Examining the Effects of Rewards on the Response Behaviors Among Online Romance Fraudsters

• In Event: Innovative Approaches Towards Better Understanding Cybercrimes

Abstract

Objective: Romance scam has been previously assessed from the framework of restrictive deterrence theory. However, little is known about the effect of reward in changing fraudsters’ behaviors. To explore, an important source of how offenders strategically change their behaviors is through conducting experiments and holding conversations with them.
Data/Methods: Data was obtained through collecting responses from fraudsters to four experimental e-mails. A total of 94 transcripts and responses were collected, analyzed, coded, recoded and reanalyzed using inductive quantitative and qualitative analytic methods.
Results: Finding suggest fraudsters use more words in their immediate responses to email 4 after we send reward. The following qualitative analysis reveals seven main themes through coding fraudsters’ responses. Following this, we again code these seven main themes into quantitative variables across different emails. The result demonstrates certain variability.
Conclusion/Implications: Romance fraud results in losses among many individuals and families. These findings provide further evidence to the romance scam literature by discovering fraudsters’ manipulation of rewards of victims’ behaviors. These observations can be used to guide preventative romance scam efforts and mitigate its harm more promptly.

Authors

• Fangzhou Wang, Georgia State University

• Timothy E. Dickinson, The University of Texas at El Paso

• David Maimon, Georgia State University

• Tessa Cole, Georgia State University