Anyone can fall for a scam — yes, even you. Here are the psychological tactics scammers use to steal your money.

You get a text message from your bank. Your account has been compromised, it says. Call this number and they’ll sort it out for you — as long as you provide them with your checking account information, that is.

Or, maybe you are at work when you get an email from your spouse asking for a confirmation code just sent to your phone. You’re busy, and so, without thinking, you check your texts and send them the code.

Except, it wasn’t actually your bank on the phone, nor was it your spouse sending that email. Instead, it was a scammer — and thanks to the information you willingly provided, they have access to your bank account, credit cards, Social Security number and more.

In 2024, the Federal Trade Commission received 2.6 million fraud reports, resulting in $12.5 billion in losses — a significant increase from the $2.5 billion lost in 2023. A 2020 AARP study found that an estimated nine in 10 Americans had been targeted by a fraud attempt in the past year, with one in seven losing money. That number may be even higher given that people often do not report being scammed due to embarrassment. And with fraudulent text messages on the rise, more and more people are at risk of becoming potential victims.

You might think you’d never fall for a scam, but experts warn that anyone can be fooled if the circumstances are right. What’s more, scammers are often preying on human behavior to catch their targets off guard. Here are the tricks they’re using — and how to protect yourself.

Scams catch you when you’re vulnerable

Imagine this: It’s the end of the workday, and you get an email from your boss asking for an important document — so you send it over. Or, your bank calls for you to confirm a payment while you’re distracted, so you do it. Perhaps you get a text about a toll charge, and, since you did recently drive on a toll road, you supply your credit card info to pay it off, without even thinking twice.

These are the sort of scams that Thomas Holt, a professor at Michigan State University’s School of Criminal Justice, tells Yahoo Life happen often.

Usually, he says, “there's something that's just a little bit off” in these messages. However, “you're not paying close enough attention, and it can still slip through.”

You may assume that you’ll always spot a scam, as you’ve likely ignored plenty of them when you're feeling sharp. But when you're exhausted, overwhelmed or just off your game, your cognitive abilities are diminished, which research says makes you more likely to fall for a scam. Research says that the elderly and people living with disabilities are also more likely to be victims of scams, and lower cognitive function is one reason why.

With email and text scams, fraudsters don't need to know when you're vulnerable — they just send out messages and wait for the right moment to strike, says Holt. This is known in the malware space as “spray and pray,” where you try to scam as many people as possible and see who responds positively.

“Even if 1% of 100,000 people respond to a fraudulent text, that's still a pretty good rate of return if you're talking about [making a few thousand dollars] per person,” Holt says.

We believe what people tell us

The reality is that people tend to believe what others tell them, Christopher Chabris, cognitive scientist and co-author of Nobody's Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do About It alongside Daniel Simons, tells Yahoo Life. It’s called “truth bias,” which is an inherent bias to believe that what people are telling us is true.

Chabris says that our brains are primed to believe something is true before we consider it could be false. We have this bias because most of the time, people are telling us the truth — and it wouldn’t be efficient, as a species, if we all went around thinking others were lying about every little thing.

But scammers rely on this bias, Chabris says, because “if the initial claims that scammers make when we first encounter them weren't believed in some sense — for at least a moment — they wouldn't work.”

Simply put, we have to do more mental work to believe a scam is false than to take it at face value — which is when cognitive impairment comes back into play. If we are in any way cognitively impaired or even just distracted, Chabris says, we may accept something as true initially and then “not get around to disbelieving it or thinking about it carefully or checking.”

Scammers use authority and clout to sway us

Sometimes our truth bias causes us to believe that a scammer is a person of importance. Chabris points to cases he’s seen of bank executives doing a scammer’s bidding because they thought the request came from their CEO.

“How could you get to become the vice president of a bank and yet fall for this? One reason is if you believe it’s really the CEO you're talking to, that closes off a lot of possibilities,” Chabris says. If you’re convinced you’re talking to your boss, you’re more likely to do what they say than to push back.

Jameca Woody Cooper, a forensic and criminal psychologist, tells Yahoo Life that using the presumption of authority to convince people to go along with a scam is a classic tactic. Often, she says, scammers will “impersonate or claim affiliation with trusted figures or organizations, such as government agencies or financial institutions,” all in order to lend an “air of credibility” to a scheme.

And sometimes, these figures are even celebrities, who many people — and especially superfans, who scammers often target for these cons — are already primed to trust and like. Recently, scammers posing as stars like Keanu Reeves and Brad Pitt stole thousands of dollars from unsuspecting victims who wanted to help out their favorite celebrity during their (fake) time of need.

Scammers prey on our desire to be likable

Chabris explains that scammers take advantage of two natural human tendencies: the desire not to expend mental energy and the desire to be polite. So, if someone on the phone claims to be a person from your bank, hoping to help you handle a recent credit card problem, your brain may find it easier to just … go with it.

That’s because asking a lot of questions or double-checking information takes extra brainpower — something our minds naturally try to avoid. Plus, pushing back or questioning someone can feel socially uncomfortable, like you're being rude or suspicious.

“It’s socially costly,” says Chabris, noting that pushing back “can make us feel like assholes” or come off as overly untrusting. “Some people have the personality for that, and it’s not as hard for them, but built into all of us is an instinct not to offend people and to not want to take extra mental effort whenever we can avoid it. When you combine those two things together, it can feel better just to go along with something than to cross those lines.”

Cooper adds that a scammer can up the ante by making themselves seem distressed or by trying to make the person they’re scamming feel guilty and in need of correcting a “perceived wrongdoing.”

“The desire to be perceived as kind or to avoid confrontation plays a significant role,” she says. “Individuals may hesitate to question suspicious requests out of fear of seeming rude or uncooperative.”

Scammers create a sense of urgency

If our brain needs more time to assess truth than it does falsehoods, then any scam that pushes us to make quick decisions is particularly dangerous. Creating a sense of urgency, Cooper says, is a “powerful tool” for scammers, as it pressures victims into “making hasty decisions before they have time to think critically.”

This might look like a scammer telling you that your bank account will be permanently closed if you don’t act now. Or they might warn that you’re going to miss out on a major deal — like, say, if your scammer is posing as an insurance agent trying to score you some type of fake discount — if you don’t go through with an immediate transaction. This “forces the victim to act impulsively,” Cooper explains.

How we can protect ourselves from scams

It's hard to avoid being targeted by a scam, but there are ways to reduce your chances of actually falling for it. Here's what experts recommend.

Don’t keep shady situations to yourself: Chabris says that if you get the feeling that something possibly fishy is going on, you should gut-check it with someone else in your life and tell them what’s going on. Someone who comes into a situation fresh, Chabris says, is more likely to pick up on something off and possibly recognize it as a scam. Also, if a person on the phone is instructing you specifically not to speak to your loved ones about the situation, that’s a red flag in itself that you are being scammed.

Double-check where messages are coming from: If you get a suspicious message, take a close look at the email address or phone number it’s coming from, Holt says. If a person claims to be an agent at your bank but they aren’t using the bank’s official email address, it’s fraud.

Have doubts that the person who called you from your bank is the real deal? Hang up and call back on the bank’s official number, says Holt. You can also look up the number they called you from, but note that scammers can pay to have their fake numbers show up in top positions on Google and other search engines. Just because a phone number appears near the top of Google search results doesn’t mean it’s legitimate. It’s easy for scammers to make things look real, but hard for consumers to tell the difference.

Be suspicious of great offers: Cooper says to adopt a high degree of skepticism, particularly when encountering “too good to be true” deals or unsolicited offers. “Assume a default position of distrust, assuming the worst rather than the best, especially when dealing with unknown individuals or entities,” she says. If you won a cruise you never entered a drawing for, something is up.

Beef up your security: The FTC recommends enabling two-factor authentication on your logins so that if a scammer does try to get into your account, you have an added layer of protection. And don’t share your two-factor confirmation codes.

Holt emphasizes that anyone can be deceived by scams; it's not just seniors or those with limited tech knowledge. Being taken in by a scam doesn’t mean you’re gullible or uninformed. And stigmatizing those who are scammed can be harmful: It may cause people to keep their experiences to themselves, which can ultimately lead to more individuals being fooled.

“If a victim has recently encountered similar scams, they may be more vigilant,” says Cooper. “However, if they haven't, they may underestimate the risk.”