SCAMS ARE NO LONGER A NICHE SITTING OUTSIDE LEGITIMATE COMMERCE, THEY’RE THE EXTREME END OF A WIDER ECONOMY BUILT ON DARK PATTERNS AND OVER-PROMISING. WHEN EVERYTHING LOOKS LIKE A SCAM, GOOD STRATEGY ISN’T ABOUT SOUNDING CREDIBLE. IT’S ABOUT GIVING PEOPLE ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO BELIEVE YOU.
When we look at how people buy right now, suspicion is telling a story. Not just about obvious scams, but about everything around them: the warm CTA, the countdown timer, the AI-assisted sentence that reads a little too smoothly. The line between marketing and manipulation is getting harder for people to see.
People now approach brand communication the way they approach a dodgy email: sceptical first, trusting later, if at all. They aren’t just asking “is this any good?” They’re asking “is this real?” and “what is this trying to do to me?”
It raises questions that are getting harder to ignore. Are people overreacting, or responding to a real shift in how brands behave? And when suspicion becomes the default, how does a brand earn enough belief to get bought?
These questions sit at the heart of our latest Fellow Futures report: The Anatomy of a Scam.
Looking at trust differently
Rather than treating “authenticity” as a buzzword, we traced how economic systems, culture and individual psychology combine to make people read legitimate brands through the same lens as scams. The problem isn’t just bad actors. It’s systems that reward speed, scale and extraction, normalise manipulative signals, and leave too little room for scrutiny.
Three layers that explain it
Systemic coercion: market conditions reward extraction and optimisation, pushing brands toward scam-adjacent behaviour even when it’s legal.
Symbolic commodification: meanings like care, community and authenticity get circulated so hard they stop carrying weight.
Liminal coercion: work that feels warm and polished on the surface, but slightly uncanny or evasive in practice.
The report breaks down the style codes that trip the suspicion wire, and shows how some brands now use them deliberately to signal they’re clued in rather than caught out.
Why this matters now
Trust shapes consideration, conversion, retention and pricing power, and it’s harder won than ever. When audiences feel manipulated, the cost shows up in weaker conversion, lower willingness to pay and brittle loyalty.
The Anatomy of a Scam isn’t about performing authenticity harder. It’s about making your brand easier to verify, easier to understand and easier to believe.
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