Young people are far more vulnerable to being scammed than their grandparents, despite the archetypal image of a scam victim is someone who is elderly and isolated, according to new research.

The shock revelation that 18 to 24-year-olds are actually six times more vulnerable to being scammed than the 65+ age group comes from a survey conducted for prize sourcing and management agency Prizeology.

Publication of the research on young people and prize draw scams has been timed to coincide with Scams Awareness Month, a national Trading Standards campaign which runs throughout June.

Sarah Burns, Managing Director of Prizeology and a SCAMbassador for the National Trading Standards Scams Team, says “As we know, prize draw scams are very prevalent, particularly online, and because young people are expert at using social media we assume they’re expert at identifying prize draw scams on social media, but they’re not, and that’s concerning – for them and for the promotional marketing industry. Once they’ve been scammed, young people are going to be far less likely to engage with genuine prize promotions, so it’s in the industry’s interests to do all it can do raise awareness of prize draw scams.”

Young people appear to be supremely confident online, but that confidence seems to significantly increase their susceptibility to prize draw scams. The research found that over four-fifths of 18 to 24-year olds with experience of scams had given away, or knew someone who had given away, personal information which was then used to scam them. Just under a third had revealed, or knew someone who had revealed, their bank account details to scammers.

The research also identified that young people are not sufficiently discriminating about the provenance of the content they interact with online. Around one in six 18 to 24-year-olds were likely to enter a prize draw if it was shared by ‘anyone on social media’. They didn’t tend to read terms and conditions thoroughly, check promoters’ details or confirm that the creator of the content was verified. In fact, almost one in ten young people admitted they take no action to confirm whether a prize draw is genuine or not.

Prizeology has produced a short guide called ‘Scam Savvy: How Not To Fall For A Prize Draw Scam’. This is primarily aimed at young people and those who work with them, but is relevant to any age group. The guide and ‘Not So Savvy: Young People At Risk From Prize Draw Scams’, a detailed report on the research, can both be downloaded from the Prizeology website.

The Prizeology research was based on 2015 interviews conducted between 30 January and 2 February 2018 with a nationally representative UK audience using an online methodology. Respondents were a minimum of 18 years old and quotas were placed on age, gender and region to ensure an accurate representation of the UK public demographic. The research was carried out by Vitreous World.

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Regulations governing how social media influencers advertise products online are confusing and unclear, with the UK public overwhelmingly believing the system should be more transparent, new research reveals.

The comprehensive survey into influencer marketing was carried out on behalf of Prizeology, a prize promotions agency specialising in promotional regulation and compliance. The survey looked at how the public perceive rules and regulations around influencer marketing.

The research, carried out on 2,015 members of the general public, looked at influencer marketing on social media platforms covering Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest. It overwhelmingly revealed a worrying lack of knowledge around the rules governing advertising by influencers.

A huge majority – 71% of people – wrongly believe that there are no regulations surrounding influencer marketing. Nearly two-thirds (61%) believe that influencers do not have to state that they have been paid to talk about a product – which is incorrect, because under consumer protection legislation, influencers must state if they are being paid to promote a brand’s products. The CAP Code, the code of conduct which is part of the UK’s self-regulatory system covering advertising and marketing in the UK, reflects and reinforces the legal position, and a number of complaints against brands have been upheld by industry regulator the Advertising Standards Authority for insufficient clarity in publicising commercial relationships with bloggers, vloggers and other social media influencers.

Half (49%) of the UK public were unaware of the relevant language or tags like #ad which are supposed to appear on paid-for posts to show that paid-for product promotion is involved; 33% of these were young people aged between 18-24, which suggests consumer confusion is not restricted to the older age brackets.

The research also clearly showed that the general public believes that they should be informed if people are being paid to promote products: 88% of the survey sample agreed with this statement, with 60% agreeing that their perception of a brand is improved when they are transparent about product promotion.

Sarah Burns, Managing Director of Prizeology and an expert on compliance and regulation in the promotional marketing sector, says: “The results are extremely interesting and overwhelmingly show a shocking lack of knowledge and confusion amongst all age groups – including teenagers – about the way that brands use social media influencers to advertise their products.”

Well over two-thirds (71%) of those questioned felt that more should be done to force disclosure.

Brands are also in danger of having their reputations damaged by lack of transparency, with 44% of those surveyed saying they felt that influencer marketing is damaging and 66% of people agreeing that their perception of a brand improved when they were transparent about product placement. Burns comments: “This should be a wake-up call to brands to make sure that they are acting within the rules when working with influencers. The public do not want to be duped and brands could suffer as a result.”

She concludes: “It is clear that this is an area of promotion that is growing rapidly, and the regulations need to be enforced more rigorously to keep pace with its growth. Now is the time to take action. I know the Advertising Standards Authority has committed to comprehensive education and enforcement this year, and our research shows that this would be welcomed by consumers.”

The survey of 2,015 people, representative of the UK by age, gender and region, was conducted by Vitreous World Ltd for Prizeology between January 30th and February 2^nd 2018. A white paper and full breakdown of the survey and results can be downloaded from the Prizeology website.

Prizeology is a prize promotions agency working with brands to engage customers. It specialises in compliance and best practice and helps brands and businesses run prize promotions which stick to the rules and regulations.

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Prize sourcing and management company Prizeology has joined the National Trading Standards’ Friends Against Scams campaign, an initiative that aims to protect vulnerable people from falling victim to scams, including misleading and fake promotions, and Sarah Burns, Prizeology founder and Managing Director and a Board Director of UK marketing industry trade body, is spearheading a campaign to get promoters and agencies to help stamp out scams.

NTS aims to empower communities to ‘Take a Stand Against Scams’ and is recruiting ‘Scambassadors’ to spread the message.

The NTS points out that, each year, scams cause between £5bn and £10bn worth of detriment to UK consumers. Scams are a pervasive, criminal threat, which in addition to the financial damage can also cause serious long-term psychological effects and potentially destroy lives.

Sarah Burns, Prizeology founder and Managing Director and a Board Director of UK marketing industry trade body, the Institute of Promotional Marketing, has recently signed up as a Scambassador and wants to highlight the issue of scams to the promotions industry.

Sarah Burns says: “Scams damage lives and can affect people financially and emotionally so it is with great pride that I have joined the work of the Friend Against Scams Team and others who are working together to prevent people from being victims of scams. Scams often target the most vulnerable people in society, but the reality is that anyone can become a victim of a scam, which is why for 2018 I’m putting together a nationwide campaign that targets both consumers and promoters. We need to increase awareness of prize scams among consumers, but we also need to make promoters aware of the scale of the problem. Scams are a major issue for the promotions industry, and we need to encourage promoters to ensure consumers can tell the difference between a scam and a genuine promotion really clearly. I’d like to invite promoters who want to be involved in the 2018 campaign to get in touch with me at hello@prizeology.com. Working together, I believe we can really make a difference.”

Louise Baxter, Team Manager, National Trading Standards Scams Team, observes: “The tactics used by scammers leave victims socially isolated and ashamed of telling their friends and families what’s really going on behind closed doors.”

More information about the NTSI campaign against scams, including the full campaign pack, is available at www.friendsagainstscams.org.uk.

National Trading Standards provides leadership influence, support and resources to help combat consumer and business detriment locally, regionally and nationally. The National Trading Standards Scams Team works in partnership with other agencies across the country to identify and support victims of mass marketing fraud.

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