Deceptive Communication

I have personally been a victim of deceptive communication in an online environment.  Against my better judgment I once sent money to a person selling a car part on an online discussion board and never received the item.  The seller of this item assured me that he had sent the item up until about 30 days after my payment had been sent.  At this time he stop responding to communications and disappeared completely.  I later found out that the service I used to send money only offered protection during the first 30 days after a payment had been sent.  I believe it is likely that this “seller” was aware of this rule and deceptively continued to assure me that everything was okay up until he could safely cut and run.

I believe that people often provide false information about their background, professions, appearances, and gender in both online and real life environments.  It’s likely that some people justify their deceptions by deeming them as harmless.  Of course there are also bad apples who regularly deceive and trick others for their own personal gain, but I don’t believe most people do.

Another experience I have had with a person using language deceptively was again when buying automotive parts.  I believe the seller was misleading in his description of item’s condition.  The consequence of this deceptive communication was my purchase of an item I would have otherwise not been interested in.  The seller used superordinate and basic terms during the sale instead of subordinate terms which would have better and more accurately described the condition of the item.