Preventing Victims of Online Shopping Fraud in Thai Teenagers: A Case Study of Bangkok

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine situations and causes of victimization of online fraud in Thai teenagers in Bangkok and guidelines for preventing victims of online fraud in Thai teenagers. The research methodology was qualitative research. There were 2 groups of key informants, including group 1: 10 victims who were 18-25 years of age and had experience in regular online shopping; group 2: 18 commissioned inquiry officers selected from the Metropolitan Police Division 1-9 and 5 inquiry officers selected from the Cyber Crimes Investigation Division 1-9 which was totally 23 key informants.  In addition, police officers of both groups had experiences with online shopping fraud cases. Both groups were specialized inquiry officers. The study area was Bangkok. An in-depth interview was used as a tool for this qualitative research. The findings revealed that in the situation of the Digital 4.0 era, there were crimes committed through technology, especially crimes through the internet which was very popular. Generation Y in Thailand was a group of people of working age and students. The characteristic behavior of this age group was online shopping leading to high online shopping fraud. The causes of victimization of online shopping fraud included inexperience/carelessness and victim’s greed. The guideline for preventing victimization was to purchase goods from reliable websites or pages by considering the store’s commercial registration, goods’ prices which were not different from market prices or number of stores’ followers, etc.