Push Payment Scams: How Fraudsters Convince Victims to Transfer Money
It would seem that in an era of widespread awareness of cyber threats, no one would be persuaded to hand over all their savings to a stranger over the phone. Yet push-payment scams, in which criminals induce victims to personally transfer money to a “safe account,” are claiming an ever-increasing toll. The success of these cons doesn’t stem from victims’ naïveté but from fraudsters’ masterful exploitation of fundamental mechanisms of human psychology.
The Architecture of the Scam
The contemporary push-payment scam is a precisely designed process of psychological manipulation. Everything begins with an ostensibly innocent message – a reminder about the need to update a cable subscription, pay for a courier delivery, or renew a phone contract. These messages are carefully chosen to seem natural and relevant in the context of the potential victim’s daily life.
A few days later comes the main act of the fraud – a phone call from a supposed bank employee informing the victim of dangerous activity on their account due to a “suspicious transfer” that the victim supposedly executed. It’s precisely at this moment that a precisely constructed machine of psychological manipulation begins to operate.
The State of Emotional Agitation
The first step for fraudsters is to induce in the victim a state of intense emotional agitation. Information about endangered savings activates primitive fear mechanisms in our brains. Under severe stress, our capacity for rational thinking becomes significantly compromised – a biological mechanism that, in threatening situations, favors quick action over careful analysis.
Fraudsters know perfectly that people in a state of emotional turmoil are significantly more susceptible to manipulation. Fear for one’s own financial security activates an emergency mode in our thinking, where the priority becomes rapid problem resolution rather than thorough information verification.
Exploiting Guilt
A masterstroke by fraudsters is referencing the earlier message and suggesting that responding to it may have led to the current problems. This maneuver has several psychological consequences. First, the victim begins to feel partially responsible for the situation. Second, a sense of gratitude emerges toward the person who’s helping to fix “our mistake.”
This sense of guilt and gratitude creates a particularly dangerous psychological combination. We feel obligated to coöperate with the person who seems to be helping us repair our own error. This dynamic significantly increases our susceptibility to suggestions and commands.
Authority and Trust
Fraudsters exploit deeply rooted tendencies in human psychology to trust authorities and people demonstrating expert knowledge. They use professional banking jargon, demonstrate familiarity with banking procedures and systems, and can even make their phone number appear to be the bank’s official number.
This apparent professionalism, combined with our natural inclination to accept things “at face value,” creates a convincing illusion of authenticity. In a state of emotional agitation, our ability to critically verify these signals is significantly weakened.
Time Pressure and Action
A key element of manipulation is creating a sense of urgency. Fraudsters maintain that the account is actively under attack and every minute of delay could lead to greater losses. This time pressure serves two purposes: first, it prevents the victim from calmly thinking through the situation; second, it exploits our natural tendency to act in the face of threat.
What’s more, modern electronic banking means we can respond immediately to this threat. This immediacy is psychologically seductive – it gives us a sense of control and active counteraction to danger.
Building Relationships
Contrary to appearances, fraudsters don’t operate through aggression or intimidation. On the contrary – they try to build a relationship with the victim, showing empathy and understanding. “We’re on the same side,” “Together we’ll stop these criminals” – such messages create an illusion of common purpose and increase the likelihood of coöperation.
This apparent goodwill exploits our natural inclination to coöperate with people who seem friendly and helpful. Combined with the previously aroused sense of guilt and gratitude, it creates a strong psychological bond that makes maintaining critical distance difficult.
Undermining Foundations
A particularly destructive aspect of this type of fraud is the way it undermines our basic beliefs about the world and about ourselves. The conviction of our own resistance to manipulation, faith in our ability to recognize scams, trust in financial institutions – all of this becomes shaken.
This cognitive disorientation further complicates rational assessment of the situation. When our fundamental assumptions about reality are challenged, we’re more inclined to accept alternative interpretations of the situation, even if under normal circumstances they would seem suspicious to us.
In a world where technology allows fraudsters increasingly perfect deceptions, our best defense lies in understanding the psychological mechanisms that make us susceptible to manipulation. Awareness of these mechanisms doesn’t make us completely immune to fraud, but it can give us that critical moment of hesitation that allows us to break the chain of manipulation before it’s too late.
The elegance of the push-payment scam lies in its recognition that the most effective cons don’t feel like cons – they feel like rescue operations. You’re not being defrauded; you’re being saved. The person on the phone isn’t extracting money from you; they’re helping you protect it from other criminals. This inversion is psychologically powerful because it aligns the scam with your own interests and desires. You want to protect your money. The fraudster is offering to help you do exactly that. The fact that this help requires you to move your money to their account becomes, in the moment, a logical security measure rather than an obvious warning sign.
What makes these scams particularly insidious is their exploitation of the very systems designed to protect us. Electronic banking gives us control and security – until it doesn’t, until that control becomes the mechanism through which we voluntarily surrender everything we have. The speed and convenience that make modern banking work are precisely what make modern banking fraud possible. We’ve built systems that allow us to move money instantly, and fraudsters have built psychological frameworks that make us want to move it instantly in the wrong direction. The technology is neutral; the vulnerability is human. We can upgrade our security systems endlessly, but as long as the human operating those systems can be convinced that an emergency requires immediate action, the scam remains viable. The weakness isn’t in the software – it’s in the approximately three pounds of neural tissue that evolution designed for an entirely different world.
Founder and Managing Partner of Skarbiec Law Firm, recognized by Dziennik Gazeta Prawna as one of the best tax advisory firms in Poland (2023, 2024). Legal advisor with 19 years of experience, serving Forbes-listed entrepreneurs and innovative start-ups. One of the most frequently quoted experts on commercial and tax law in the Polish media, regularly publishing in Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. Author of the publication “AI Decoding Satoshi Nakamoto. Artificial Intelligence on the Trail of Bitcoin’s Creator” and co-author of the award-winning book “Bezpieczeństwo współczesnej firmy” (Security of a Modern Company). LinkedIn profile: 18 500 followers, 4 million views per year. Awards: 4-time winner of the European Medal, Golden Statuette of the Polish Business Leader, title of “International Tax Planning Law Firm of the Year in Poland.” He specializes in strategic legal consulting, tax planning, and crisis management for business.
