Coping with Consumer Fraud: The Need for a Paradigm Shift

A review of recent informational initiatives to help consumers avoid being defrauded revealed that advice offered draws heavily on past fraud cases in which swindlers were successful in victimizing consumers. This article draws upon behavioral theory to argue that such case studies are limited in usefulness. It is further argued that a paradigm shift is needed to focus on unsuccessful efforts by swindlers to defraud consumers. An investigation that surveyed such case studies is summarized with illustrations presented of how its findings could be used to help consumers cope more effectively with threats posed by swindlers.     

The Abuse of the “Confident Consumer” as a Justification for EC Consumer Law

A reference to the need to create confident cross-border consumers who can contribute to the strengthening of the internal market has often been used as one of the main arguments for EC consumer policy and legislation. The argument has been presented in order to justify both the creation of a minimum safety net for consumers (the minimum confidence argument) and the current turn towards more total harmonisation of consumer protection (the harmonised confidence argument). In the paper these lines of argument are critically evaluated with reference to common sense knowledge about the behaviour of consumers as well as on the basis of Eurobarometer data concerning consumer confidence. In this light the substantive minimum harmonisation measures which have been justified with reference to the need for promoting consumer confidence seem only to a limited extent relevant with respect to the creation of such confidence. The current turn towards total harmonisation most certainly cannot be justified in this way. Other substantive measures, facilitating the access to a counterparty, would be more important in order to create consumer confidence in cross-border shopping, but the Community has almost systematically avoided adopting such measures.     

Consumer Choice: A Study of Insurance Buying Intention,Attitudes and Beliefs

This article continues the theme, introduced in a previous article, of testing the validity and relevance of Fishbein's Theory of Reasoned Action to the purchase of life assurance. In this, the second stage, empirical analysis of the data is conducted and its meaning and relevance considered. Conclusions are then drawn as to the dimensions which seem to be important to the purchasing of life assurance.     

When Lying Does Not Pay: How Experts Detect Insurance Fraud

A growing literature has focused on understanding how to detect and deter unethical consumer behavior. In this work, we focus on a particularly important type of unethical consumer behavior, consumer insurance fraud, and we analyze a unique dataset to understand how experts investigate suspicious claims. Two separate but related literatures inform the process of investigating suspicious insurance claims. The first literature is grounded in field research and emphasizes the importance of secondary sources. The second literature is grounded in laboratory studies that emphasize the importance of interpersonal interactions. Here we draw upon both literatures to consider the importance of claimant interviews within the context of many investigative actions and the potential for claimants to avoid interviews. In an empirical study using qualitative and quantitative data from auto insurance claim investigations, we analyze investigative chronologies conducted by skilled experts. In doing so, we find that even when investigators can access information from a variety of sources such as witnesses, databases, and physical evidence, claimant interviews are the most important step in determining whether or not claims are denied or paid. Furthermore, we identify interpersonal avoidance as an important signal of unethical claimant behavior. Our findings inform deception detection theory and practice. We identify implications for deception detection in business, particularly for consumer unethical behavior and insurance fraud investigations.     

Consumer Bankruptcy in the United States: A Study of Alleged Abuse and of Local Legal Culture

This paper describes certain central aspects of the operation of the consumer bankruptcy system in the United States. It combines government data with the investigators' empirical data from two large studies done over a decade to explore two types of questions. The first area of investigation relates specifically to bankruptcy policy. The object is to identify the categories of persons principally served by the consumer bankruptcy system and to determine if suggestions of widespread abuse of that system by debtors are well-founded. The paper reports that the system is used primarily by the middle-class. It also reports that there is no evidence of widespread abuse. The second area of investigation is explanation of differences in the operation of the system in different regions of the country, differences that have persisted over twenty years despite major changes in legal rules and economic conditions. The paper argues that these differences are not explicable in terms of formal legal rules or a simple economic model and that a better explanation of the data is that the differences are the product of a "local legal culture" in each region.     

论消费者权益保护的范式转换

消费者权益保护存在抽象交易范式、具体交易范式、消费行为范式、服务合同范式等。抽象交易范式中,消费者属基于配平交易关系需要顾及到的主体之一,其保护不具独立意义,客观上得到制度性关照在于保护获得平等的交易机会。具体交易范式以德国立法例为代表,其通过与经营者营业或职业行为对照,确立消费者全方位弱的弱者地位,权益保护的目的旨在实现具体交易公平。消费行为范式以生活消费界定消费者概念,消费行为属自然人民事主体资格的组成部分,具有超越于商事行为的法律价值,为消费者权益保护提供私法层面的解释。服务合同范式立足于生活消费在服务业主导产业结构下的时代特征,实现消费者概念向民法典民事主体制度的回归,并促进经营者商行为伦理性的现代重塑。     

Impacts of Insurance on the Demand and Utilization of Drug Abuse Treatment: Implications for Insurance Mandates

This article addresses costs and utilization for mental health/substance abuse treatment, with particular emphasis on the emerging importance of self-insured coverage in the 1990s. We estimate drug abuse treatment demand and utilization with an insurance claims database from self-insured employers. The study population was selected from a large database consisting of health insurance claims for all treatment events starting 1 January 1989 and ending 31 December 1991. Approximately three-quarters of the increase in in-patient usage attributable to fractional co-insurance is due to increased usage per person (the other one-quarter refers to increased numbers of users). About half of the increase in outpatient usage is due to increased usage per person. In summary, our estimates provide useful measurements of the potential impacts of improved drug abuse treatment coverage. Although the potential induced in-patient expenditures and dead-weight losses are substantial compared to co-insurance rates of 0.5, losses can be trimmed by adjusting co-insurance, even at rates of approximately 0.1.     

Marketing as Value Co-creation Through Network Interaction and Resource Integration

This is a theoretical discourse on contributions to the marketing discipline primarily from service-dominant (S-D) logic, relationship marketing, and the many-to-many network approach. The study combines a literature review with theoretical insights. Framed within a relational context it specifically addresses interaction and its role in the co-creation of value through resource integration. As a consequence, the article also deals with elevating midrange theory in the direction of more abstract and general theory, grand theory.     

Corporate Fault and Consumer Protection: A New Approach for the UK

Many of the prosecutions for consumer protection offences which take place in the UK are against corporations, in particular, limited companies. As the criminal law had originally developed with human defendants in mind, many of its concepts were inappropriate where the defendant was a corporation. Corporations have, it is sometimes said, "no soul to be damned and no body to be kicked." As a result of industrialisation and the rise of the corporation in everyday life, legal principles had to be developed to deal with this new form of legal person. It began to be recognised that as well as having the ability to own property, enter contracts and the like, corporations were also capable of committing criminal offences.The purpose of this article is to examine the ways in which a corporation can be convicted of committing consumer protection offences under UK law. This is a topic which has received considerable attention in recent years, and is one which continues to undergo change. In particular, the article will consider the implications of a number of important recent decisions on corporate liability, and will consider their implications for those concerned with the enforcement of consumer law. It will be argued that the recent case law suggests that a new approach has emerged, but that the extent and implications of this approach, although potentially highly significant, are still not entirely clear.     

信用证诈骗与防范

信用证诈骗对我国经济造成了严重的损失,为此,有必要了解这种诈骗行为的犯罪手段并严加防范。根据近年来所发生的信用证诈骗案例,分析其犯罪手法可能带来的恶果,就能够提出防范这一犯罪活动的相关对策。     

A Scale for Measuring Consumer Perceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility Following the Sustainable Development Paradigm

The aim of this research is to develop and validate a measurement scale for consumer’s perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSRConsPerScale) using the three-dimensional social, environmental and economic conceptual approach as a theoretical basis. Based on the stages of measurement scale creation and validation suggested by DeVellis (Scale development: theory and applications, 1991) and supported by Churchill Jr.’s (J Mark Res 16(1):64–73, 1979) suggestions, five different empirical studies are developed expressly and applied to consumers of tourist services. This research involves 1147 real tourists from 24 countries in two different cultural and geographical contexts. A three-dimensional 18-item scale is proposed for measuring consumer perceptions of corporate social, environmental and economic responsibilities. This paper presents the complete development of the scale, as well as the implications and limitations of the main findings and the managerial implications.     

以新制度经济学范式理解消费结构演变的力作

田学斌博士的专著《家庭消费结构演变的制度分析》日前已由中国社会科学出版社出版。该书是以新制度经济学范式理解消费结构演变的颇具创新性的一部力作,是制度经济学和消费经济学学科交叉研究的一项有价值的成果。诚如何炼成教授所言,作者的工作“填补了一个空白”。通观全书,     

Solicitation and the Legal Profession: A New Issue for Consumer Affairs Professionals

While issues relating to the advertising of legal services have received much attention in the scholarly literature, this has not been the case for solicitation by lawyers, even though it appears that lawyers are more interested in being able to solicit than to advertise. In this article the legal issues surrounding solicitation are identified and tied to a basic communications model; then research propositions are presented along with the results of a survey of attitudes held toward solicitation by 125 lawyers practicing in two Rocky Mountain states. The survey results suggest that solicitation is not going to be easily accepted and that many lawyers may have trouble evaluating differences among solicitation, direct mail and advertising. The survey results also suggest that attitudes toward solicitation may be changing in that younger, less experienced respondents expressed more liberal attitudes toward solicitation than their older and more experienced colleagues. Taken together the findings of this article strongly suggest that solicitation is likely to offer a complex and challenging development for consumer affairs professionals in the years ahead.     

Internationalization of SMEs: Toward a New Paradigm

Small Business Economics -     

新消费者的消费行为研究与营销策略

把握和分析消费者的心理与行为是吸引消费者的制胜法宝。随着新经济时代的到来和消费者群体经济重要性的发展,我国消费者在心理与行为上发生了根本性的变化,呈现出一批新的消费者群体(简称"新消费者")。商家对新消费者资源的争夺使激烈的市场竞争日趋白热化。要想在竞争中立于不败之地,商家必须对他们加以重视,分析和研究他们的心理与行为,并据此采取有针对性的营销策略。     

A New Regulatory Paradigm for the Digital Sector in Europe

The new regulatory framework in the digital sector in Europe is likely to fall short of expectations. A fragmented digital market with insuffi cient incentives for investment is the probable outcome. European regulators should abandon their approach in favour of a new and more flexible set of ideas discussed in this paper.     

Psychological Pathways to Fraud: Understanding and Preventing Fraud in Organizations

In response to calls for more research on how to prevent or detect fraud (ACAP, Final Report of the Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession, United States Department of the Treasury, Washington, DC, 2008; AICPA, SAS No. 99: Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit, New York, NY, 2002; Carcello et al., Working Paper, University of Tennessee, Bentley University and Kennesaw State University, 2008; Wells, Journal of Accountancy, 2004), we develop a framework that identifies three psychological pathways to fraud, supported by multiple theories relating to moral intuition and disengagement, rationalization, and the role played by negative affect. The purpose of developing the framework is twofold: (1) to draw attention to important yet under-researched aspects of ethical decision-making, and (2) to increase our understanding of the psychology of committing fraud. Our framework builds on the existing fraud triangle (PCAOB, Consideration of fraud in a financial statement audit. AU Section 316, , 2005) which is used by auditors to assess fraud risk. The fraud triangle is composed of three factors that, together, predict the likelihood of fraud within an organization: opportunity, incentive/pressure, and attitude/rationalization. We find that, when faced with the opportunity and incentive/pressure, there are three psychological pathways to fraud nestled within attitude/rationalization: (1) lack of awareness, (2) intuition coupled with rationalization, and (3) reasoning. These distinctions are important for fraud prevention because each of these paths is driven by a different psychological mechanism. This framework is useful in a number of ways. First, it identifies certain insidious situational factors in which individuals commit fraud without recognizing it. Second, it extends our knowledge of rationalization by theorizing that individuals use rationalization to avoid or reduce the negative affect that accompanies performing an unethical behavior. Negative affect is important because individuals wish to avoid it. Third, it identifies several other methods fraudsters use to reduce negative affect, each of which could serve as potential “psychological red flags” and helps predict future fraudulent behavior. Finally, our framework can be used as a theoretical foundation to explore several interventions designed to prevent fraud.