The architects of these scams have made a profession of hijacking human psychology, says Norris, and are able to manipulate the way people make decisions for their own gain. Behavior that might normally raise suspicion-sweating, say, or fidgeting-is concealed behind the screen. Without the physical cues available in person, people have less information to help identify a threat, according to Gareth Norris, a lecturer in psychology at Aberystwyth University who published a paper in 2019 on the psychology of internet fraud. Scams have also evolved with the age of digital communication into a far more potent threat. But since the pandemic, which drove social isolation and forced more interactions online, fraud has reached epidemic levels. In the 16th century, wealthy people were scammed by letter. Romance scams predate the internet by centuries. The “trading sessions” were an elaborate pantomime. His persona, certainly, is a calculated fiction, devised to prey on the vulnerabilities of people in search of intimacy and dependent on digital services to find it. In all likelihood, Bruce Zhao does not exist. Between trades, they continued to chat over WhatsApp, about Mexican food, the Lakers, TikTok, Elon Musk, their favorite movies, and other artifacts of normal life. Bruce even helped her cash out a small sum to go shopping in celebration. She drained her savings, committing $300,000 in total and eating a 10 percent penalty for the early IRA withdrawal, but the website said her investment had grown to over half a million dollars. “Will we still continue to get to know each other, even if the $200K doesn’t happen?” she asked the next day.īruce and Evelyn traded together on CEG on four more occasions. At first, she recoiled-“You’re asking me to undo 40-plus years of societal financial teachings in 30 minutes,” she said-but later she worried her refusal might jeopardize the relationship. Evelyn didn’t have that kind of cash on hand, so Bruce suggested that she she tap her individual retirement account (IRA). To minimize risk and maximize profit, Bruce said, it was better to play with larger sums: at least $200,000.

I can see how this can be addicting,” she said to Bruce. Evelyn couldn’t follow what was going on, and the whole thing made her heart race, but within half an hour, she was up by 20 percent: “Dude.

He had studied “the implementation of the international market trends,” he said, to tabulate the “precise time fluctuations of the rise and fall” of the coin. Bruce instructed her to perform a sequence of trades, with precise timing, betting on either an increase or decrease in the price of bitcoin.

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