Who would study psychology if they didn't have some kind of problem?

Chapter 489 False Initiative Leads to Being Deceived

Because the promotional lecture was being held at a university, Nan Zhuren chose a case of a university teacher being scammed.

The living environment is closer to the students' daily lives, and it is also more deterrent than "students being scammed".

Of course, in order to avoid being too obvious and causing secondary harm to the victim, the case that Nan Zhuren chose was not one that happened at the school.

After the dialogue script appeared on the PowerPoint presentation, Nan Zhuren made a gesture of raising both hands to stop people from taking pictures: "Students, the material we are about to present involves a lot of privacy, so I hope you will not take pictures, okay?"

This statement serves as both a warning and a suggestion.

Upon hearing anything involving privacy or prohibiting photography, even the students who were having a group chat couldn't help but look up at the podium.

Scammer A: "Hello, I am customer service representative number 642 from Taobao Customer Service Center. Are you Mr. W?"

W: "Yes, what's up?"

Scammer A: "Okay, we're here to remind you that according to our system, your annual Black Diamond membership will officially take effect in one hour. We're contacting you to remind you to participate in an event. There's an exclusive product trial sale tonight at 8 PM. If you're interested..."

W: "Wait, I didn't subscribe to this membership. Are you sure you didn't make a mistake?"

Fraudster A: "..."

W: "There must be a mistake?"

Scammer A: "Please wait a moment... Are you Mr. W? Could you please give me your phone number? We have privacy protections."

W: "152XXXXXXXX".

Scammer A: "Okay, just a moment... I'm sorry, there might indeed be a problem. The person who activated the membership here is another Mr. W with the same last four digits as yours... I apologize for the inconvenience caused by our mistake."

W: "It's okay, just refund my membership, I don't need it."

Scammer A: "Okay, actually this membership offers many benefits. If you need it, we can give you the first month of membership for free..."

W: "I don't need to shop online, please give me a refund. You said before that this is an annual membership, right? And it will automatically deduct fees afterward, right? Please give me a refund!"

Scammer A: "...Please wait a moment."

This seems interesting.

The students, driven by curiosity, looked up and couldn't take their eyes off the detailed transcript.

Compared to the extensive yet concise "case reports" that Judge Chen had just presented, Nan Zhuren's detailed report was truly subtle, clandestine, and understated—

It can better arouse curiosity.

Or rather, voyeurism... no, it's about attracting students' attention to their studies.

"The first step is the usual opening, using a relatively formal identity to build a sense of trust. Scammers always do this."

Nan Zhuren pointed to the PPT and said, "But this scammer is more sophisticated. Because generally speaking, when scammers make a call, they will pre-set a scenario that requires you to transfer money, such as 'a crime requires a deposit,' 'there is a risk of being scammed and you need to transfer money to a safe account,' 'a family member is hospitalized and you need to pay for surgery,' and so on."

"In this case, the scammers never asked the victim to 'transfer money' throughout the entire process. The pre-set scenario required the victim to complete some verification operations based on the official APP and public account in order to 'avoid losing money'. Even at the very end of the conversation, the victim realized that they had been scammed."

Nan Zhuren didn't use any formal theoretical expressions; after all, this was a class, and the transmission of knowledge needed to be as conversational as possible. He tapped the laser pointer lightly: "Let's continue."

Scammer A: "I'm sorry, Mr. W, your membership is about to expire, so we can't cancel it now. We can waive the first month's membership fee, but because we have a promotion, it will automatically renew for the second month. You can log in to customer service tomorrow, or we can contact you to cancel from the third month onwards..."

W: "You can cancel it for me, I don't care, this is your mistake. And you'll deduct money from my account for the second month's renewal, right? How much?"

Scammer A: "It's 98 yuan a month, but our coupons start at 100 yuan..."

W: "Oh, if my account doesn't have that much money, will my membership be automatically suspended?"

Scammer A: "Um, well... because you're a diamond member, it might have some impact on your credit score."

W: "...Cancel it right now!"

Nan Zhuren paused the second slide on the projector, watching as most of the students in the audience looked up, while the remaining students looked up and down intermittently.

He glanced around and selected the interaction with the person whose neck was tilted forward the most.

"Young man, let's assume you are Mr. W right now. What kind of emotions would you be experiencing?"

The student who was called on blinked, seemingly a little nervous, and after thinking for a moment, said, "He's definitely angry."

Nan Zhuren asked, "Why?"

"Because it was the other party's mistake, it caused me so much trouble. Not only did it waste my time, but they also said that it would automatically deduct money, which would affect my credit score."

“Moreover…” the student frowned, seemingly empathizing with the situation, “the other side is still not apologizing at this point, spouting official jargon, and even trying to mislead me into continuing the mistake. It’s really annoying.”

Nan Zhuren nodded: "Very good, thank you, classmate."

After gesturing for the students to sit down, Nan Zhuren began to explain the slides verbatim.

"Actually... this scammer did 'apologize' here. But as this student just said, the apology was very insincere, and that will make people angry."

"And that is the purpose of this group of criminals."

Nan Zhuren spread his hands out, making a gesture of display.

"In most of the fraud cases we study, the fraudsters choose a high-ranking position to intimidate the victims and then trick them into transferring money."

"But this group of criminals did the opposite. They elevated the victim to a high position, using the identity of a customer service representative who made a mistake in their work to lure and provoke the victim."

“In this situation, the victim may mistakenly believe that they have the upper hand. The loss of '98 yuan' is a loophole. Some people will avoid this loss and cooperate with the fraudsters; while even if some people do not care about 'a mere 98 yuan', they will continue to push forward the conversation with the criminals under the drive of this anger - to vent their emotions, or for the so-called 'taking it seriously'.”

“This is the first clever thing this criminal gang did.” Nan Zhuren’s eyes darkened.

The atmosphere in the classroom became more solemn.

He clicked the laser pointer to switch to the next slide of the PPT.

(End of this chapter)