Romance Fraud: “What The Fraud?” Podcast

THOMAS TARANIUK: This is “What The Fraud?”, a podcast by Sumsub, where digital fraudsters meet their match. I’m Thomas Taraniuk, Head of Partnerships at Sumsub, the global verification platform helping to verify users, businesses, and transactions. In today’s episode, we’re examining something that’s a It’s the subject of many popular true crime podcasts, and even turned into hit Netflix shows like the Tinder Swindler.

I’m of course talking about dating fraud, and more broadly, fraud in online media. A case that caught my eye this week was one from the UK. Retired mother of two, Lynn, from Cheshire, was manipulated by a man she met online called Derek. He claimed he was living in Dubai. and made multiple requests for Lynn to send him cash, with the promise that they would go on expensive holidays together.

She ended up sending over £50,000 before she was visited by the police, who notified her that Derek was indeed completely made up.

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that online media is now the industry with the highest percentage of fraudulent activity. And how about this for a statistic? A quarter of people who lost money to fraud since 2021 claim that it started through interaction on social media. So, What can the individual do to protect themselves from these kinds of fraudsters?

And what should online media companies be doing to protect their users from falling foul of criminals who will just do anything and target anyone for a quick buck? We’ll be answering these questions and more in today’s episode.

My guest today is Dr Elizabeth Carter. Elizabeth is a criminologist and forensic linguist who also lectures at Kingston University in the Department of Criminology, Politics and Sociology. She speaks at conferences and events all over the world and often works directly with the police, local authorities, financial industry, charity sector, online dating sector and other organizations in fraud prevention. Dr Elizabeth Carter, welcome to “What the Fraud?”. 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: Thank you so much. It’s great to be here. 

THOMAS TARANIUK: Fantastic to have you here with us. So as I mentioned in our introduction, online media is particularly vulnerable to fraud. In Sumsub’s 2023 Identity Fraud Report, we found that online media was the industry with the highest percentage of fraudulent behaviour compared to professional services, healthcare and financial technology.

So compared to those other industries that I just mentioned, what are some of the unique challenges that online media faces when it comes to fraud? 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: Well, when it comes to fraud, what we have, we have criminals, fraudsters, moving into the online arena. Whereas before COVID in particular, they would be in physical spaces, they’ve moved online, but so has the general public.

And that’s crucial really, because digital natives, they were always in the online arena. But those of us that are not digital natives have moved there ourselves. And it’s a bit like I’ve described it as akin to driving car without a seatbelt. If you don’t know the protections you need to put into place, or if there aren’t any protections there, then you are really at risk of being defrauded..

And, in person, we have our ideas about who we can trust. Online, anyone can be anyone. And particularly with the rise of AI, we have some major issues there. 

THOMAS TARANIUK: Oh, absolutely. And we’ve, we’ve covered AI quite a few times on the podcast. Yes, indeed. And it is just a massive issue. We’ve covered Taylor Swift and all of these other actors, celebrities who are being taken advantage of from a distance online, utilizing technology, which should be used for good, although it is being used for these malicious, let’s say acts. So from your end as well, Elizabeth, why do you think fraud is so prevalent in online media? 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: I think because the risk to criminals is quite low.

And the ability to put out messages to hundreds and thousands of individuals is relatively easy. And something that fraudsters, a term that fraudsters use, which is awful really, it’s low hanging fruit. They’ll put out messages that might seem obvious to some people, but not obvious to others, and, victims will essentially self select themselves, which leads to this sense of shame about being a victim.

There should be no shame, but particular words, particular phrases, depending on the context, you will get victims biting and saying, Oh yes, I’ll respond to that. So in online spaces, it’s much easier to tempt people into responding and to seem genuine. 

THOMAS TARANIUK: Most definitely. And especially when you have all of these media capsules like Facebook, billions of users and Instagram as well.

It’s a statistics game where they can throw a wide net and people will be drawn in. This reminds me of one of our clients. Before Sumsub, they were kicked out of all the major app stores because of the issues that they were having with user age verification. After switching to Sumsub and utilizing our age estimation and liveness solutions, they were able to continue their business and back operating on the marketplace.

Could you give us an insight, Elizabeth, into the reputational and financial harm social networks and dating apps face because of fraudulent behaviour. 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: Yes, this is a really tricky one, because what we want is organizations and individuals to report fraud, but we know it’s one of the most under reported crimes out there, even though It’s one of the most commonly experienced crimes out there.

What we have here is a perfect storm. So victims feel ashamed or afraid to report. But when we’re talking about organizations, there is a reputation to protect. And organizations are very reticent to report that they have had an insider fraud attempt, or they have been subject to any kind of fraud because it looks like they can’t look after their own house.

However, what this does mean is that fraudsters do get away with it and they find a safe haven in defrauding companies that will not report it or will not invest a lot of money into trying to counteract it because they say, we don’t have any fraud. We don’t need to do that. What we really need is an organizational but also societal change where trying to identify fraud is a good thing.

Actually finding it is a good thing because it means that you’re doing your job well, and also when somebody, an individual becomes a victim of fraud, if they then come clean and say, this has happened to me, it normalizes it. It’s not something to be ashamed of, to be brushed under the carpet. It’s something to come forward and say, this has happened to me.

Let’s try and find ways to stop it happening to somebody else. 

THOMAS TARANIUK: Absolutely. And do you think from your point of view as well, that it should be community driven, as in the community should be reporting others involved? 

Dr Elisabeth Carter: There’s a lot here. I want to mention as well that with Facebook marketplace in particular, I have seen that there is this community effort to try and slap down fraudsters.

And it’s amazing. And it’s great to see it shouldn’t be driven by the consumer. It should be driven by the organizations themselves saying we can’t allow this to happen. However, what I do see is it’s a scam. It’s a fraud. Don’t click. And I see that on social media sites often. So it has become more of a societal driven protection.

It’s seen as we are going to protect each other rather than you’ve been caught out. So I want to say that that is a really good thing. So it’s not all bad news. There are a lot of things that these organizations need to do in order to protect individuals. Social media is absolutely rife with fraud, with scams, because individuals will trust a group.

They’ve joined a group, whatever it is, and they’ll trust the people on it. It’s a bit like someone on Messenger or on WhatsApp. You feel safe in that group. Everyone identifies as this particular type of person who likes caravanning or whatever. Revealing my personal preferences here, you know. But then also, you also get individuals who will get a message.

I mean, I’m picking on Facebook here, but any social media site. You’ll get a message saying, “Oh, hi, it’s me.” And you’ll know it’s them. You’ll know it’s them because their name’s on there. And they’ll ask you for a favour. Now, all of that credibility and legitimacy is already performed. It’s not as if someone’s calling you out the blue and you say, well, who are you?

Where are you from? When somebody contacts you on social media, there’s already that personal level of connection already made. And they only have to do something to break that, to make somebody think, hang on, is this a fraud? But they just won’t do something to break it. They’ll just continue building that level of trust.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Yeah. Trust is given, not earnt. I feel like it’s a bit difficult to filter out these fraudsters, I’m guessing. 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: Yeah, and it’s very quick as well. You know, it’s a touch of a button. So you reply before you even think about it. With things like two factor authentication, you get the message through and you just hover over it and it’s already populated it on your screen, which I find brilliant it means that I don’t have to go into the messenger app and then transfer it over. But it also means that our fingers are doing the talking before our brain can do the thinking. So there must, there needs to be some kind of friction in there. But like I say, on social media, everything works so quickly.

The trust is already there. 

THOMAS TARANIUK: Exactly. And specifically with social media, these giant media companies, they don’t want to enter friction to the process. And that even might be what we do around the KYC. Because it might add a couple of seconds. It might, Oh, okay, well, we’re going to lose that customer then.

But that’s not always the case. It adds a level of security, which enables the community to feel safe and actually act on trust. How is responsibility weighted between platform protocol and security? And the individual user’s vigilance as well. 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: At the moment, it’s very heavily weighted towards the individual.

So the individual has made a choice, and it’s their choice, and that is their fault. They’ve been negligent. In many cases, it’s seen as negligence. Of course, you know, we’ve heard in, in previous episodes on this podcast, which I’ve really enjoyed, we know that the payment services regulator have made these changes that are coming in very soon, which means that, hang on, negligence is something very different now.

And quite rightly so, you know, it isn’t just an individual. And when we’re talking about fraud, when we’re talking about APP fraud in particular, we know that now that it’s a type of grooming rather than someone doing something silly. So it’s not a conscious thing that somebody’s doing wrong. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

So to put the responsibility on the individual who was actually a victim of crime here and not someone who’s just throwing their money around is, is particularly wrong. And it should be a group effort. Now in terms of when we’re talking about protection messaging or consumer education. I was thinking about this on the way here today, actually, and I was thinking, you know, I’m a lecturer and I teach criminology students, undergraduates and post graduates and I teach them and then they have exams and they have essays.

Now, if a couple of them fail and a lot of them do quite well, the ones that fell haven’t quite got it. They need re educating, they need more information. What happens if 95 percent of them fail? It’s my fault. I haven’t taught them properly, or the information that I have given hasn’t gotten through in the right way.

And this is where I think we are at the moment in terms of fraud prevention and protection messaging. We can say we’re putting lots of information out there, but if it’s still the most commonly experienced crime in the UK, and one of the most unreported crimes, the education piece isn’t working. isn’t hitting the spot.

It’s not that it’s not getting through, it’s just it isn’t doing what it’s supposed to be doing.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Online media companies are increasingly looking for frictionless user experience but this will often lead to greater vulnerability from fraudsters and criminals. Do you think there is a need for mandatory verification Elizabeth on these media platforms to actually combat fraud? 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: Yeah, this is the ultimate question, really.

And it’s the same in the banking industry, the financial industry, too. How can you maintain that user experience? Don’t drive your customers away. Don’t make it so full of friction that you can’t do what you want to do. My answer to this is that it needs to be more standardized. And also this idea about protection needs to be something that is sought after.

And you would be happy if the place that you’re trying to go online dating is one that’s one of the best protected. So rather than it being a bad thing, having this friction, it should be seen as a good thing. But I fully understand that that’s, you know, a bit pie in the sky in terms of people just want to get online and date, and they don’t want to put loads of their personal information out there.

I would have this balance. I do think that social media organizations, companies, and dating apps, they do you need to have this level of understanding that if somebody is registering and then they’re registering multiple times from the same IP address or they’re using the same profile picture or they’re using similar types of words in their bio that they need to be flagged up.

So there needs to be some kind of bottom line there behind the scenes. But then also there does need to be some kind of registration of individuals. And it has to be framed as protection. You know, like I say, with bank accounts, we need to do that for bank accounts. I think if you’re going to be dating online, you need to do that as well.

What we need to avoid is, just like with banks, we need to avoid then social media companies, dating apps saying, well we’re one that doesn’t have any of these. We have a friction free experience because that is where all the fraudsters will go to. 

THOMAS TARANIUK: Absolutely. But maybe it needs to be more of a soft touch point, soft landing, behavioral analytics, looking into the IP address, change of accounts, change of devices, behavior, everything else.

And maybe less focused on the point of entry. But of course, if you want something which is completely safe, then there needs to be that friction. 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: Yeah. I think also, quite a lot of the population think that they will never be defrauded, that they will be able to spot it. That it’s quite obvious to see. I’m guilty of that, I think.

I think we all are to some point, really. But to have that kind of awareness is really important, but then also the harms as well. You know, Oh, you know, I might lose 20 quid or something. They might think that’s not a problem, but actually it’s your data that’s been taken and sold. And then later on it might be your life savings or your whole bank account.

THOMAS TARANIUK: And you might have a target on your back at the end of the day as well. 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: Absolutely. And there’s horribly named suckers list. Once you have become defrauded, you’re more likely to be defrauded again. But then also the psychological harm, particularly of romance fraud, is so devastating and has been described in research as devastating as, uh, akin to the psychological harm of rape.

So it’s really, really Awfully, awfully psychologically damaging. So I think we also need to do that as well, because I think quite a lot of people online dating think, oh, all these protections, they’re for someone silly, giving their money away. So again, this, this education piece around for society, that this is not silly people giving away money to, you know, whoever.

It’s actually a psychological harm, like coercive control or domestic abuse. 

THOMAS TARANIUK: Absolutely. And it will impact their trust for life. Absolutely. Like any physical relationship as well. Yeah. So for our audience, would you be able to describe romance scam, romance fraud? Would you be able to describe what that entails? 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: Yeah, absolutely.

I tend to go more towards fraud because that’s the legal term, but I understand that, you know, in popular culture it’s known as scam, but we’re trying to bridge the two here. So yes, romance fraud is where, you know, you’re dating online, or it doesn’t have to be an online dating site, it could be anywhere, but somebody is there with the express intent to try and defraud you of your money and they’ll pretend to be someone in order to do that But it won’t be obvious. If it’s obvious and you spot it, then that’s fine, but most of them aren’t, aren’t spotable because you’re in there and you’re looking for a romance. Romance fraud is particularly devastating because what these fraudsters do is that they use that context of the romance in order to get information from you.

So you’re dating somebody, they’ll ask you about yourself and you’ll be flattered and you will give that information because if you don’t, you can’t really bond and you can’t really build that relationship. 

Suggested read: Detecting Romance Scams: A Guide for Dating Platforms and Their Users

THOMAS TARANIUK: But you always look for the best in people, right? Yes. And I think that Yeah. Those sort of bad actors will take advantage of that.

Yeah, it might be much easier to do that online than in person where you can’t really spot it. And they think you think that they’ve got the best interest at heart, but 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: Yeah. And then in your mind, you build up a picture of them. It’s a bit like reading a book and then seeing the movie. It could be completely different.

You know, the, the actors in your mind, like these characters. 

THOMAS TARANIUK: We’re talking more about Catfish. 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: Well, you know, there is this massive crossover as well, because catfishing is one thing and there is not that, that fraud there. But with fraud, it does start like that. So you have this image of somebody in your mind.

And because you yourself are trustworthy, you’re looking for someone to love. You believe they are, too. But quite often they will seem vulnerable themselves. Not straight away, but they’ll build in that. That vulnerability, little by little, and then you feel that you have to protect them. They might say they’ve been defrauded before.

They might say, you know, be careful on here because there’s lots of scammers. And then you feel like, oh, I need to be really, you know, gentle with them because they’re a little bit traumatized. And that’s when you start getting that, I’m the only one that you can trust. And you start getting really into that situation where you don’t really talk to anyone else about the relationship because you want to protect that person that they’re a fraudster.

Um, they do loads of things in order to try and dull down these alarm bells. You know, they can’t meet online, they can’t meet you in person, there’s always an answer for it. And if you start questioning it, then you feel at fault, just like in domestic abuse. 

THOMAS TARANIUK: What would you say is the best sort of step for educating people on what to look out for when talking to a stranger online?

Through a dating app? Through Facebook marketplace, through Instagram. What are the telltale signs? 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: It’s an interesting one because the signs are quite often different and they will not seem alarming to you because in that context they will know what is going to alarm you and what’s not going to alarm you.

They’ll always have an answer for it, but what they can’t do is manipulate or groom other people outside the relationship. So be upfront with whoever you’re talking to, if it’s on marketplace, if it’s somebody you’re going to be dating online and say, look, I told my sister everything. And I’m going to tell her everything.

She’s my wingwoman. She’s my whoever. And if you get anything other than a positive response from that person, you don’t want to date them. Because essentially, this is someone saying, I’m going to protect myself. I’m going to put my seatbelt on. It’s not because I think you’re a, you’re a fraudster. It’s because I want to protect myself.

Because these forces get around it. Oh no, but I’m special. Oh no, but that’s just, that’s just for scammers. No, no, no, it’s for absolutely everybody. So if someone has an issue with you trying to protect yourself, then they’re out anyway. Another one is to kind of follow how you’re feeling. So something that these forces will do is try and rush you into a decision, into pressing that button, something will be urgent. If you’re feeling like you need to do something quickly, if your heart is racing, so it might not be, you need to do this quickly. They might not be saying that directly, but they’ll be making you feel like that. If you start getting those feelings, talk to someone and say, hang on, I’m feeling rushed.

What do you think? And that will break that straight away. 

THOMAS TARANIUK: A hundred percent. And like with many things, sleeping on it is also a very good key. 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: Yes, nothing is so urgent that it needs to be done that moment. And also nothing is that important that only you alone can do it. There will always be someone else who can help.

And is it your responsibility to help someone who’s in this pickle somewhere else? No. It’s not. What you can do is help to find them someone who can help, for example, an embassy in their country, you know, calling the police, for example, but you will never be the one person in the world who is the only person who can help.

And your money isn’t the only money that is, that is in existence. It’s really important. You’re, you’re really funneled into this kind of really blinkered set of thinking. And it’s not your fault at all, but because of that grooming, you feel like you are the only one and you need to do it quickly. And if you don’t, you’re responsible for their financial wellbeing, you’re responsible for their psychological wellbeing, you’re not.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Tinder has recently announced that they’re expanding its ID verification options for users in the US, UK, Brazil, and Mexico. The updated option will add an extra step for users to confirm their authenticity of their profiles.

The enhanced process requires a video selfie and a valid driver’s license or passport, and we’ll check to see whether the face in the video selfie matches both the photo from the ID and the person’s profile photos. How effective do you think this will be in combating dating fraud? 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: I think it’s going to be really quite effective, but maybe not for the reason that you think that it will be catching out fraudsters, which it will do, but mainly because you’re then changing that risk profile for these criminals.

Now, speaking with my criminologist head on, it’s all about risk and rewards. Now, the reason why these fraudsters go on to these sites to defraud individuals is because it’s easy and it’s low risk. If you start building in, we talked about friction earlier, if you start building in friction for the criminals, they will move elsewhere, which of course is an issue for where are they moving, but you will get fewer doing it purely because it’s more risky. 

THOMAS TARANIUK: And it’s not just individuals. We’re talking about organized crime gangs, right? And they are playing a statistical game where they’re casting this wide net. And even if they send out a thousand messages, they’re going to get a couple of people who succumb to it or are vulnerable enough to actually be taken by their offer as well.

DR ELISABETH CARTER: It’s all about the context. I mean, if you’ve just been bereaved, if you’ve lost your job, if you have health worries. You know, if you are looking for love, if you, you know, just being divorced, all of these things are situational and contextual vulnerabilities and we all have these. You know, if you’re in a rush and you’re parking and you see a QR code on the, on the parking meter, you’ll zap it with your phone.

Have you checked if that’s stuck on? Have you run your fingers over it? It might be that criminals have put that on there and now they’re now taking your money and your data. So it’s all about the context and every single one of us are vulnerable, you know, with, with that small V and absolutely, yes, you know, it is criminal gangs, serious organized criminal gangs here. And something that’s really important to note is that the money that’s taken from you, whether it’s 20p or £20,000 or more, is going to fund really awful things, you know, terrorism, child sex trafficking, drugs, guns, you name it, they’ll use it. It’s seen as a softer, easier way to launder money. So what we want really is for everyone to be really on guard.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Looking to the future of online media, there have been enormous changes over the last decade or so with major buyouts occurring with Meta and Twitter now rebranded as X, of course. And this is all It’s all brought into question the security of our online data and how it is used by these companies and how easy it is for criminals to access it.

What future developments do you see in this sector in terms of combating fraud? 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: For me, this is about information and education around data and protecting it, for organizations to do a better job and to recognize that this is really important information that, that these characters, these bad actors will be using, but also to build it in early.

So when I’m talking about is education in schools here, you know, you have, um, PSHE in schools as part of that understanding that data is as important as the key to your front door. You know, these, these kind of conversations, these education pieces that will be inbuilt into our youngsters and they will grow up with that as part of themselves, you know, we don’t necessarily have that inbuilt.

It’s actually inbuilt with us to give away our data. You know, you take something back to a shop and they ask you for your email address and your postcode, and you give it.

THOMAS TARANIUK: You don’t give them away willy nilly, right? 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: Yeah, and it’s not seen as important, it’s not seen as valuable, but my goodness, it is so valuable.

So I think we need to get the information out there, but we need to build it into the national curriculum. This is an important part of protecting yourself. They talk about protecting your bodies. You need to also protect your data as well, particularly when we’re talking about online. Once it’s out there, it can be out there forever.

THOMAS TARANIUK: What are your three top tips for individuals to protect themselves against dating scams and fraud in social media? 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: The first one for me is to make sure that you don’t do it alone. If you’re going to be online dating, have a wing person with you. Now, if you’re dating, you know, in the wild, so to speak, you wouldn’t necessarily have somebody with you, uh, and tell them everything, but actually online, you do need that.

Criminologically speaking, we have something known as a capable guardian and online, this is completely absent. You don’t have somebody physically there with you, which is really Great for a fraudster, but what you can do is build that capable guardian in, as in, somebody who you will tell that you’re dating.

You’re telling somebody that you’re dating online, and you’ll tell them what the other person’s saying to you, and you’ll keep them involved. This really harks to a basic criminological principle. You know, it’s the, it’s the crime triangle. You need to have a motivated offender. So you have this fraudster who wants to take money from people.

You also need to have the absence of a capable guardian. So someone who will step in there. You know, essentially a police officer when you’re trying to mug somebody. You’re not going to do that crime. You’re not going to commit that crime. You need to have a victim in, in order to defraud them as well.

You need to have somebody there and anybody online looking for love is, is a potential victim of this crime. You need to have somebody in that space. So being able to get rid of some of those aspects, you can’t get rid of the motivated offender, you can increase the risk to them by stopping them getting into that space, but you can also educate that, that individual who’s trying to date online.

But most importantly, it’s that capable guardian, that person who can spot it from the outside. And this is one of the reasons why individuals are so harsh against victims of crime and society is so harsh against victims of fraud in particular, well, why didn’t you see it? You should have seen it. That’s because we’re on the outside.

Be that person on the outside. Okay, so that’s a tip for people dating, but also friends, family of people dating. Number two, you need to make sure that you do meet that person. Now, there may be lots of reasons why they can’t meet, but you do need to meet that person. And if If somebody’s going to be asking you for money, it does happen and it might not be direct.

So, whenever you feel like you want to transfer some money, if even if it comes from you, especially if it comes from you and you think, I really want to do this, talk to someone else. First of all, talk to your bank. Talk to your friend and say, hang on, I really think I need to do this. And the third one is actually, if you have been a victim of fraud, it is not your fault.

You must report it. So many people don’t report it. Report it to Action Fraud or if you’re in Scotland, ring 101. It’s really important and also seek help psychologically as well. Go to victim support. These things are really, really important. Don’t hide away. We need to know the true figure of crime and we need to make sure you get your support and that you get, you know, financially you’re back whole again.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining us on “What The Fraud?” today. It’s been great having you. 

DR ELISABETH CARTER: It’s been a pleasure.

THOMAS TARANIUK: Thanks for joining us once again for another episode of “What The Fraud?”. Next time we’ll be looking at fraud in e commerce.

The e commerce market is already huge, but it’s been growing even faster since the pandemic. According to Statista, retail e-commerce sales amounted to 5.2 trillion US dollars worldwide in 2021, and are forecast to grow 56 percent over the next few years, reaching 8.1 trillion dollars by 2026. With the growth of e commerce comes an increase in fraud, and money laundering through internet purchases.

According to the e commerce reports, the industry loss in 2022 was estimated at 41 billion US dollars. These are huge numbers and they appear to be getting bigger. So what can the industry do as a whole to protect themselves and their customers? And what can the individual do to ensure their online transactions are safe and secure?

We’ll be chatting to Adam Sherlock, the Fraud and Payments Manager for international footwear brand Fitflop, to discuss all of this and more.

Thank you once again for joining us on “What The Fraud?”. We’re over halfway through Series 1 and there have already been so many revelations and interesting discussions. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the season has in store for us. And as always, please like comment, follow, and subscribe. Any feedback you give us is incredibly helpful and also makes it easier for other people to find us.

And if you want to hear more about what we do at Sumsub and how your business can benefit from our verification services, definitely check out our website. And subscribe to our socials.