How to get away with fraud: the successful techniques of scamming
Cassandra Cross · 2018
It is easy for those of us who have ignored emails from Nigerian princes or refused to transfer money on behalf of an online love interest to scroll past stories about scams, thinking it could never be us. But so far this year, Australians have reported losing more than AU$76 million to all types of fraud, with phishing scams being the most prevalent. Given fraud has one of the lowest reporting rates, this is likely to be the tip of the iceberg. From the outside, it’s difficult to understand how fraud occurs, and why some victims send large sums of money to offenders or take other drastic actions. It’s easy for a rational person to identify these situations as fraud. Too often, we focus our attention on the culpability of victims in these situations. But it’s the offenders and their actions we should be focusing on. How exactly do fraudsters get victims to do such outlandish things?