FOMO Is Manufactured — Bick’s Book Shows You How

Fear of missing out is one of the most reliable psychological levers used in investment fraud, and Felix Bick devotes a full chapter of How Not to Get Scammed by AI Trading Apps to unpacking exactly how it’s manufactured and deployed.

Bick’s core observation: where greed pulls a person toward a scheme, FOMO pushes them away from caution. Scammers manufacture urgency constantly — limited-time bonuses, closing enrollment windows, countdown timers, messages implying that “spots” in a fund are running out. As Bick points out, none of this urgency is typically real, since digital products have no meaningful scarcity, but the psychological effect lands the same regardless.

The book explains how FOMO is amplified by social proof: seeing other people, often fake accounts or paid actors, claim they’re already profiting creates pressure to act quickly rather than be left behind. This is precisely why crypto presales and pump schemes so often coordinate visible, public success claims timed just before they need new capital to sustain the illusion.

What sets Bick’s treatment apart is the practical antidote he offers, which is procedural rather than relying on willpower alone: adopt a personal rule that no investment decision is made on the same day it’s presented, regardless of any deadline claimed by the seller. Legitimate opportunities can withstand a 48-hour cooling-off period; manufactured urgency cannot.

That single, simple rule — a mandatory waiting period — is one of the most actionable pieces of advice in the entire book, precisely because it doesn’t require perfect judgment or willpower under pressure. It’s a structural defense that works regardless of how sophisticated the manufactured urgency becomes.

For readers who’ve ever felt that gut-level pull to act quickly on an investment opportunity, this chapter of How Not to Get Scammed by AI Trading Apps offers both an explanation and a genuinely practical fix.