Boost Of Trust

Overview

The scammer employs an "initial boost" or "false confidence" technique to increase trust with the victim. This may look like letting an Investment Scam victim withdraw a little bit of money to show that a fraudulent trading platform works, or paying an Employment Scam victim for a few tasks to show that the job is legitimate.

In the literature, Boost of Trust can be thought of as half of a larger pattern called The Convincer. The thing that convinces the victim to go along with the scam can either be a human shill, for example as we see with Peer Involvement, or it can be a mechanical "shill" such as letting them invest and win a little bit of money through a Boost of Trust.