STEP 2: HURRY UP!
“My dear friend, I promise you we shall finalize this transaction in FIVE BUSINESS DAYS!”
“Please contact the bank IMMEDIATELY and let them know you are the next of kin!”
“Reply to me AS SOON AS you have received this email!”
“Do this NOW because otherwise the government may confiscate the money and it will be lost forever!”
By step 2 you have asked for more information and received it from the scammer, but you are still hesitating. At this point you start thinking, much like you would sooner or later think if smoking is a good idea after all. What was it again that the police said in the newspaper about internet fraud? And what was it again about things being too good to be true? How come there are not more millionaires if all you need to get rich is your email address?
The scammer doesn’t want you to think. Your thinking is bad for his business. It makes you doubt the fantasy. It makes you ask uncomfortable questions and not let the scammer boss you. It breaks the delusion. Therefore, as soon as the scam begins, the scammer starts applying pressure on you. Everyone who has ever been in any stressful situation knows that pressure hampers your thinking more or less seriously. The armies around the world know this all too well and train their soldiers to work efficiently under extreme pressure precisely by honing their capability to act even when their life is on the line instead of panicking and running like a headless chicken.
The scammers are no drill instructors, but they know that pressure for you is net gain for them. You are not expecting pressure from your new internet friend and you are not prepared to stop and think when all you can see is your dreams of wealth being taken away from you if you don’t act quickly. You will notice that they will want you to hurry up with replying to their emails. If you have given them your phone number, they will constantly call you just to ask if you have checked your email. Pressure like this makes you act instinctively and make decisions you wouldn’t do if you had time to stop and think for a while. The constant sense of urgency that demands immediate actions not only creates this kind of pressure to the victims, but also makes it seem as if things really were proceeding quickly and the money was almost in their reach. Therefore the urgency and the pressure may paradoxically even feel like a good thing: the scammer comes across as a good businessman who gets things done instead of just talking!