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Myth #5: If the victim wasn’t greedy they wouldn’t have fallen for the scam. By Anthony Pratkanis
This myth gained prominence in a 1956 interview of con criminal “Yellow Kid” Weil, who bragged: “They wanted something for nothing. I gave them nothing for something.” The greed myth is one way for fraud criminals to deflect blame onto the “greedy” victim.
If the myth was true, there would be no charity fraud, phishing, grandparent scams, government impostors, identity theft, or any of the other fraudulent schemes which promise no financial rewards.
But what about frauds that pitch financial gain, such as investment fraud? Taking inspiration from the cons’ old saw of “greedy victims,” DiLiema, Shadel, and Pak found a small, but significant 0.12 correlation between victimization and materialism (their measure of greed), profiling investment fraud victims as having a greedy mindset.
In contrast, Boyd found that 70% of Eron victims “invested” to secure basic retirement and needs, compared to 19% who sought a materialistic goal of enhanced lifestyle. Moreover, a 2006 UK study found victims were more likely to report desperation and not greed as their motive. In teaching undercover FBI agents how they commit fraud, financial fraud criminals Phil Kitzer and Mel Weinberg both state that they are looking for DMs – desperate men (and women) in need of money. As AARP states: “Even though no single personality trait has been discovered that explains all fraud victimization, faulty generalizations abound. For example: . . . ‘all scam victims are either greedy or stupid…or both.’ Such labels are not only offensive and demeaning to those who have lost money to this crime, but they are simply untrue and belie previous research that has repudiated such simplistic explanations
