Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on March 17, 2022
Consumers lost an estimated $5.8 billion to fraud in 2021 due to online scams. The vast majority of these are money remittance scams, where a victim will be coursed into sending a scammer money over the internet. These scams can take many forms and are increasingly becoming harder to detect.
In this article, we’ll be taking a look at some examples of these scams and outlining why they’re becoming more effective. We’ll be touching on:
Let’s get right into it.
The Rise of Big Data
When a user browses the internet, every single click they make is documented, creating a large database of information on the user. Their likes, dislikes, user information, and sometimes even financial information is all stored online.
Due to the availability of data online, scammers are able to find more out about an individual by heavily following their online presence. For example, while a few years ago, a money remittance scam might not have even known the name of an individual, the scammer could now know an extensive amount about the person they’re trying to scam.
With this, the complexity or originality of their scam can be much more advanced. Instead of launching a cookie-cutter scam on a person, a scammer could get all the data needed to then impersonate someone that the victim knows. By claiming they’re a certain relative, distant friend, or acquaintance, the victim is much more likely to reply to their scam emails and give over information or money.
As data becomes a more integral part of our world, the danger it causes to individuals is equally increasing. This has made detecting and monitoring scams even harder, as data farming is allowing them to become increasingly impossible to detect and more convincing than ever.
Advanced Scamming Systems
When older scams come to mind, people mostly think of rather silly scams like ‘Nigerian Prince Scam’. This is where someone pretends to be a wealthy person that doesn’t have access to their bank accounts. If the victim ‘helps them’ by sending them a significant sum of money, the Prince will then give them their money back and more.
While scams like this rarely worked, this is far from the typical hoaxes that a user in 2022 will come across. Instead of launching just email-based scams with little evidence to back up any claims that are made, scammers are becoming more intelligent and employing a diverse toolset.
For example, Zelle, a money transfer app that has millions of customers in the USA, recently experienced a range of scams based on this application platform. As Zelle is used by some of America’s largest banks, users are used to being able to chat to their banking institutions, send, exchange, request, and receive money on these mediums.
However, scammers that were impersonating customer support workers from large banks like Wells Fargo intercepted these messages and then made victims transfer money to their accounts instead of the intended destination. These scams would range from a few $100 to upwards of several thousand at once, demonstrating the extent to which the scammers were profiting.
What’s worse, because this happened over an application instead of an email account, many banks denied helping the users to get their money back. With these advanced tools, scammers defrauded over $18 million in a matter of a few months.
Company Impersonation is Frankly Easier Than Ever
Another reason that money scams are on the rise is that impersonating a company is easier than ever in our current digital climate. When an email arrives in your inbox claiming to be from a business, yet doesn’t use a business email, doesn’t have any attached watermarked photos from the business or any information that would suggest they belong to that business, it’s fairly obvious to realize that they’re not who they say they are.
However, nowadays, you’re able to quickly find out a business’ email address, find photos of certain workers online, and even download business images from Google. Due to this, it’s much easier to construct an email account that looks directly like a real business account.
Hackers are able to leverage the expansion of the internet to quickly and almost effortlessly create very convincing accounts. From there, they’ll be able to attach the account to an email that closely resembles the real business. For example, by substituting ‘0’ for ‘o’ or a capital ‘I’ for a lowercase ‘l’, a scammer can create a very convincing fake email.
Armed with this email and all the necessary names within the business, photos, email closing titles, and more, they’re ready to send a very convincing scam email.
Ease of Transferring Money
The final reason that money remittance scams are becoming more popular and harder to detect is that sending money is now easier than ever. While 10 or 15 years ago it would take a few days to send money to an account, the rise of financial technology has now made this an instant pursuit.
Due to this, a scammer has to fool a user for less time, only needing to get them to send the money by instant transfer before they disappear with the funds. Once they withdraw the stolen money, there is very little that a victim can do to get the money they sent back.
Final Thoughts
Fraud, especially related to money remittance, is becoming a problem that almost everyone has run into at some point or another. Whether you’re getting a fake email contacting you or someone pretending to be a person you know, these scams are getting more advanced every single day.
Be sure that when you’re online, you double- and triple-check any online correspondence you have. Even if it seems like a real business that’s contacting you, it’s always worth getting in touch with the company through other means and verifying the person you’re talking to isn’t, in fact, just out to scam you.
This is a Contributed Article
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