A new scourge has emerged, and threatens to bite many of us below the belt. It is an online romance scam. It continues to plague us, despite the best efforts of law enforcement to stop them. The problem is now widespread and romance scam bedevils not only the victims, but also law enforcement.
Scammers are now swindling large sums of money for unsuspecting victims.
Statistically, RM3 billion in losses were incurred through 89,798 online scam cases reported from 2017 to June 2022. Online shopping scams topped the chart at 32,791 cases. Other types of scams included Macau Scams, Love Scams, African Scams, non-existent loans and SMS scams.
Romance scams are about as old as the pursuit of love itself. But the rise of social media, online dating and a host of digital tools available to fraudsters have contributed to a rise in recorded incidents of scam.
Some of the cases involved simple acts of deception. Others involved teams of scammers setting up phoney websites and staging fake video calls to deceive their targets.
My mother, for example, met Andrew, a handsome and wealthy man living in London, she was thrilled. They were spending hours messaging on the phone each day. She was smitten.
The relationship progressed quickly. They continued to speak on the phone and also, occasionally, on video chat.
To cut a long story short, one day, she told me that Andrew had to fly to Malaysia for an urgent business trip.
About five weeks after they first made contact, Andrew asked to borrow money. Just a small amount.
She turned to me for money. “I don’t have the money, for who exactly,” I told her.
My mother said, “Andrew told me he’d had a work crisis and needed help with port charges for a delivery. He was so distressed by the unexpected charge. I felt sorry for him.”
Things soon got worse for my mother. Andrew’s requests began to snowball. He told her his daughter was unwell, then that she had been sick and that he desperately needed money for medical treatment.
Whenever she became suspicious, Andrew quickly relieved her fears. She told me that he constantly had all kinds of explanations for her. She confronted Andrew, but he said he could explain and asked how mother could doubt him.”
While I tried to explain she’d been scammed, she couldn’t believe it.
I pointed out that when they’d had video calls, he’d been using technology to superimpose a moving image. Fortunately, by the time she had been convinced to sever ties with him, in October last year, she had lost zero money.
Why do these scams persist in baffling the authorities?
Some claim that computers, electronic communication account for this state of affairs. It has become so much a part of modern society, that there are now even systematic accounts as to how this can occur. For example, “love bombing” (being too nice, too complimentary); photo scams (using someone else’s picture); catfishing (using a fake online dating profile); phishing for personal information (identity theft).
Computers long ago have been able to beat chess grandmasters. More recently they have been able to beat computer experts. One day soon, automated vehicles will be better drivers than ordinary human beings. But that time has not yet come. However, soon, computer drivers will be safer.
In chess, there were no ‘fatalities’ along the road to computer supremacy. If we unleash automated vehicles too soon, there will be. So, the proper procedure is to keep working on this technology until it is far better than at present.
So are these electronic computer romance schemes due in large part to breakthroughs in this type of technology? That is one hypothesis.
However, I contend that online romance scams have little to do with new online capabilities. Electronic communication is merely the latest vehicle for such robbery and fraud. But this sort of thing occurred, probably, back in caveman days.
Certainly it took place when we only had pen and paper, and, then, later, when typewriters were invented. We might as well blame these evil acts on the post office and before that on private mail delivery companies such as DHL or FedEx. Nor is such chicanery limited to written communication. Fraud, all kinds of fraud, also takes place on a face-to-face basis. Lounge lizards have been plying their “trade” to previous generations.
An American businessman is reputed to have said “There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute” and this truism is no respecter of date or level of technology. So don’t blame this on high tech.
I am not saying there is no such thing as online romance scams. Unhappily there are, and thousands of them. I only say that there is nothing new under the sun here, so move along folks.
Men have been deceiving women, and, women, men, for all of recorded history, and, undoubtedly, ever since the human race began. We’re hard-wired that way; all too often, evolutionarily speaking, there is something to be gained in this manner, and people will inevitably engage in this sort of cheating.
I only say that while electronic abilities might well have enhanced this misbehaviour, it is now cheaper, as demand curves are downward sloping. This sort of thing has been occurring for a long, long time, unhappily.
Don’t blame Apple, Intel, Microsoft or any of their professions.
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.
