Submitted to Fraudulent Marketing Communications and Customers' Defections -A review for discovering notional horizons

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONALRESEARCH (IJMER), ISSN : 2277 – 7881
For Vol. May-June, 2021
Fraudulent Marketing Communications and Customers’ Defections
- A review for discovering notional horizons
Madhumita Das (Research Scholar)
School of Journalism and New Media Studies
Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi
E-mail ID: anamika381das@gmail.com
&
Dr. Arup Barman (Professor)*
Deptt. Of Business Administration
Assam University, Silchar, Assam
E-mail ID: abgeet@gmail.com
Abstract
Consumers are persuaded by different types of fraudulent communication to fulfil certain marketing agenda.
Fraudulent communications having its deleterious effects and consequently and finally the customers get
defected due to it. The study aims to review the concept of fraud communication in the context of marketing
communication and the consequential impact on the phenomenon customer defections, business and marketing
risks. The objective of the study is to discover the different types of fraudulent communications through a
review and syntheses. Finally, an attempt has been made to connect the horizons of consequential customer
defections. The authors of this paper has made this review which could forward many hint for furthering
research under the theme of marketing communication. The study could contribute a discursive thinking on
marketing communication, enabling to understand various constructs of fraud communication. marketing
literacy, hinted to explore further in order to gain new insights connection of marketing and customer defection
process.
Keywords: Marketing Literacy, Fraudulent Communication, Deception, Marketing Mix, Marketing
Communication
Background
Effective communication is the backbone of sustainable marketing. Effective marketing communication is one
of the important parts of marketing strategies of every company. It uses media tools that are employed in order
to communicate with the market or consumers. If the communication failed to create any effect on consumers, it
directly affects consumer behaviour. It can repeal the consumers from making any purchase. In the 21st century,
a great number of companies use online communication to build brand image. The communication means they
present successfully to accomplish some marketing objectives, while in doing so, marketing communication
breaches the ethics of communication. Marketers have just one aim in mind – sell as much as possible to as
many as possible customers. In reaching consumers or customers, they do not mind in using unethical practices
(Das, 2016).
Unfortunately, the consumers get victimized; consequently, customer starts to show an unwillingness to believe
any communication tools such as advertisement. One observable consequence of such communication is
customer defection. For a business customer defection means loss of users or consumers or the decrease in
purchases by consumers with and consequent impact on reducing the Company's business (IPSOS, 2016). The
phenomenon of customer defection may be of two types-first is observable customer defection, the second one
is unobservable. As example, in case of a bank, say customers are closing their bank accounts and credit cards at
a lot, are an example of observable or identifiable customer defection. In some cases customers are purchasing
a considerable part from another supplier or brands leaving earlier one. Un identifiable customer defection may
be silent, be the change of brand, supplier, or in extreme cases customers stop buying that good temporarily or
permanently, finally, that portion of customer via, purchase goes to the competitors. Customer defection as fraud
marketing communication and un-ethical marketing phenomenon seems to have well connected with ethical

marketing communication. Anyone concludes, communication should be sustainable for ensuring sustainable
marketing.
A study on trends in digital marketing (Pandey et al., 2020) identified marketing communication as a leading
research topic since 2000 till date. The concept of sustainable marketing has come with an overview of customer
satisfaction. Still, somehow organizations use negative trade practices attracting more customers. In every
country there are specific acts which deal with restrictive trade practices. In India, section 36A in The
Monopolies and Restrictive Trade practices Act, 1969 restricts “unfair trade practice”. “Unfair trade practice”
means a trade practice which adopts any unfair method or unfair or deceptive practice for the purpose of
promoting the sale or use. Literature also revealed, in most jurisdictions, advertising regulations have made the
use of false or misleading advertising as illegal offence (Nuseir, 2018).
Study Context and Aim
With the advancement of technology and new media platforms such as Myspace, Facebook, YouTube, personal
blogs and websites marketers got a new market to communicate which is different from television or radio.
These sorts of communication channels have enabled marketers to launch attacks that simply aren’t possible
through mass media (e.g., television, radio). Results suggest that the effects of individual's cognitive traits
(Internet-based information search and perceived Internet usefulness) and risk aversion on perceived deception
are more relevant when consumers shop online than when they purchase from traditional stores (Riquelme et al.,
2014). It can be said that marketing communication use different approaches and strategies; interpersonal
communication, online communication, mass communication. The forms of communication content also vary
according to product or brand features. In the given ambit of critical connections between the fraudulent
marketing communications and customer defection, discovering the horizons of consequences may reveal an
interesting notion may serve background for further knowledge and research.
The main aim of this review is to introduce connection of fraudulent communication and customer defection. As
marketing communication helps in making consumers ready to buy a product or service, instead fraudulent
marketing communication use many and different manipulative tactics to persuade consumers through
marketing contents. Thus, this article aims to focus on fraudulent communication and marketing literacy of the
consumers.
Objectives of the Study- The objectives of the review are to :
(i) To discuss the trend in marketing communication strategies and the fraudulent communication that
inhabit within it.
(ii) The synthesize the evidences of fraudulent communication and their consequent impact as the
customer defection;
(iii) To discover the horizons of fraud marketing communications and customer defection for the
summarised evidence and in synthesis.
(iv) Finally to discern the preventive measures needed to critically analysis and identify a form of
fraudulent communication.
Methodology of Review and Analysis
Design- This study is based on a systematic literature review of secondary data available on selective databases.
The literature has been collected with specific keywords which fit within the objectives of the study.
Search terms- The search process of literature was conducted using two databases; JSTOR and Google Scholar.
The articles were searched using several keywords which were “deception”, “misleading claims” AND
“marketing, “direct marketing” AND “deception” OR “misleading”, “advertising” AND “deception” OR
“misleading”, “personal selling” AND “deception” OR “misleading”, “misleading claims” AND “marketing,
“marketing literacy”.
Selection criteria-The selection criteria are specified here with the themes. The articles fulfilled the following
selection criteria:
· The literature which discusses deception on claims or communication.
· The literature which discusses challenges and opportunities.
· The literature has been written in English.
Study selection-The article selection had been done in three steps. In the first step, the articles were searched
using keywords and titles and abstracts were screened for eligibility of the mentioned criteria. In the second

step, the selected articles were read and checked and some articles were excluded. In the third step, information
was extracted by the researcher for analysis, interpretation, and conclusion.
Review and Analysis
Fraud in Marketing Communication
Marketing is the subset of business practices that affect consumers directly through exchange between buyer and
seller. Consumer value, or utility, is created when the exchange satisfies the consumer’s wants and needs
(Serota. 2019). Marketing is all about product, price, place and promotion. Communication is the primer of
marketing promotion. Through marketing communication companies create value for customers and build
strong customer relationships. Interactive communication helps customers as well as marketing organisations. In
the communication process the co-formation of information provides value to customers about the product of
the organisation and provides information about customer’s choice.
Under these conditions, the necessity of marketing activities is vividly increasing. The development of media
tools has led to the emergence of marketing communication of information transmission from the organization
to the customers which approaches to communication. The elements of marketing communication are: Source
(marketers), Content (speech or media content), and Receiver (consumers). Content is an important part of
marketing communications because the content defines its essence and directly affects customer involvement
effectiveness. Effective way of creating marketing communication contents is an important management issue
for companies. Organizations or companies use different communication approaches which increasingly
inversely complement negative impact as well. These could be a noise in content creation in achieving the goal
of the marketing communications
Fraud Communication through the Promotional Mix
“The term "marketing mix" was first coined by Neil Borden, the president of the American Marketing
Association in 1953 (Todorova, 2015). Marketers use promotional strategies called marketing mix. There are
different typologies of marketing mix. According to Plessis, marketing communication mix are of five types;
they are- advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, publicity, public relations (Du Plessis et al., 2005).
The promotional mix is made up of five elements, shown below:
(i) Advertising: Advertising is a tool of marketing communication where the companies provide
information about their products. Adverting can be many types such as printed, visual or audio-visual. The
appeals of different types of advertisements are different. It varies on the basis of human senses that the sources
targeting to manipulate. Effectiveness of advertisement depends on the unique selling proposition the source
gives in the content. In fulfilling the goal, many a times the source provides unethical information in the
advertaintment content. The claims they made to promote the products fails because of unethical things such as
false claims and the exaggeration. The scholars in the domain of advertising deception have identified various
kinds of deception in advertisements. Carlson, & et al. (1993) categorized the misleading/deceptive
advertisements claims into four type Vague/Ambiguous: The claim has a broad or an unclear meaning. (2)
Omission: The claim omits information that is necessary to judge its truthfulness. (3) False/Outright Lie: The
claim is fabricated. (4) Combination of the above. It creates negative impact on consumer behaviour. Consumers
are likely to abandon the brands to which they are loyal if they discover that businesses are not truthful or are
misleading in their advertising (Nuseir, 2018).
(ii)Direct Marketing: Direct marketing is one of the most recognized forms of marketing communication,
thanks in large part to its widespread use and direct engagement of consumers (Elrod et al., 2020). Direct
marketing is significantly cheaper than mass media. Direct mail marketing, catalogue marketing, telemarketing,
face-to-face marketing and online marketing are the widespread forms of direct marketing (Kogan et al., 2020).
Marketers do not need any media tool as relies on direct communication to individual consumers, rather than
through a third party such as mass media. It engages individuals directly by sending, for example, a promotional
brochure, email message, or similar conveyance straight to the intended recipient (Elrod et al., 2020). It is called
direct marketing because it deals with the target or costumer directly. The special features of direct marketing
are its target-based approach and the results can be directly measured. So, if a company knows the target can
easily apply direct marketing.
(iii)Personal Selling: Personal selling is selling through a person who encourages customers to buy a product or
service. In a research on personal selling in health and medicine using sales agents to engage audiences it is
stated that taking advantage of the utility afforded by direct, personal interactions with audiences, personal
selling provides a helpful communications resource that better enables healthcare providers to connect
proficiently with target markets. (Elrod et al, 2020). There is a chance of mis-communication or intentionally

fraudulent communication from the source in personal selling as the persuasion works directly. It depends on the
person that how he or she is explaining the content. Personal selling uses expertise, knowledge and
communication skills of salespeople, representative or brand ambassadors to persuade buyers. People vary in
their competencies, dedication, perseverance, and commitment, among many other qualities, with these
ultimately influencing personal selling outcomes. (Elrod & et al., 2020). Research on salesperson opportunism
shows the consequences that deception can have on buyer-seller exchanges (Crosno et al., 2020).
(iv)Sales Promotion- Another marketing communication tool is sales promotion. Sales create limited
promotions in order to increase short-term sales. It can include coupons, discounts, freebies, and product
samples.
(v)Public Relation builds a relationship between companies and publics (internal and external both). The
organization creates media content to create a positive view of a brand through partnerships with media outlets
and other relevant organisations.
Fraud Communication through Customer Generated Noise
The customers have an expectation from the information provided by the organisations. Sometimes customers
are in control of marketing information contents such as advertising, a business mail or a sales person in a mall.
Marketing practice and marketing deception are part of a cultural production system that is intended to persuade
consumers to make choices in favour of one product or brand over others being considered (Serota, 2019). It can
be noted that the process of communication can be called as non-effective; first, when the source (marketers)
creates false or misleading claims, second, when the source (consumers) interprets it wrongly. Irrespective of
the efforts that are applied by organisations for their marketing communication to convey a particular message,
recipients of the communication will make their own interpretations which may or may not be those intended by
the organisation. This assumption is based on poststructuralism theory. According to poststructuralism theory,
the interpretation of marketing communication provided by the organization is subjective where one’s
interpretation of a communication is constructed in terms of how it relates to the individual’s concept of self.
Marketing is not ad hoc; it is planned and executed, as are its many forms of deception (Serota, 2019). The
contents or communicational approaches appear with acceptance for exaggeration, absence of realism,
subjectivity, persuasion through falsity, deception, claiming repetitively, untruthful image projection, false
claims and exaggeration, creating wrong impressions, celebrity effect, untruthful business (Sharma et al., 2011).
Flasity and Misleading Claim
Fraudulent communication forms are made with the aim of deceiving consumers. There are many ways to create
false impressions of goods or services in consumers’ mind. It plays a role in affecting consumer decisions;
however, this role can be “positive,” as false information tends to be more positive about the good or service
being offered for sale than the real goods and services.
Marketing tactics are always present in marketing communicational contents. The research on fraudulent
communication gives light on deception in marketing claims. It is found that the literature on deception in direct
mail and personal selling is very few. Still, scholars have identified a large number of categories in deception in
advertising claims. Prior research on deceptive advertising has focused largely on identifying the specific types
of false or misleading claims.
The term misleading claim’ is related to contents in marketing communication. The term can be defined as the
contents which contains false information or exaggeration. Sometimes it can lead to hazards in the case of brand
promotion for a long term. The scholars of marketing communication found different types of misleading claims
contextualizing advertisements. The four types of claims of marketing contents are acceptable, poor explanation,
no explanation, and meaningless (M. J. Polonsky et al., 1998). Acceptable claim is one with adequate
justification or with sufficient information explaining the meaning and reason for stating the claim. Poor
explanation in claim do not justify with enough information to make it clear or understandable. No explanation
in such claims includes important information necessary to justify its truthfulness or reasonableness.
Meaningless of claim contains a statement that is too broad to have a clear meaning.
Misleading claims are of three types Fraud, Falsity and Misleading. A research classified misleading claims
posed in advertisements. The three components of false advertising are “fraud,” “falsity,” and “misleading,”
referring to the advertiser, the message, and the effects on the consumer, respectively. (Nuseir, 2018). Falsity
refers to inconsistency in claimed facts (Spears, 2015) Misleading communication creates an impression about a
product’s features that do not exist. It also affects the brand loyalty of consumers and the buying process.
Two approaches of misleading claims on the basis of source-receiver:

Typology of misleading claims
Hastak and Mazis (2011) identified five major types of advertising claims which can be applied in the
perspective of marketing communication as a broader term.
Source: Authors compilation
Consequences of Fraudulent Communication
Marketers sometimes make claims in advertising, personal selling or in direct marketing that are literally true
but are misleading because original facts have been omitted. The marketers hide the terms and conditions
applied on the purchase of the products for correct interpretation of the claim. The claim would not mislead
consumers. Without clear and understandable information consumer may draw broad inferences from a claim

present on the content. A research evaluated the truthfulness of claims in a sample of television drug
advertisements and explored that few claims were false, but many claims were potentially misleading to
consumers. (Faerber. & Kreling, 2013). Fraud claims creates costumers’ distrust on the brand and expectancy
disconfirmation is a key factor in generating consumer distrust. Great expectations and broken promises involve
in four stages; misleading claims, product failure, expectancy disconfirmation and consumer distrust (Darke et
al., 2010). Distrust is an additional by-product of negative expectancy disconfirmation and show that such
perceptions are capable of producing even broader carryover effects. When advertisers engage in misleading or
false advertising, consumer choice is affected because consumers are unfairly convinced to believe in the
messages of the advertisers, which affect their judgment (Nuseir, 2018).
Marketer’s approach to the consumers tactically uses mass media such as television or radio, online media such
as facebook, e-mail and interpersonal communication. Deception is observed differently in different media.
Marketing deception entails a set of parameters and antecedents that makes it both akin to and distinct from the
way deception is viewed in the interpersonal communication context (Serota, 2019) too.
Real Misleading Claims
There are cases of personal selling or direct marketing fraudulent communication in the cases of financial
banking. As example, credit card sales person tries to influence customers to get a credit card. Intermittently or
regularly at and intervals, the communicator i.e CRM officials of credit card division makes false claims, false
charges to the credit card holders of bank customer. Consequently, a large chunk of customers withdrew from
the credit card membership. Many a time customers stated that “Credit is a Criminal Card”. It has many
meaning one Credit company allows customers to do the crime by the false promises through communication.
As customers floats by the communications they trap the customer to pay more, getting victim more for a small
amount of comfort entertained. Once customer, realised the how credit card is the gateway to become victim of
banking communication torture, then customer make hurry to get surrender. We mate more than 100 such
surrendered customers occasionally to know the phenomenon of final salute to credit card facilities. A study
attempts to extract themes by highlighting the major areas of the bank fraud literature within a specific time
frame of 2000–2019 (Sood et al., 2020) does not include communication frauds or misleading communication as
one of the types.
In the study of Hastak and Mazis (2011), they have quoted the classifications of misleading advertisements.
developed by past scholars. Gardner (1975) identified unconscionable lie, claim-fact discrepancy, and claim-
belief interaction as three types. Russo, Metcalf, and Stephens (1981) identified three types of advertisement
deception: fraud, falsity, and misleading-ness.
There are others research following the same trend to explore the false or misleading claims in advertising in
which scholars found more categories of those. A study on misleading advertisement classified misleading
advertisement into some categories naming acceptance for exaggeration, absence of realism, subjectivity,
persuasion through falsity, deception in claims, claiming repetitively, truthful image projection, false claims and
exaggeration, creating wrong impressions, celebrity effect, untruthful business (Sharma et al., 2011).
Customers Defections- Consequent of FC
As we mentioned, earlier customer defections as the consequent of false fraud communications, hence, it would
be rational to put a light it. Spacey, J (2016-2017) in his/her blog stated customer defection as the phenomenon
of losing customer to competitor. In the service sector customer defection is a difficult phenomenon to detect.
There are ample evidences of customer defection in personal retail banking as well as credit card customer
segment (Garland. 2002). Perceived or experienced fraud and misleading communication impact defecting the
customer, through the word of mouth (WOM) of the defective customer create many defective customers.
Negative WOM is a serious threat to marketing of any product(s) or services (Reichheld and Schefter, 2000). No
doubt, fraud communication and service failure are connected phenomenon (Boroumand.2006). Marketing
fraud is serious problem than “marketers realize, and it impacts companies of all sizes and maturities to the tune
of millions of dollars a year for many organizations” (Renegade & White Ops, 2021). As the mass marketing
draws large numbers of customers for media marketing, there is more change of communication fraud and the
customer may get sink in as the victim because of risk (Rice. J, 2017).
Deterring Fraudulent Communication - Consumer Based Approach
The persuasion knowledge model has been applied in the researches of advertising and marketing from the
perspective of consumers and navigating the persuasive marketing. Human senses have been encircled with

marketing messages from day to night. The mobile gives more than a dozen of persuasive messages every day.
From watching television to stepping out to the market, customers always fight with marketing claims. The
findings of Hoofnagle suggested that the appearance of a lab coat or stethoscope has signalled a medical expert
endorsement (Hoofnagle et al., 2015). Consumer’s skeptical mind can process verification to a marketing
content. to A study by Chen and Cheng (2019) the persuasion knowledge model emphasised on self-efficacy of
consumers to verify consumers process and respond to fake news about a brand. Consumers are likely to
abandon the brands to which they are loyal if they discover that businesses are not truthful or are misleading in
their advertising (Nuseir, 2018).
A few researches explored whether customers can recognize false claims in marketing communication. The
operations research, management, and marketing literature mainly concerned with developing models and
methods for optimally selecting customer clusters based on customer characteristics and evolving buying
behaviour (Kogan, 2020). It is found that customers’ verification to the advertisement claims are mostly focused
by the scholars. Customers are called to be aware of misleading advertisements. Research by Sharma et al.
investigated false claims. In their study, the respondents were also aware of the fact that the advertisements were
making false claims, creating wrong impressions and were taking the viewers in the false world of illusion
(Sharma et al., 2011).
In the information age the user carries a significant part of the responsibility to select and downstream-filter
trustworthy information. Results from a study revealed the connection between self-efficacy, media trust and
persuasion knowledge, thereby casting a light on the importance of media literacy education (Chen and Cheng,
2019). Media literacy enables a person to explore the false and misleading messages presented by any kind of
media. The ability to identify the noise within the content is called marketing media literacy. Financial
resources, market access, and marketplace literacy are all required for people in subsistence populations to
engage successfully in marketplace exchanges (Viswanathan et al., 2009).
The audience effect model of media and information literacy has focused on how the skills of audience can
combat adverse effect of media and communication. Marketing media literacy refers to critical skills of
consumers. The sceptical point of view towards marketing contents, its persuasive intent, and the
communication techniques that are used to target consumers and the skills they have to critically defend
persuasive marketing communication are elements of marketing media literacy.

A study on advertising literacy had classified the literacy into three stages; they are -conceptual literacy, literacy
performance, attitudinal literacy (Rozendaal et al., 2011). The customers to become risk free from the
deleterious impact of marketing communication, the following (in Table literatures can be inputs for customer’s
knowledge.
A research on development and operation of educational interventions designed to enhance the marketplace
literacy of consumer differentiated literacy levels. Marketplace literacy exists at three levels of abstraction: (1)
vocational/occupational and everyday experiential, (2) procedural, and (3) conceptual (Viswanathan et al.,
2009). Here, the first level deals with consumer’s literacy as the lowest level is vocational or occupational very
basic training.
Marketing literacy is very crucial for every consumer or customer. The elaboration likelihood model (ELM)
stated consumers become more susceptible to persuasion practices when they lack either the motivation to
engage in effortful thinking or the capacity/ability for processing the message's core arguments (Petty and
Cacioppo, 1986).
Summary of Analysis and Future Research implication
We framed our objectives to discuss the trend in marketing communication and strategies and the fraudulent
communication that inhabit within it. Through the headlines within parentheses 4 of which 4.1 to 4.4 discussed
thoroughly and examined on fraudulent communication inhibit in the marketing communication and strategies.
The objective to discovers the horizons of fraud marketing and connecting customer defections was
accomplished summarily the parenthesis-6, may be a diminutive but very indicative for developing research
themes in future. The objectives for discerning and designing the preventive measures needed to critically
analysis and identify a form of fraudulent communication were also done in brief may serve as the foundation
for re-examining the context of examining the context of communication fraud in near future. The objectives of
fraudulent communication and their consequent impact as the customer defection need to be conducted
empirically and through directed phenomenological analysis, or through the evidence based research. The
present study could not accomplish it to the scopes and limitations. This issue need to address in real life setting
of customer defection due to the defective and fraud marketing communication in digital market
communication, for different service and product based organisation. In the work of Zohra.F & Barman,
A.(2019), the digital marketing has made customer more vulnerable for its inhabitation of fraud communication
characteristics due to ever increasing applications generated by fraud-stars of the world.
Conclusion
We made this review based research with focus on fraudulent communication in the context of mass
communication and interpersonal communication. The prior research on marketing literacy covers the media
literacy for consumer behaviour, marketplace literacy. But, we found a rare, studies connecting fraud and
fraudulent marketing connecting to customer defection and approaches for avoiding the frauds communication
by customers. We have not found much on recent development on the theoretical study on the fraud or deceptive
claims. Realising the need for an empirical exploration, we conducted a prior an extensive theoretical review.
We could do a review based inference that research on fraud strategies in marketing communication used in the
marketing researches relatively rare. Very few studies included the personal selling perspective on frauds.
Inattention of researches on marketing literacy being highlighted, the researchers did not focus much on the
challenges or difficulties faced by the consumers in preventing and detecting frauds. The research areas could
not identify much on the financial frauds through the lens of communication but successfully hinted to discover
the critical gamut of the problem. The future researches can explore these areas further, and considering the
huge uprising of online media over the last decade, research can focus separately on this aspect. The study has
contributed to the discourse of marketing communication to understand the various constructs of fraud

communication as well as marketing literacy and to explore the research area further in order to gain new
insights based on the research gaps found.
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