Scams have always changed with time, and the modern day con is certainly a reflection of the digital age that we live in. The days of door to door salesman selling fake products are virtually gone, the vast majority of scams and con artists now exist on the Internet.
All scams are about emotional manipulation, and a romance scam is no different. A lot of things are done digitally these days, finding love is one of them and scammers use this to their advantage. A scammer will fake a romantic interest with their victim to gain their trust and once they have it, they start applying the pressure.
This is where the manipulation gets worse. The scammer will claim that something has happened, some emergency or opportunity has arisen, that they need money for, and they need it now. By this point people quite readily hand over any money to their new found love, simply because they trust them and want to help.
At this point you may think the scam is over but what makes romance cases really stand out, is that they have the most number of payments made to the scammer per case, when compared to the other types of scams.
After the initial payment, the scam continues and over time other payments are requested. These requests are always backed up with tugs of the heartstrings, with excuses like ‘I’m trying to help out and secure our future’ or ‘do you not love me enough to help’ to guilt the victim into paying more.
Reports say some individual victims have lost multiple £100,000s over the course of a scam. From 2020 to 2022 a 12% increase was shown in the amount of romance scams with over £30 million stolen from reported cases in the UK each year.
It’s likely that there is far more happening, however cases are underreported due to the stigma around romance scams. Please just be aware of them and don’t get caught out.
Tugging at heartstrings is very useful when it comes to scamming, and for that reason, charitable donation scams fit in perfectly. These scams are the most appalling by far. Preying on the goodwill of humans, these scams simply revolve around setting up a fake charity and then manipulating people to donate. All money donated of course goes straight to the scammer.
These scams are simple and effective as they rely on robbing people who have gone out of their way to try and help someone. These scams appear in a few ways, such as fake appeals for disaster relief, fraudulent crowdfunding campaigns, and deceptive telemarketing strategies. Many of these fake charities appear as similar names to real ones or pretend to use a celebrity to endorse them.
If you’re unsure whether a charity is real or not, then it is essential to research them to verify their legitimacy.
How to detect – In addition to researching the charity, remember that legitimate charities usually offer secure payment methods, so you should be careful of requests for cash, bank transfers, or gift cards. Stay aware and make sure your money is going to the right people.
Most people have heard of phishing scams before, where scammers will send emails to a large group of people in the hope to catch someone. These are the infamous Nigerian Prince scams or the fake bank emails saying you must change your username and password now, which you probably have seen yourself at some point, if not regularly.
The scammers do this with the hope that a victim will click on a malicious link, reveal sensitive information, or be persuaded to send money.
Spear phishing is a step up from this.
Spear phishing targets specific people, using previously compromised information to create a far more convincing email. The use of previously compromised information allows the scammer to tailor the email to their victim. They will appear to be from a legitimate source, usually someone you know well, such as a college or boss.
These are far more dangerous, as the level of personalisation means the email can pass spam filters and other traditional security. On top of this it is far more likely to work, since the victim recognises the person who they think the email is from.
Always verify the identity of the sender if they ever request anything from you or ask you to click on a link you don’t recognise.
Investment scams are fake investment opportunities that result in the victim usually losing any money paid over. The names of these scams may sound familiar, Ponzi, pyramid and pump and dump schemes, have been around for a long time, but they are still making money for scammers.
These scams prey on the desire for people to get rich quick while knowing little about financial investment. It’s the promise of high returns that get victims attention and the warning that if you don’t invest now, you will miss out, that stops people thinking about the potential for a scam.
These scams have cost brits more than £2.5 billion since 2020, nearly an average of £13 million per week.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, investment fraud peaked, and now with the cost-of-living crisis, people are at a higher risk of becoming victim to investment fraud, as they try new ways to help make ends meet.
Common signs of a scam include guaranteed high returns with little or no risk, aggressive sales tactics to invest immediately, promises of insider information, and overcomplicated investing structure.
Investors should always thoroughly investigate any investment opportunity before paying any money into it or get the opinion of a trusted financial advisor. The best way to stay safe with these scams is to remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
After reading a few of these scams you may be thinking ‘I wouldn’t fall for that, I would know if was being scammed’. But what if you could see and hear someone you know talking to you, then would you send them money?
This is what makes deepfakes so terrifying, a video of someone you know can play where they will ask you for money, and it’s easy to trust it, after all you know them. The thing is it’s not them. The video is created by someone using a deepfake.
A deepfake uses AI to create a realistic video that looks and sounds like someone else, and this can be used to very easily scam people. All the scammer has to do then, is create some excuse to why the money is needed. Since the trust is already there, why would the victim not send the money.
Scammers have used this to pretend to be celebrities and create advertisements for fake charities or products. People see a video advertisement of these celebrities and have an immediate trust towards them, stopping them from even considering the possibility of a scam.
These types of scams are new, and although new ways are being developed to combat them, I fear that this is only the beginning of AI scams.
Scams will continue to change to keep up with technology, trends, and public cyber awareness. It is then our jobs to remain informed, vigilant and safe when using the internet. Always remember that each scam boils down to an unlikely opportunity and time pressure, these two points are always key.
Stay aware and stay safe.
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