Scammers Are The New Boogeymen!

Author:
Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Scammers, Fraudsters, And Con Artists Have Gained A Formidable Reputation As The New-Age Boogeymen, Lurking In The Digital Shadows, Waiting To Pounce On Unsuspecting Victims.

While there’s no denying the existence of scams and their devastating consequences, it’s essential to differentiate between the real threat and irrational fear.

Let’s explore the rise of scammers as the new boogeymen and the implications of this growing fear on society’s ability to effectively combat scams, focusing on online relationship scams, pig butchering investment scams, phone scams, and more.

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Shifting Baseline Syndrome (SBS) And Scam Awareness

Authors:
• Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.
• Vianey Gonzalez – Licensed Psychologist Specialty in Crime Victim Trauma Therapy, Neuropsychologist, Certified Deception Professional, Psychology Advisory Panel & Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

A Question Often Asked Is Why Doesn’t Scam Awareness Training And Information Reduce Victimization? The Answer May Just Be Shifting Baseline Syndrome!

Humans tend to prioritize risks based on immediate threats, and one of the ways we identify immediate threats is by rapid changes in our environment, such as new lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) in our vicinity for example. But Shifting Baseline Syndrome biases our view to diminish that awareness of the risk changes.

What is Shifting Baseline Syndrome?

Shifting baseline syndrome (SBS) is a gradual change in the accepted norms for the condition of the natural environment due to a lack of experience, memory, and/or knowledge of its past condition. In other words, as each generation grows up, they accept the current state of the environment as normal, even if it is actually degraded or improved from its previous state.

Of course, our natural environment can be the physical world or our digital one. It can be inside a workplace, our home, our community, our nation, or on the Internet. It can be any environment within which we live, work, or exist!

SBS can be seen in a variety of environmental contexts, such as climate change, Read More …

Relationship Scams And Their Impact On Memory

By:
• Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.
• Vianey Gonzalez – Psychologist, Certified Deception Professional, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Memory And Your Recollections Of A Relationship Scam Can Be Wrong!

The very first thing to know about memory after you have been in a relationship scam is that trauma has a profound impact on your mind.

You are not what you think you are. You are a system of physical functions that take place inside the brain and elsewhere in your body. Your memories, feelings, thinking, abilities, biases, and beliefs are all electrochemical reactions happening in your brain, nervous and limbic systems.

Why is this important to know?

Because what you remember, believe, and feel is controlled by these systems. Your very identity is not anything close to as solid as you imagine it is. The criminals that scammed you do not fully understand this, but they know how to exploit it,

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The Self-Pity Trap & How To Overcome It

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Self-Pity And Being The Victim Of A Scam Or Fraud – It Can Be A Very Distressing Experience

It can be difficult to come to terms with the fact that someone has taken advantage of you, and it is normal to feel a range of emotions, including anger, sadness, and embarrassment. However, if you find yourself dwelling on your negative emotions and feeling sorry for yourself, it is important to find ways to overcome self-pity.

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Hope & The “Pig Pen” Syndrome – on ScamsNOW.com

A Different Take On The Happenstance Of Scams

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc. – Originally published on RomanceScamsNOW.com September 2018 – moved and updated 2023

Was It All About Hope? For Many Scam Victims, Was Just Bad Luck That They Were Scammed?

“Shit Happens” Is The Old Saying! Sometimes it happens a lot and doesn’t stop. Is it bad luck? Did you ever think you might be making impulsive decisions? That clinging to false hope might have been one of the many root causes for what happened.

Some people believe in the Karmic Wheel, but while that may influence luck on a long-term scale, it probably is not the cause of becoming involved in a relationship scam. But hope – especially false hope, might be a real contributor.

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Teens And Young Adults: Now A Major Target Of Scammers

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Teens And Young Adults: A Major Target Of Scammers

Teenagers and young adults are increasingly becoming a major target of scammers.

In fact, a 2022 report by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found that people aged 18 to 29 were more likely to report falling victim to a scam than any other age group.

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The Elina Juusola Story

By Jessica Morney & Elina Juusola – translated from Finnish

Elina was the victim of love deception: “His cracked, raspy voice went directly into my nervous system”

Love scams are becoming more and more common. Last year, Finns lost EUR 9 million in connection with love scams. The author and historian of ideas Elina Juusola has written about her own experiences of being deceived by a charming “military” on a mission abroad.

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Facebook Says It Is Trying To Do Better!

An Editorial By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc., portions by Meta and Yahoo News

Meta Raising Online Defenses Through Transparency and Collaboration – So They Say!

Facebook and Meta’s Failure to Control Harmful Content

Facebook and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, have been under fire for years for their failure to control harmful content on their platforms. This includes fake news, hate speech, disinformation, and online criminals.

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3 Smart Bank Strategies to Stop Scams

By Ken Palla, Retired Director, MUFG Union Bank – Courtesy of BioCatch

3 Smart Strategies to Stop Scams That Don’t Break the Bank

In the first part of this blog series on financial scams, Dr. Tim McGuinness and Debby Montgomery Johnson (also a scam victim herself), Board Directors at the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams (SCARS) talked about how to interact with potential scam victims once there was a potential scam transaction alert. In this article, we will look at some specific initiatives that FIs use once they get a scam alert and ways to improve customer education.

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Bank Customer Interventions

By Ken Palla, Retired Director, MUFG Union Bank – Courtesy of BioCatch

You Have a Customer Scam Alert, Now What?

Recently, many of the more technically advanced financial institutions have worked to develop anomaly detection capabilities to detect financial scams (authorized transactions initiated by the real customer). These scams are inherently difficult to detect as it is the real customer doing the transaction. Legacy controls, such as known IP address, device fingerprint, and mobile phone location, all indicate that the real customer is doing the transaction.

Some financial institutions, working with vendors, have developed effective solutions to detect these scam transactions. So, half the battle is won with scam transaction alerts that have a decent false positive ratio. Now the financial institution must decide what to do next to turn the alert into a confirmed scam case or get the customer on their own to stop the transaction. A payment not sent is a scam loss prevented.

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Why Scammers Don’t Give Up

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Almost Every Victim Continues To Receive Emails, Texts, Messages, Or Phone Calls From Their Scammers Even After The Scam Has Been Discovered And Ended!

Why do scammers do this? Don’t they know they are not getting any more money?

In today’s world, it takes no effort at all for scammers to send out mass emails, texts, messages, and even phone calls. There are thousands of online services that will do it at very low cost or for free! These bulk email services can blast out millions of emails a day!

Scammers operate very much like telemarketers after the scam ends. They know that all it takes is a small percentage of victims to have doubts about themselves and the certainty that it was a scam or be curious or impulsive. They know that the victim’s own curiosity and impulsivity work in the scammer’s favor. Plus a significant number of victims in the weeks following the ending of the crime will still have lingering doubts about whether it was in fact a scam.

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FraudGPT – AI For The Bad Guys

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

FraudGPT: The New AI-Powered Cybercrime Tool

The rise of generative AI models has changed the fraud & cybercrime threat landscape drastically and FraudGPT is a new plateau in this new arms race..

Threat actors can now use these models, such as FraudGPT to create realistic and convincing phishing emails, malware, and other malicious content that is flawless (or almost flawless.)

In July 2023, a new AI tool called FraudGPT was discovered on the Dark Web. FraudGPT is a bot that can be used to create realistic phishing emails, cracking tools, and other malicious content. The tool is currently being sold on various Dark Web marketplaces and the Telegram platform.

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Thoughts About Boundaries

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Boundaries & No Self Limits – A Leading Cause Of Scams

What Are Boundaries and Why Do YOU Need Them?

Boundaries are imaginary lines that separate us from each other. It separates your physical space, your feelings, needs, and responsibilities from others.

Your boundaries also tell other people how they can treat you – what’s acceptable and what isn’t. Without boundaries, people may take advantage of you because you haven’t set limits about how you expect to be treated.

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Synchronicities? Is There A Relationship With Scams?

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Synchronicities: For Scam Victims Coincidences Are Everywhere! Or Are They?

What are Synchronicities?

Synchronicities are meaningful coincidences or occurrences that seemingly have no causal relationship but are deeply resonant or significant to the individuals experiencing them. These events often appear as striking coincidences, where multiple events or circumstances align in a way that feels meaningful or purposeful.

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The Tao – The Philosophy of the Path to Recovery

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Tao – This is the Way

A relationship scam is a vicious crime that has the potential not only to be devastatingly traumatic but can almost destroy the very soul of its victims. The Tao – the way – offers an approach to recover from the crime and the devastation to the self that the scam inflicts.

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Cybersecurity Failure Is Inevitable – Plan For It

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

The Saying NEVER SAY NEVER Is More Applicable In Cybersecurity & Online Safety Than Ever

Businesses are aware they need to plan for their cybersecurity, but they don’t know they also need to plan for their failure!

All cybersecurity is ultimately dependent on people, and people fail.

In fact, people almost always fail – not every day, but eventually, someone will make a mistake. Cybersecurity must do the right things 100% of the time, but the bad guys only need one mistake.

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Police Chiefs & Sheriffs: Use GoFundMe To Raise Money To Fight Cybercrime, Scams, And Fraud – And Obtain Tools & Training

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

The Fight Against Cybercrime Is As Much A Local Fight As a National Or International Fight

Local police & sheriff departments are the first responders for their citizens, but in the war against cybercrime, most of them have thrown up their hands and told their citizens there is nothing they can do!

But there is very much they can do, especially when it comes to tracing and recovering the money!

However, local police need financial support to get the tools, training, and even personnel needed to do the job well.

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Dear Police Officers: Write An Email

Make The Extra Effort For Your Transnational Scam/Fraud Victims

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Attention Police Officers & Leadership Concerned With Fraud

As a local police officer, you probably never considered this, but YOU CAN send a local victim’s complaint to police agencies in other countries on behalf of your local victims!

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The Subtle Sabotage Of Blame In Cybersecurity & Online Safety

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Blame in Cybersecurity & Online Safety is Rampant!

We all do it, we all blame someone for something.

Sometimes blame is justified, sometimes there is cause, and it is very hard to remove it from your vocabulary – but it is always destructive.

I recently heard a cybersecurity training professional tell a story about motivating a corporate team to do better with cybersecurity. It was something to the effect that they needed to learn the material because “You don’t want to be the one that lets a breach happen!” That is blame!

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What is the Purpose of Gaslighting?

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Gaslighting is all about Manipulation & Control

Online social engineering relationship & other scams rely heavily on the technique of “Gaslighting” to hold and manipulate its victims.

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The Cost Of Global Cybercrime

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Cybercrime is Costing Every Person on this Planet $750 per Year!

CONSIDER: Global Cybercrime Is Above USD$6 Trillion Dollars Per Year Now!

That Is $6 Trillion Dollars A Year in costs just from cybercrime! It Will Soon Pass $8 Trillion (According To Some Estimates).

Cybercrime is costing more than the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of 8 of the top 10 economies in the world!

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Cybercrime/Cybersecurity Training Has Failed!

A commentary on the state of cybercrime/cybersecurity training and helping victims avoid scams/fraud/cybercrime.

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Cybercrime/Cybersecurity training does not work?

Cybercrime training, also known as cybersecurity training, is a form of education that aims to teach individuals and organizations how to protect themselves against cyberattacks and other forms of online threats. But it mostly has failed.

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The Power of Slowness: Navigating Cyber Threats with Deliberation

A new approach to personal & corporate cybercrime avoidance – slowness!

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Managing Director – Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

Is Slowness the Answer?

Let’s admit the truth.  Almost all cyber & online safety training is failing!

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A Proposal from SCARS to Reduce Bank Wire/Money Transfer Fraud

By SCARS Editorial Team –  Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.

A Proposal To Reduce App Fraud In The Banking Industry

SCARS introduces a new proposal for the banking industry to help stop Wire Transfer Fraud/Scams (Authorized Push Payment Fraud) at the point of contact.

Almost all deterrents and education programs have failed to stop victims from sending money to criminals. Something more is needed. In the UK the bank employees call the local police to talk with victims and this has proven very effective, but that will not work in the United States. This proposal, we believe, addresses all the issues in a process already compliant with U.S. law.

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