Why "My Cousin Used Him" Is Not Due Diligence.
A recommendation from someone you trust feels like proof. Behavioural psychology explains why it feels that way, and fraud research explains why that feeling is so easy to exploit. Here is how to use a recommendation without being led by it.
Moma Marick
10/8/20264 min read
Almost every property project begins the same way.
Someone needs a contractor, an agent, or a surveyor. They ask around. A cousin says he used a man in Bafoussam and it went well. A colleague knows someone in Douala. A friend from church vouches for an agent. The name arrives wrapped in warmth, and the decision begins to feel made before any checking has started.
This is not foolish. It is one of the most natural human behaviours there is, and it has a name.
In 1984 the psychologist Robert Cialdini published Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, which identified social proof as one of six key principles of persuasion. The idea is simple. When we are uncertain about what to do, we look at what other people do and treat their behaviour as information. Cialdini's later work found the effect is strongest when the others are many, and when they are similar to us. A recommendation from a cousin, a colleague, or someone from the same town or church combines both. It is the strongest form of social proof there is.
There is also an honest point to make in its favour. Researchers who study herd behaviour in financial markets have noted that imitation can be a sensible strategy when real uncertainty exists, because the choices of others carry some information. Asking around is not a mistake. A recommendation is useful evidence that one particular project, somewhere, went well.
The problem is how much weight we place on that evidence, and who else knows we are inclined to place it.
Start with what a recommendation actually tells you. It tells you that one person had one project that went well. It does not tell you whether the contractor is a registered company or an individual who may not be around next year. It does not tell you whether the contract was sound, or whether the payments were tied to verified milestones. It does not tell you that your project, with your budget, your timeline, and your site, will go the same way. And a recommendation passed from cousin to friend to colleague often gets stronger in the telling and thinner in the facts. By the time the name reaches you, nobody in the chain may have checked anything at all.
Now consider who else understands this mechanism.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission describes a category of fraud called affinity fraud. It refers to investment scams that prey upon members of identifiable groups, such as religious or ethnic communities, the elderly, or professional groups. The SEC notes that the people behind these schemes frequently are, or pretend to be, members of the group. They often win over respected community or religious leaders first, convincing those leaders that the scheme is legitimate, and the leaders then spread the word, sometimes without knowing they are being used. At its core, the SEC says, affinity fraud exploits the trust and friendship that exist among people who have something in common.
It should be said clearly that the SEC's work concerns investment schemes in the United States, and a contractor or land agent in Cameroon is not the same thing as a securities fraudster. This page is not claiming that every recommended contractor is a fraud. Most are not. The point is narrower. The mechanism the SEC describes, borrowing the trust that already exists inside a community and using it to skip the checking, is exactly the mechanism that makes a recommendation chain risky. The SEC's own list of past cases even includes a real estate developer.
One more observation from the SEC deserves attention. It notes that victims of affinity fraud often fail to notify authorities or pursue legal remedies, and instead try to work things out within the group. Anyone who has followed the stories on this page will recognise how quietly these losses are often absorbed. When the person who let you down is connected to your family, your church, or your hometown, speaking up feels like a second cost. That silence protects the next victim's chances of being deceived the same way.
The SEC's practical advice is blunt. Never make an investment based solely on the recommendation of a member of an organisation or group to which you belong. The word that matters is solely. A recommendation can be where the search begins. It cannot be where it ends.
So how do you use a recommendation well?
First, ask the person recommending what they actually checked. Did they visit the finished work? Was the project similar in size to yours? Did it finish on time and on budget? Did they see the contract, or only the result?
Second, verify the company independently. Confirm that it is registered, that the address exists, and that the person you met is the person named in the documents.
Third, ask for completed projects you can visit in person, and call past clients yourself. Do not accept an introduction arranged by the contractor or by the person who recommended them.
Fourth, insist on a written contract with payments tied to independently verified milestones, as this page has set out in earlier posts, and consider holding funds in escrow until each stage is confirmed.
Fifth, if land is involved, have a lawyer who works only for you verify the title directly at the land registry before any money moves.
A contractor or agent worth hiring will welcome all of these checks. Someone who becomes defensive when asked for them has told you something important, however warm the recommendation that led you to them.
Trust is where a relationship starts.
Verification is what protects it.
Let the recommendation open the door. Then check what is behind it