal. Don’t wait, and if it’s the other kind, you can lose a lot more.

Nobody is un-manipulable. The people who come closest know that about themselves, and give themselves a day.

Sources

  • Davison, W. P. (1983). The third-person effect in communication. Public Opinion Quarterly 47(1), 1–15.
  • Paul, B., Salwen, M. B., & Dupagne, M. (2000). The third-person effect: A meta-analysis of the perceptual hypothesis. Mass Communication & Society 3(1), 57–85.
  • Sagarin, B. J., Cialdini, R. B., Rice, W. E., & Serna, S. B. (2002). Dispelling the illusion of invulnerability: The motivations and mechanisms of resistance to persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(3), 526–541.
  • Consumer Fraud Research Group for the NASD (now FINRA) Investor Education Foundation (2006). Investor Fraud Study Final Report.
  • Regan, D. T. (1971). Effects of a favor and liking on compliance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 7(6), 627–639.
  • Federal Trade Commission. How to Avoid a Scam. consumer.ftc.gov.
  • Federal Trade Commission. The Cooling-Off Rule, 16 CFR Part 429.
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