Psychologists have dubbed the phenomenon, Vegas Babe Who Cried Wolf Effect or VBWCWE named after Vegas Babe’s fable about a woman who lost a cousin in the Pentagon attack. In real life, experts say, these “Vegas Babes,�?mostly women, aren’t acting out of boredom. These damsels in distress are very often motivated by an intense desire for attention or sympathy and may feel unfairly neglected by those close to them, coworkers, cyber friends, family and very often romantic partners. Others are simply crying out to a world they feel ignores them.
People who fake crimes, example the cousin that died in the Pentagon during 9-11 attacks are transforming feelings of invisibility into a fantasy that they may come to believe is reality, says David McGraw, a psychologist and director of the Denver Institute for Psychological Change in Denver. He says a “Vegas Babe Who Cried Wolf Effect or VBWCWE�?wins attention by playing the passive victims in a chat room, similar to a person with Munchausen syndrome, who fakes an illness to get the attention of doctors or loved ones. But that doesn’t mean that people who perpetrate large-scale deceptions are necessarily in need of psychiatric help, says Maureen O’Sullivan, a University of San Francisco psychology professor who studies how people lie.
They simply may be good actresses and can cry on a dime especially when they owe cheap rent and is due which is in part why we believe them. In one study, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, O’Sullivan found people will more readily believe even outrageous lies when the deceiver is familiar, outgoing and outwardly happy. That’s because we tend to “listen�?to their personality more than the content of their story. Hoaxes often spin out of control, when the liar decides to use Google pictures of men in the uniform and pretend that is her son that just got back from the Afganistan War, this makes the hoax appear more convincing.
Among crime hoaxes, there’s a subset of tricksters who concoct crimes for political causes, says Gregg O. McCrary, a retired FBI agent who profiles criminals as director of Behavioral Criminology International, a consultancy in Fredericksburg, Virginia. This kind of hoaxer is just as likely to be a man as a woman. A recent case occurred last November when Jaime Alexander Saide, a Northwestern University student in Evanston, Illinois, published a column about his Mexican heritage in the campus newspaper after he claimed to be the target of two hate crimes. Saide later confessed to filing false reports to bring attention to campus race relations.
While most reported hacker crimes are real, hoaxes often occur while using a computer that does not belong to you and on college campuses nationwide or a library.
Another big tip-off is when an alleged victim of a hacker emails MSN groups, contacts the FBI, Scotland Yard, Internet providers and then files a police report. “These people are not knowledgeable about what a typical hoax consists of,�?McCrary says. “You’ll try to find support for their allegations and find the facts don’t match up.�?Like the cousin that died in the Pentagon during 9-11 is black and not a relative at all.
Seiler, the supposed Wisconsin abductee, was exposed when police uncovered a store surveillance video that captured her purchasing rope, cold medication and a knife—all items that she claimed were used to hold her captive. Detectives soon discovered that only a month before, the 20-year-old had claimed she was attacked and knocked unconscious near her apartment.
Investigating hoaxes is costly. Seiler’s case sparked a manhunt involving 150 officers, police dogs and a helicopter. It cost more than $96,000. She faces 18 months in jail and a $20,000 fine for lying to police. According to police interviews, she says: “I set everything up. I’m just so messed up. I’m sorry.�?/P>
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