Betting on Scams

Scams of all sorts are responsible for huge financial and psychological harms. Up to now, however, there’s been no philosophical investigation of how they work. I argue that while the success of some scams is easily explained, others are puzzling. Especially in light of the growing evidence that we have well-designed epistemic vigilance systems that generally protect us against implausible information, how we do explain why cognitively competent individuals hand over thousands of dollars in implausible scams? I suggest that the implausibilities of these scams makes it unlikely that they induce belief in their victims. Rather, they work by inducing a fantasy that is just plausible enough, and attractive enough, to bring their victims to bet on the scams.