A foole & his money, be soone at debate:
which after with sorow, repents him to late.
which after with sorow, repents him to late.
by Thomas Tusser, 1573:
It's not possible for use to keep track of all the ways one can be scammed. Several websites already do a go job. The goal with this page is to provide a list of good sources to use to check-out questionable solicitations.
CONSUMER SCAMS and CYBERCRIME
- Cybersecurity, computer hacking, corporate espionage, viruses, etc. He co-hosts the podcast Breach, about history’s biggest hacks. It has spent time in the top 100 podcasts.
- Behavioral economics, particularly how cognitive biases “trick” consumers into making bad choices. He writes “nuggets” for PeopleScience.com; this is also the subject of his book The Plateau Effect .
- Identity theft and fraud (He wrote one of the first books on ID theft, Your Evil Twin)
- Consumer protection and ‘gotchas’ (Gotcha Capitalism and Stop Getting Ripped off were both NYTimes best-sellers
- America’s ‘Restless’ problem, including Overwork and other unintended consequences of technology
- Voting integrity
- Elder fraud
- Ageism
- Child online safety
MEDICAL SCAMS
Medical and health scams, often referred to as Alternative or Complementary Medicine, can be very convincing, especially to people desperate for answers and remedies. If this stuff worked, it would simply be called Medicine -- not alternative of complementary. It only prolongs getting proven treatment and separates one from his money.
MUST visit sites are:
- Quackwatch by Dr. Stephen Barret, MD, retired psychiatrist and renown medical editor
- National Council Against Health Fraud
- American Council on Science and Health
- Healthcare Reality Check
- Science-based Medicine
FRAUD
If a deal seems too good to be true, it's almost always is a scam. Below is a listing of the most popular places to check it out. Also check our page about Identity Theft.
- The National Fraud Center
- The Federal Trade Commission
- Multilevel Marketing Scams
- Identity Theft Resource Center
- Scambusters
Last are the SCAMS one forwards to friends in the form of HOAXES that are propagated via email chain letters. Before sending that bit of "special news," check it out on SNOPES , ABOUT Urban Legends , HOAX-SLAYER , FACT-CHECK , POLITIFACT
Tricks used in websites and apps that make the readers do things that they didn't mean to, like buying or signing up for something
DARK PATTERN Reading List (including hyperlinks)
- Financial Times Magazine (May 2019): When manipulation is the digital business model
- Gizmodo (April 2019): Senators Introduce Bill to Stop 'Dark Patterns' Huge Platforms Use to Trick Users
- Purdue University UX Pedagogy and Practice Lab (Apr 2019): UXP2 Dark Patterns
- Norwegian Consumer Council (June 2018): Deceived by Design: How Tech Companies Use Dark Patterns to Discourage Us From Exercising Our Rights to Privacy (PDF)
- UX Podcast (February 2017): #150 Dark Patterns with Harry Brignull
- Fast Company (December 2016): The Year Dark Patterns Won
- The New York Times (May 2016): When Websites Won’t Take No for an Answer
- The Verge (Aug 2013): Dark Patterns: inside the interfaces designed to trick you
- Ars Technica (Jul 2016): Dark Patterns are designed to trick you (and they’re all over the Web)
- UX Brighton 2010 Conference Video: Dark Patterns: User Interfaces Designed to Trick People
- 90 Percent of Everything (July 2010): Dark Patterns - Dirty Tricks Designers Use to Make People Do Stuff (the blog post that started all this).
- A List Apart (November 2011): Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design
- Smashing Magazine (March 2018): Ethical Design: The Practical Getting-Started Guide
- Trine Falbe, Kim Andersen & Martin Michael Frederiksen (Late 2017): White Hat UX eBook
- Smashing Magazine (April 2019): Privacy UX: Common Concerns And Privacy In Web Forms, Better Cookie Consent Experiences, Better Notifications And Permission Requests
- Dataethics.eu: Data Ethics Tools for Companies and Organisations
- Ethical.net: Ethical Alternatives & Resources
- Reddit: Dark Patterns and Asshole Design
