http://www.spring.org.uk/2010/01/the-7-psychological-principles-of-scams-protect-yourself-by-learning-the-techniques.php
This article reveals some techniques based on psychological studies that scam artists use to swindle us out of our money. It's extremely informative and is worth reading because it helps you learn what to look for to help protect yourself and your assets better. Some of the principals include Milgram's study about compliance and Asch's study about conformity.
This is a really fun website and I liked the linking of various psych studies to particular dimensions of "the con." I haven't seen that done before online.
http://revision3.com/scamschool/matchbook
There is a link to a website appropriately called scam school where magician Brian Brushwood teachs all sorts of cool bar tricks, small-cons, and magic tricks with a "scam" motif.
The real psychology in the above trick "Psychic Matchbooks" comes from developing a short story to throw people off the track b/c if you performed the same trick without words it would be incredibly obvious. However, Principle 6 from the original blog post "Need and Greed" is in my opinion the coolest psychological principle at play in scams.
Sure you can decieve people with slight-of-hand because our eyes and memory are not perfect recording devices. But the thing about scams is you have to first hook the person into listening to your story. The best hook in the world is a claim that you can do the impossible. Because even if people should know better, (e.g. because you just told them you're a magician, or worse yet because they have no idea who you are and you just walked up to them in a bar...) they will instead make decisions based on more ingrained notions of logical truths.
So if you bet someone 5 dollars you can cut a whole in business card so big your whole body will fit through it, they'll take the bet even thought they don't know you because the idea that you could walk your body through a business card is simply more impossible than anything else they can think of. That makes it easier to take their money.
Just recently Pita Pit in Cedar Falls had been hacked into and customers' credit card information was taken. Although I was not one of those cutomers I was a banking customer that received a call informing me that I must stop at the bank because a person attempted to use my debit card fraudulently. Luckily no money was taken and all I had to do was get a new debit card, but after this incident I found this article very compelling to read. I would agree that all seven steps are cleary used to con people. The first psychological principle of a scam was distraction. Personally, I know I have fallen for distraction many times but fortunately when I have been distracted it was during unimportant times. The second principle was social compliance. This occurs a lot of the time and overall most people believe that when someone is acting professional that they are a trustworthy person which unfortunately today is not always the case. For example my bank had left a voicemail on my phone and asked me to call them back. After I told my mom about the fraud she told me to make sure to go straight to my bank and don't give any of my information over the telephone just in case it was a setup using exactly none other than social compliance. This example could also relate to deception in the fact that if the person who left me a voicemail was a con artist they would have been dishonest to me in the hopes of stealing money. Interestingly enough my debit card example also related to time pressure. Before I talked to my mom I was going to call the number back immediately because I knew my bank was closed already at this time, but if it was a scam I would've easily have fell for time pressure. All of the ways in which con artists work deal with psychology. They use their motivation and intellect to prey on people's trust. Lawfully, all seven priniciples could relate to breaking a law of some sort whether it is robbery, burglary, or assault (etc.).