Abstract

This exploratory research attempts to fill the literature gap by investigating ordinary user’s response to Internet transaction fraud and examining the types of online social support. We adapt the stress process model from the psychology literature and apply it to the context of Internet fraud. Moreover, we propose a conceptual online social support model for Internet fraud. We argue that there are two types of support mechanisms – factual information exchange and emotional support. In addition to proposing the above two conceptual models, we conduct two preliminary qualitative case studies. First, we report a case of eBay fraud and perform in-depth analysis of the victims’ belief, emotion and behavior response to a fraud in light of the stress process model. Second, we present a threaded discussion on eBay Community Answer Center, which is about money wire transfer fraud. We show that the reply sentences convey either information exchange or emotional support.

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