I have always been curious about how many people actually respond to scam messages, and from there how many people actually end up getting scammed into transferring money. If there is data available about scam message responses (such as the response rate, average amount of money made, etc) it would be really interesting to create a visualization to see which kinds of scam messages garner the most responses and money from people. Are there certain topics and stories (e.g. cancer/disease, fugitive seeking help) that are more appealing and persuasive to readers? The messages could be analyzed based on topic, length, formality to see if there are any trends between those variables and their effectiveness.

Another aspect of scam messages that I’ve found interesting is the way they are written. I actually find it off-putting how the emails are constructed in a way that looks like it was clumsily generated by a computer, very formal sounding, with spotty punctuation and grammar. To me, the appearance of the message is enough to tip me off that it is a scam because it looks suspiciously constructed. I wonder how much more effective scam messages would be if they were rewritten in a way that sounded more conscientious, human-written, and presentable, rather than the way they are now. Similar to the way the videos at the List exhibit showed real people reading the messages, these messages could be displayed in a proper written form and we could observe the difference it makes on readers.