A handsome soldier with a ‘medical bill’: how romance scammers make you fall in love with them

Maria Exposto, a Sydney grandmother who fell victim to a romance scam and became an unwitting drug mule, couldn’t have known what was before her when she left Australia to sign documents for her fiancé so he could retire and marry her.

At 50-years-old, Exposto had fallen for a widowed special forces soldier doing his bit for his country.

They have never met, which was easily explained – he was deployed in Afghanistan. She described being “blindly in love” with a man who wooed her online, serenading her with love songs and long, deep conversations.

Exposto recently walked free after facing a death sentence in Malaysia for attempting to smuggle a kilogram of ice five years ago. Since she was caught, she has maintained she was a victim of a romance scam.

Read more: From catfish to romance fraud, how to avoid getting caught in any online scam

Sadly, Exposto’s story is not unique. Like Exposto, victims of romance scams tend to be between 45 to 54-years-old, impulsive, respond to elaborate stories and are well-educated.

Romance scammers prey on people to build a relationship and defraud their victims. They are clever, well organised and have a number of tried techniques that make them highly successful.

The extreme emotional ties formed can make victims easy to manipulate and leave them vulnerable to knowingly or unknowingly engaging in criminal activity.

More than 10 million Australians are exposed to at least one personal fraud scam each year.

And with more than 3.5 million Australians using Tinder alone, the opportunities for romance scammers is growing rapidly. In fact, online dating fraud rose by 150% in a year from 2011, with criminals recognising the opportunities to exploit those looking for a partner.

Scammers are in for the long haul

In Exposto’s case, the “relationship” had been ongoing for more than a year. This is not surprising, as romance scammers are in for the long haul and see the process as a long term investment to establish intimacy and trust. They often use teams of people to “hook” and “woo” the victim.

Scammers typically fake profiles with stolen photographs, often mimicking army officers, and frequently create a story of tragic or desperate circumstances. Armed force identities are common, as it easily explains their inability to meet in person.

It’s this willingness of the scammer to engage in a prolonged, sustained interaction that creates the belief the relationship is “real” and leading to something more permanent.

Eventually, the scammer has ensnared a person who has heavily invested in the relationship, has a strong emotional attachment and has been groomed to believe they “know and understand” their partner.

After the bond is established, scammers frequently request money to pay fictitious medical bills, help partners out of dangerous situations or pay for tickets.

Money mules

In some cases, victims can become involved in illegal activities including money laundering and bank fraud, and are at risk of being charged. These types of victims are often referred to as “money mules”.

Read more: How to get away with fraud: the successful techniques of scamming

And “mule recruitment” is when the scammer attempts to get a person to receive stolen funds and then transfer those funds to criminals overseas.

Many victims of fraud related crimes can also suffer their own financial loss, on top of facing the sudden loss of, what was to them, an important and significant intimate relationship – a “double hit”.

Victims have described the loss of the relationship as more devastating than their financial loss.

Shame and humiliation

Their experience is more psychologically damaging than other types of fraud, and is often compounded by a total lack of understanding from family and friends.

Some victims remain in denial and are unable to accept the scam or separate the fake identity with a criminal. Some realise they’ve exposed themselves or performed sexual acts online, and feel humiliated and violated. They report feeling depressed, and even suicidal.

Read more: More than just money: getting caught in a romance scam could cost you your life

And victims have said they lost trust in others, severed social ties, and suffered a lower sense of self-worth and confidence.

This social withdrawal and isolation can make victims vulnerable to a second wave of the scam, believing their online partners excuses or explanations that they really are “real”.

But victims don’t often receive social support, reporting that family, friends and colleagues thought they were stupid, or were angry with them because of the financial loss, such as losing inheritance.

Many victims keep their experience a secret or don’t disclose the entire story for fear of these types of reactions.

How can you avoid being duped?

There are ways you can avoid being scammed by a one-sided romance.

Read and take heed of the instructions on dating websites. Most have clear guidelines of how to avoid online fraud, such as being suspicious about early declarations of love, requesting or receiving money.

It’s also a good idea to use their photos to do some sleuthing online, and see what information pops up when you do a reverse image search on Google. Look for any inconsistencies, see if what they’ve told you about themselves adds up.

Read more: Why we need to do more for the victims of online fraud and scams

You can also run their email address through RomanceScams.org which lists names of known scammers.

And if you become aware a friend or family member has been victimised, remember it’s a time to provide support and understanding to break the isolation, allowing the victim to grieve over the lost relationship, rebuild their self-esteem, and try again.

Natalie Gately, Criminology Courses Coordinator, Edith Cowan University and James McCue, Lecturer in Psychology and Criminology, Edith Cowan University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) today announced it is suing Google for misleading consumers about its collection and use of personal location data.

The case is the consumer watchdog’s first move against a major digital platform following the publication of the Digital Platforms Inquiry Final Report in July.

The ACCC follows regulators in countries including the US and Germany in taking action against the way “tech giants” such as Google and Facebook harvest and exploit their users’ data.

What did Google do?

ACCC Chair Rod Sims said Google “collected, kept and used highly sensitive and valuable personal information about consumers’ location without them making an informed choice”.

The ACCC alleges that Google breached the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) by misleading its users in the course of 2017 and 2018, including by:

• not properly disclosing that two different settings needed to be switched off if consumers did not want Google to collect, keep and use their location data

• not disclosing on those pages that personal location data could be used for a number of purposes unrelated to the consumer’s use of Google services.

Some of the alleged breaches can carry penalties of up to A$10 million or 10% of annual turnover.

A spokesperson for Google is reported to have said the company is reviewing the allegations and engaging with the ACCC.

Turning off “Location History” did not turn off location history

According to the ACCC, Google’s account settings on Android phones and tablets would have led consumers to think changing a setting on the “Location History” page would stop Google from collecting, keeping and using their location data.

The ACCC says Google failed to make clear to consumers that they would actually need to change their choices on a separate setting titled “Web & App Activity” to prevent this location tracking.

Location data is used for much more than Google Maps

Google collects and uses consumers’ personal location data for purposes other than providing Google services to consumers. For example, Google uses location data to work out demographic information, target advertising, and offer advertising services to other businesses.

Digital platforms increasingly track consumers online and offline to create highly detailed personal profiles on each of us. These profiles are then used to sell advertising services. These data practices create risks of criminal data breaches, discrimination, exclusion and manipulation.

Read more: Here’s how tech giants profit from invading our privacy, and how we can start taking it back

Concealed data practices under fire around the world

The ACCC joins a number of other regulators and consumer organisations taking aim at the concealed data practices of the “tech giants”.

This year, the Norwegian Consumer Council published a report – Deceived by Design – which analysed a sample of Google, Facebook and Microsoft Windows privacy settings. The conclusion: “service providers employ numerous tactics in order to nudge or push consumers toward sharing as much data as possible”.

The report said some aspects of privacy policies can be seen as “dark patterns”, or “features of interface design crafted to trick users into doing things that they might not want to do”.

In Canada, an investigation into how Facebook gets consent for certain data practices by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada was highly critical.

It found that the relevant data use policy “contained blanket statements referencing potential disclosures of a broad range of personal information, to a broad range of individuals or organisations, for a broad range of purposes”. The result was that Facebook users “had no way of truly knowing what personal information would be disclosed to which app and for what purposes”.

Is Facebook next?

The ACCC was highly critical of the data practices of a number of large digital platforms when the Final Report of the Digital Platforms Inquiry was published in July this year. The platforms included included Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and Google.

The report was particularly scathing about privacy policies which were long, complex, difficult to navigate and low on real choices for consumers. In its words, certain common features of digital platforms’ consent processes

leverage digital platforms’ bargaining power and deepen information asymmetries, preventing consumers from providing meaningful consents to digital platforms’ collection, use and disclosure of their user data.

The report also stated the ACCC was investigating whether various representations by Google and Facebook respectively would “raise issues under the ACL”.

The investigations concerning Facebook related to representations concerning its sharing of user data with third parties and potential unfair contract terms. So far no proceedings against Facebook have been announced.

Read more: 94% of Australians do not read all privacy policies that apply to them – and that’s rational behaviour

Will this change anything?

While penalties of up to A$10 million or 10% of annual turnover (in Australia) may sound significant, last year Google made US$116 billion in advertising revenue globally.

In July, the US Federal Trade Commission settled with Facebook on a US$5 billion fine for repeatedly misleading users about the fact that personal information could be accessed by third-party apps without the user’s consent, if a user’s Facebook “friend” gave consent. Facebook’s share price went up after the FTC approved the settlement.

But this does not mean the ACCC’s proceedings against Google are a pointless exercise. Aside from the impact on Google’s reputation, these proceedings may highlight for consumers the difference between platforms which have incentives to hide data practices from consumers and other platforms – like the search engine DuckDuckGo – which offer privacy-respecting alternatives.

Katharine Kemp, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, UNSW, and Co-Leader, ‘Data as a Source of Market Power’ Research Stream of The Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation, UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.