My child says that evil are like the dark clouds in the sky. There are lots of them. (How did she come up with that?) Fraud and scams are widely spread evils that can have devastating impact (financially and mentally) on its victims, whether individuals or businesses. According to a 2022 Nilson report, the bank card industry is likely to have nearly $400 billion in fraud losses in a decade. Because they are so widely spread and are constantly changing, it takes constant vigilance to fend them off.

Who are the fraudsters and victims

It may sound surprising: anyone can be a victim, and anyone can be a fraudster. Yes, that’s right.

For example, for a bank, fraudsters can be categorized the following 3 types:

Criminals and organized crime
Customers or prospective customers
Associates/family member of customers: the most disturbing group of fraudsters are these ordinary people who try to take advantage of trusting people, the elderly, and the vulnerable. Because they have access to personal information, they steal customer’s money.

This post focus on organized fraud and scam.

Organized crime

I am probably the opposite of being an expert on organized crime. So it was mind boggling for me to learn that there are many people in the world who actively working on fraud/scams as full time jobs, whether voluntarily or being forced. There are entire towns or regions of countries working in the evil act of scamming money out of people who may be in a different country. The organized scamming towns are found in Southeast Asia, India, Africa, and probably everywhere. They are more concentrated and have larger human scale in certain parts of the world due to low government control,

Recent news has been reporting on Myanmar (缅北) telecom scams see reuters cnn reports, and 缅北是怎么成为“诈骗地狱”的 for deeper root causes.

Acording to VICE article “In Dubai, Chinese Industrial-Scale Scam Mills Are Thriving”, Chinese-run criminal underworld operating in business buildings in UAE have tight links to its Southeast Asian counterpart. Their scam business are booming, attracting workers who are lured by ads of high pay.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/27/gangs-of-cybercriminals-are-expanding-across-africa-investigators-say

Reportedly, India is known as the scam capital of the world due to English fluency and many IT workers are already there.

Scams begins by taking your guard down

Frausters may use all kinds of tactics and they are constantly changing, vishing, spoofing, and many more. In order to succeed, they take down your guards first. “诈骗利用的是人性的弱点，任何人都有可能成为受害者”.

Example: pretending to call from a big bank: Sam receives a call. The person on the phone identifies himself as Martin and is calling from the anti-fraud department of a big bank. Martin asks if Sam has sent any cryptocurrency transfers from his account in the last few hours. Sam says no, and that must be fraud. Martin thanks Sam for the confirmation and assures him not to worry as he will be freezing the account immediately. He tells Sam that he will be sending him an SMS One Time Password to his phone and asks him to share his username & password as part of the verification process for canceling those transactions. Martin also tells Sam that they will review his account to identify additional fraud and begin securing the account.

Sam, the victim, thought he is being assisted by bank anti-fraud department that is working on protecting his account. Sam asks Martin to prove himself. Martin provides an employee number and points out that the number he is calling from is associated with the big bank (“spoofing”), then goes on to remind Sam that they need to rush to cancel the recent transaction and stop additional fraud. Martin logs into Sam’s account using the credentials and goes over a few transactions with him, and then assures Sam that everything has been taken care of.

In this example, the frauster takes away victim’s guard by pretending he is from anti-fraud department of his trustworthy bank. Although frauster sometimes creates the urgency and the need to rush, other times frauster may try to lower a victim’s guards by not rushing.

If you see caller ID showing on your phone is a reputable company, or even your mom, don’t assume it is what it says it is. Test them. Caller ID and even voices can be faked using AI.

How to recognize those who that might commit fraud/scam

It is all about money, money, money. To want a better life in the wrong way, or greed is the reason many people voluntarily involved in fraud or scam. Ordinary everyday person may become fraudsters/scammer when the following conditions are present:

Opportunity: the person sees a clear course of action of how they can abuse their roles
Pressure: the pressure may be due to poor financial situation, family member illness, or simply greed
Rationalization: moral justification (a caretaker may steal an elderly’s bank assets by justifying that she has taken care of the elderly)

According to the 中科院博士 who thought he was getting a well-paid customer service job but actually was forced into online scam slavery in Myanmar, “事实上很多受骗者都是自认为不会受骗的人. 被骗与学历、阅历没有必然关系，“诈骗利用的是人性的弱点，任何人都有可能成为受害者”. Please see CCTV report 被骗缅甸中科院博士：曾被打近百棍，诈骗园区更关注反诈新闻

诈骗公司在招聘我的过程中采用了欲擒故纵的方式，自始至终他们都伪装成正规的招聘，不仅没有催促我办理手续甚至还故意拖延时间，表现出根本不着急招我的样子。这种套路在公司诈骗客户的过程中也是经常用到的，他们很少会直接要求客户投资，而是通过发投资盈利图等方式引诱客户主动上钩

Whenever a tactic is discovered, the fraudsters “innovate” new ones. “诈骗园区的人比普通人更加关注反诈新闻，他们经常刷抖音里的反诈新闻，也会搜集网上曝光的诈骗案例，针对最新的反诈宣传来“改进”自己的诈骗方式。建议大家在网络聊天中，遇到陌生人提及投资理财时，一定要多个心眼，不管你们在其他话题上聊得有多好都要注意防范。”

诈骗公司的诈骗方法一直都在更新换代，所以大家也要不断学习新的反诈知识。而且一定要改变“只有傻子才会受骗”的错误认识，事实上很多受骗者都是自认为不会受骗的人。

So, whenever some fraud methods are known, don’t think that’s all there are. Don’t take anything for granted, ever! We can turn things around such that 魔高一尺，道高一丈， in other words, vice rises one foot, virtue ten, if you are willing to think harder than the fraudsters.