Understanding the Volume of Modern Scams
Image by Kenny Eliason
To remain safe when using technology today, it is a generally good idea to always be sceptical, suspicious and remain alert to danger when interacting online or over the phone. But why can we never let our guard down? Unfortunately, the extraordinary number of criminal scammers trying to get money out of everyday people is not an exaggeration.
Scams and acts of fraud have been around since the beginning of society! However, before the invention of the telephone, generally a scammer would have to interact face-to-face with their intended victims. The requirement of an in-person interaction made scamming someone difficult as the scammer would have to go to a lot of effort to disguise their true intentions and put themselves in immediate danger if they were uncovered.
With the invention of the telephone, the internet, emails and text messages, the act of scamming someone has become monumentally easier and less risky for criminals and much harder to detect for their intended victims. Before modern communication technology, a normal person would have only been at risk of being scammed if they happened to meet a scammer face-to-face. Now, by being connected to the internet, you are being exposed to scammers from around the world 24/7!
The sheer volume of scam operations globally can be difficult to believe. Scammers are no longer just shady individuals in dangerous parts of a city; they can be large organisations relying on advanced operations and technology that can reach all over the world. Large scale scam operators usually work from developing countries where the cost of living is low and many workers can be employed for a low fee. Countries where scam operators are based might have less effective law enforcement agencies and no extradition arrangements with other countries. This means that large-scale scammers can operate with relative safety from legal consequences if they target their victims in countries other than their own.
Even though scams often originate from foreign countries, don’t assume that you’ll be able to spot a scam call just from the country code on an incoming phone number! Scammers can have access to technology which allows them to “spoof” a phone number, or even an email address, to make it appear like it is coming from somewhere else. If you get a call which looks like it is coming from an Australian mobile number, this could still be falsified! Scammers will go to great lengths to make it look like they are contacting you from an official source (such as your bank or the tax office). Even if a phone number or emails looks like it has come from an official government agency, this can be faked!
Large scam operators might employ hundreds of people, but often they will have automated processes so that they can target millions of potential victims in a short period of time. A common set-up is for a scam operator is to send an automated voice recording/text message/email to a huge number of potential contacts chosen at random. If anyone responds to this message, they will be put through to a human employee who will then complete the scam. As sending these automated messages is very cheap, even if only one person in a thousand messages and does get scammed, it is worth it to the scam operator.
The enormous volume of scam messages, both being sent automatically and manually, means that it can be very difficult for phone/internet companies and government agencies to block. Unfortunately, with the invention of Artificial Intelligence (AI) generative technology, scamming will probably only get worse and harder to respond to in the future. AI technology allows anyone to quickly generate artificial text, imagery, voice and video which cannot be distinguished from the work of real humans! This could make scams using AI technology very difficult to detect, making scammers extremely dangerous.
There are many helpful tips that different organisations provide on how to protect yourself from scammers – we would recommend checking out the Australian Government’s Be Connected website for a start. But in conclusion to this article, rather than give specific tips on how to spot scams, we instead want to present you an imaginative exercise to help give you the right mindset to stay safe when using modern technology:
When approaching interactions online or over the phone, try to imagine that each new message you get is actually a stranger turning up at your house and asking to be let in! If a random person turned up at your house and said they worked for a government agency, would you let them in without getting some proper identification from them first? We should treat access to our virtual lives exactly the same way we treat physical access to our property – keep all access under lock and key! Only those people who you absolutely trust should be allowed access.
The difference between securing our physical property and our virtual properties is that there are far many more crooks constantly trying to get access to our virtual lives. The good thing is that our smartphones and email managers have many easy options available to kick out trespassers we don’t trust. Simply hang-up on a call, block a message or delete an email you aren’t 100% sure about – you have the power to control access to your virtual life.