Staff Writer
One morning, a couple weeks ago, I was scrolling through a news article when I hit the bottom of the page where the sponsored content resides. What I saw there was an ad disguised as a news article titled “New Hope Woman Was Playing On This Free Slot Machine App When All Of A Sudden This Happened.” I looked at it for a second and I wondered, who would click on this in belief that it was an actual news article? So I decided to visit the page and lo and behold, it was a blatant advertisement for an online casino app. Once the article names the app, outlines specific features, and gives only positive comments on the about the app, you realize that it is an ad. It begs the question though, why don’t the people who do this try harder? Why don’t they try to disguise their ad so that people believe that it is a real story?
The reason functions the same way the classic Nigerian Prince scam email works. A poorly written email narrows down the people who respond to only the most gullible, or the people most likely to send money. The same is true for apps like the one described earlier. The people who download the app are the most gullible and are most likely to make some kind of in app purchase when others would not spend any money.
The idea is counterintuitive, but effective.This idea is why $1.45 billion was reported lost to scams in 2016 by the internet crime complaint center.
