Deception in Electronic Goods and Services

Abstract

Deception is a frequent but under appreciated aspect of human society (Eckman, 2001). Deception in electronic goods and services is facilitated by the difficulty of verifying details in the limited information available in cyberspace (Mintz, 2002). Fear of being deceived (often unjustified) is in fact a major obstacle to wider use of e-commerce and e-government by the public. One survey reported consumers thought fraud on the Internet was 12 times more common than offline fraud, and 3 out of 5 people thought their credit card number could be stolen in most online transactions (Allen, 2001); both are overestimates. We assess here the nature of the deception threat, how deception can be detected, and what can be done about it.