Experiences of Fake Charities in Australia - Assignment Example

Tutorial paper Student Name Institution Types of scam from SCAMWATCH Dating and romance Fraudsters have nowadays taken advantage of individuals who are looking for love partners (ACCC, 2017). There have been some dating sites which are increasing in today’s world. With the use of these websites, the social media as well as downloaded applications, other people have been pretending to be faithful companions only to turn to being scammers. These frauds are also known as catfishing (Biegelman, 2013). Scammers usually create online profiles that are mostly faked. They make use of false identities and fictional names which will lure their victims in to them. They may pretend to be in Australia or working in an overseas country and have a promising future (Ruyter, 2011). They start by befriending their victims only to later express strong emotions towards their victim. This usually takes place in a short period of time for the victims to realize. According to (ACCC (2017), they may choose to take the communication away from the website to a private channel such as the email or using the phone. They shower their victims with strong love words and even pretend to share their personal as well as private information for their victims to do the same. After gaining the victim’s trust as well as interest, they promise for visits which never materialize. After sometime they will pretend to be in need of money for emergency such as illness which can be very costly. They may also pretend there are some business issues that require some amount of money (Ruyter, 2011). The victim may send the money with an assurance of getting the money back after sometime which turns out to be fraud. The scammer can also pretend that he/she wants to visit you but is out of money. After the victim sending the money this becomes the end of the conversation or even continues with more and more tricks. A real life experience regards Georgina, a lady who was introduced to Facebook by her children. She was new to the social media platform which she found good and interesting. After sometime, Georgina received a friend request from a man who claimed to be a service man in Afghanistan (ACCC, 2017). His name was Jim who later claimed to have lost her wife to cancer. Their friendship grew very well in the social media platform and they started sharing information through email. After sometime, Jim started demanding for money from Georgina giving different reasons ranging from taxes for gemstone exporting, to Visa processing until Georgina was completely depleted all the money she had. She started with 15, 000 $ only to realize after a few months she had sent more than 100, 000$ altogether (ACCC, 2017). This is a very good example of Dating and romance type of scam where innocent individuals are scammed their belongings with the name of love. There are many victims like Georgina who end up being scammed using different dating websites as well as social media platforms. Jobs and investments Job and investment scammers come in several avenues and manners. They are those who trick their victims with high paying jobs which require very small efforts. They demand money from their clients with a promise to show them a guaranteed channel of making a lot of money. They advertise these jobs through the internet for qualified individuals to apply (Griffith & Griffith, 2010). After receiving the applications, the applicants are supposed to pay a fee or given a job where after doing the work they fail to pay and come up with some excuses such as the work was not of the required quality or standard (ACCC, 2017). Others will demand some payments to a foreign company and they demand for bank details of the applicant only to fraud them finally. This type of scam can also be done using pyramid schemes. These are usually illegal schemes and they end up costing the victim some money. In most cases these schemes usually recruit members using seminars, meetings or sending messages and also the social media (ACCC, 2017). The recruited members attract others by telling them on the scheme. Most of them claim to provide loans at a low interest or even help individuals in starting profitable businesses. The new members are demanded to contribute some money which is usually scammed by the pyramid. Black, (n.d.) argues that other pyramids use promoters to sell their pyramid by disguising their real motives. In Australia as many countries of the world it is against the law to participate and promote a pyramid scheme. Others in this type come as investment schemes. They get their victims involved in parting with some money with a promise of a financial opportunity. According to Ruyter, (2013) the fraudsters here can pretend to be stock brokers who promise to sell some stock or shares to their victims only to scam their money. Others will use betting and sports investment schemes (Bitenc, 2016). These ones convince their victims to invest in software as well as foolproof systems that guarantee them a gain on activities that involve sports. They usually come as gambling hidden as investments which are legitimate. A true life experience was seen in Australia on January 17th when two men were arrested at Melbourne airport trying to bring in some gadgets in a tennis competition (McKenzie and Baker 2017). The gadgets were programmed in such a way that gamblers would be in a position to know the winner before the results are released making them win huge amounts of money. McKenzie and Baker (2017) says from the interview of the gentlemen, they were in Australia for a court siding operation that would make scammers in and out of Australia know the winner before the results are announced and therefore place a bet in favor of the player who would win. The court siding operation is basically illegal in tennis therefore making the action a scam. The two men who were arrested in Australia were suspected to be linked to some European countries with intentions of crime (McKenzie and Baker 2017). The fact that these fraudsters were not allowed getting to the pitch means the fraud didn’t take place at that time but it is something that happens meaning it is fraud. Unexpected money Fraudsters nowadays have come up with reasons that seem legitimate and very convincing. They give people hope concerning money offers which are very attractive. These may include inheritance scams where the scammers can pose like lawyers or even bankers who come with false promises of an inheritance trick (Griffith & Griffith 2010). They trick you that someone who can be a wealthy distant relative has died without leaving a will and after a lengthy legal process his fortune can be yours. After being tricked you can part with some cash or credit card details where the fraudsters will access your money. A real life example is the case of a letter written by a law firm claiming to be based in Europe and that their client had deposits amounting to twenty two million $ (ACCC, 2017). The letter demands the receiver to contact the law firm for arrangements regarding the succession urgently. If the receiver of such a letter will be gullible, he/she can part with some cash due to the attractiveness of the offer only to realize later after the scam. Unexpected money can also come inform of up-front payment and advance fee frauds. This is where a scammer convinces a person to send some money using the different money transfer services for him/her to receive a prize or a reward in return (ACCC, 2017). They may be lottery scams or unexpected prize where a scammer tells somebody that he has won a prize or a kind of competition but required to send a fee for him to receive it. The scammers will tell the involved individual that the fee may be for taxes or insurance, courier charges or bank fees. After receiving the cash the fraudster will not be responding to calls or emails from the involved. It can also take a form of rental scam where the fraudster will advertise attractive rental premises online and after the payment of a booking fee the services are not delivered. On line communication services, phones as well as social media platforms have been used very much by these scammers nowadays. It is also clear that women and girls have recorded more fraud cases than men. Still in the unexpected money, fraudsters will also use attempts for them to gain personal information from somebody. With the information they can be in a position to access the bank accounts of the person from whom the money is being collected from and withdraw money illegally. Individuals are supposed to maintain their personal information as secrets and should not be disclosed to other people to prevent fraud. Areal life experience for this is a woman who provided her credit card number when a scammer told her that he has worn a vehicle from japan and it was in the process of being delivered and the money she hand in her bank accounts were obtained. This can also take the form of a Nigerian scam where scammers offer large sums of money if you can help them transfer it from their country. Fake charities Some fraudsters will impersonate as genuine charity beneficiaries who later ask for donations or get in touch with the victim to collect money illegally. Fake charities are basically individuals who take advantage of their victims’ generosity as well as compassion for other people needs. By so doing they receive money as real charity (ACCC, 2017). They are well known for diverting the much needed donations away from the real beneficiaries as well as their causes together with costing their victims a lot of money. Fake charity scammers take the form of an agent or even a response to emergencies or real disasters which include earthquakes, floods, bushfires and cyclones (Bitenc, 2016). Many of them will create their own unique name which is likely to attract many individuals who have compassion and generosity. These also include charities that are concerned with support of certain diseases or even conducting some kind of research (ACCC, 2017). A lot of money ends up being scammed by these fraudsters who even claim to help disadvantaged families as well as children. These charities approach their victims in a number of ways. Some usually move door to door collecting cash from households. Others design their own websites which are fake and aimed at getting money from compassionate individuals (ACCC, 2017). The social media has also been on the rise in conning people using this type of scam. This type also uses identity theft to fraud their victims. This is where individuals impersonate to be needy and vulnerable with the use of other people’s identity. In this some will use phishing where they trick victims into giving their personal information (Biegelman, 2013). They also hack or tamper with security of electrical communication gadgets to get the information they require. Some may also install malware on their victim’s computers which enables information to be leaked or even use remote access scams. Real life experiences of fake charities have been increasing in Australia as in other countries of the world. In January 2015, Jane Garret the minister for consumer affairs said that there have been many imposters on the same. Individuals and companies tend to pretend they are Buddhist monks as they ask money from individuals pretending to be charities (Garret, 2015). They use the tricks of spiritual guidance and give trinkets to individuals with the motive of stealing from them. According to Ms Garrett, these scammers are targeting individuals in Melbourne and mostly tourists. She made the public aware that these individuals are not registered as charity and their motive is to fraud generous and compassionate people. References Australian competition and consumer commission, (2017, March). Scam watch, Types of scams, retrieved from https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/types-of-scams Biegelman, M. T. (2013). Faces of fraud: cases and lessons from a life fighting fraudsters. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Bitenc, M. (2016). Financial Investment Frauds: Victimological View, Journal of Criminal Justice and Security, 3, ISSN 2232-2981 (on-line) Black, W. K. (n.d.). Control Frauds as Financial Super-Predators: How 'Pathogens' Make Financial Markets Inefficient. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1590400 Garret, J. (2015 9th January). Buddhist monk scam: Victorians warned against donating to 'shameless' fake charities, ABC news, retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/ Griffith, S., & Griffith, S. (2010). Your gap year: everything you need for an adventure of a lifetime. Richmond: Crimson Publishing McKenzie, N. and Baker, R. (2017, January 29). Australian Open: How betting scammers Targeted Melbourne's grand slam, The Sydney Morning Herald, Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/national/australian-open-how-betting-scammers- Ruyter, D. (2011). Memoirs of a dating dad. Place of publication not identified: Lulu Com. Read More