On Thursday the Goa Police received two complaints -- one from a city doctor who claimed she was defrauded by unknown scammers from the internet, who duped her to the tune of around Rs 90 lakh with the promise of large returns on her investment, and another from a jeweller who lost Rs 2.5 crore through a fake trading app that similarly promised similarly large returns to him if he were to invest via the app in the market, cryptocurrency, etc.
It would be easy to laugh at these incidents and blame the same on the foolhardiness of the concerned individuals in falling for what might appear to most to be an obvious scam. However, in doing so we would be brushing aside and failing to recognise the danger that these scammers and the inability of law enforcement and investigative agencies to crack down on them poses to society at large and how vulnerable each of us can be especially in the absence of adequate education to scent out a scam.
That educated individuals like doctors and financially wise individuals like jewellers can fall for scams reveals that it is not really only the gullible that are susceptible to scams and instead with modern techniques, including new understanding of how the human mind works, scammers are casting a wide net and in the process ensuring that they are catching at least some fish each time they cast the net.
Recently, a new form of scamming known as pig-butchering, which is a highly modified version of the good old confidence man -- in which a scammer studies all about his potential victim and often coaxes and coerces a potential victim for months on end even inducing the potential victim to fall in love with him/her before convincing the victim to part with his/her life savings -- not unlike how a butcher butchers a pig part by part, until there is nothing left of the carcass of the pig.
It would also be easy to blame the police for lack of enforcement and their inability to track down the culprits for allowing these scams to fester. However, what we need to understand is that more often than not, these scammers are often based out of the country, are employees working as part of a scamming agency and are well versed in masking their true identity, their location and even the bank accounts to which the money is transferred.
Transactions are often conducted via an app with the consent and authorisation of the owners thus leaving the banks with little option when it comes to reversing transactions.
All this put together means that we are all on our own when it comes to watching out for these scams and signs to look out for when to spot them. Besides the regular advisories put out by banks, the RBI, SEBI not to transact via accounts belonging to unregistered brokers, apps on the internet that are not registered with SEBI and not to share OTP with other dubious entities there are many other things we can do to protect against such scammers.
One sure fire red flag is when a random person from the internet, no matter how long you have known him/her for, asks you for money or recommends you a financial scheme or investment option that promises huge returns claiming that they have done so themselves. Real people, if they indeed know of a way to make money real quick, will definitely keep the idea to themselves and not go about sharing it, especially to people they have not met in real life.
The other thing to keep in mind is that if anyone offering you the next best investment option wants you to hurry your decision -- this is true even in case of transactions with real people especially in the second hand market -- he has an ulterior motive.
Other signs to watch out for include unsolicited contact, requests for personal information including sensitive information like date of birth, PAN details, personal address, etc which can then be used for fraudulent transactions and efforts by a potential scammer to isolate you from discussing this scheme with family members, friends etc who might be able to sniff out the scam quicker.
Remember being alert is the only way to save yourself.
