In the digital age, our lives have become intertwined with technology, providing us with numerous conveniences and opportunities. However, along with these advancements, we face an increasing threat: scams. Scams have evolved in complexity and reach, exploiting the interconnectedness of our digital world. From phishing emails and identity theft to online investment fraud and romance scams, the methods employed by scammers are diverse and constantly evolving.
On our most recent episode of Inside the Sweeps we have Jorij Abraham from the Global Anti-Scam Alliance speaking about raising awareness, implementing robust security measures through technology, and fostering a culture of vigilance so we can collectively work towards minimizing the impact of scams and creating a safer online environment for everyone.
Alison Bussey
Welcome everyone and thank you for joining us on another episode of our podcast,
Inside the Sweeps, I’m very excited to have our guest Jorij with us today. Can you introduce yourself and tell us about the important work the Global Anti-Scam Association does, and your role as Managing Director of the organization?
Jorij Abraham
Of course. As you said, my name is Jorij Abraham. I run the Global Anti-Scam Alliance short for GASA. We’re non-profit organization, and our mission is to help consumers not get scammed worldwide. And we do that by bringing together policymakers from governments, law enforcement, consumer protection organizations and the cyber security sector to share intelligence on scams, what’s happening in the market, and discuss new ways to fight scammers. That’s basically what we do.
Alison Bussey
The sheer prevalence of scams in the world is a concerning issue. We have become so increasingly interconnected in our lives and scammers always find new avenues to exploit unsuspecting individuals. We see an array of cybercrimes ranging from, you know, very sophisticated cyberattacks to simple confidence tricks. I think the ever-evolving nature of scam seems to make it challenging for individuals and authorities to keep up and combat them. So, what are some of the most common types of online scams that you think people should be aware of?
Jorij Abraham
We also run a website, called scamadviser.com, which is an online algorithm which helps consumers to check if a website is a scam or legit. And there we actually see quite well what kind of scams people are checking or what kind of websites. And we see the three most common types of scams we come across are number one, online shopping. So online stores selling fakes, or not delivering a product at all, or actually delivering a product, but you did not order a stone brick, you ordered a watch or shoes, and you get a brick because then the scammer can tell PayPal or MasterCard “well, I did deliver a product” and it’s just the delay tactic.
Online shopping scams are number one, and then we see investment scams sharply on the rise and also here many different forms from investment companies giving you opportunities to invest in “too good to be true” investments, forex trading scams, cryptocurrency scams, you name it, and it’s there.
And thirdly, I think that’s the most hideous type of scam are romance scams. Romance scams are when a person believes to have met somebody online. There’s a relationship, often romantic, not necessarily. But after three or six months, then the scammer says, “well love, I’d love to fly to you” or “I’m in a hospital and I need money” and then of course, in the end the scammer takes more and more money from the victim, but never ever allows for a physical meeting. Those are the three types of scams we come most across on scamadviser.com.
Alison Bussey
They’re all so different. Like, I mean, they’re all scams, but they’re all so different in their tactics. It feels like we’ve seen a significant evolution of online scams over the years. Technology moves so fast and adapting to advancements in technology and the continually changing digital landscape. As online platforms and social media gained popularity, scams have also expanded their tactics to exploit these channels. How have online scams evolved over the years, and are there new tactics you’re seeing scammers use?
Jorij Abraham
Yes. Scammers are in my view the best marketers ever. They are very innovative. They always know how to use the latest technologies, the latest crisis. We see innovation on three fronts. One is they are using more and more our own data against us. They crawl our Facebook accounts, what we do on Insta, and they use that information against us. They use the names of our friends and families to build trust and they are doing that in a very refined way.
We also see that they’re using more elaborate tricks. We see that investment scammers, for example, they sometimes build completely authentic looking government websites which authorize or certify a forex trading or in a cryptocurrency website and claim that they are legit and certified and authenticated. They use tactics to build trust, which are really, really very, very, very well developed, unfortunately.
And then last but certainly not least is I mean with the rise of artificial intelligence, or machine learning I should say, we see that scammers are now creating fake photos on the fly.
It used to be easy to identify romance scammers because they were using existing photos from the web, and you could just search for those photos. That’s no longer the case. They can create photos of people who never existed, and the same with voices. I mean, we are now getting in cases where people really believe that they’ve been called by their son or daughter or grandmother because it was his or her voice, and what the scammer does is just taking a few snippets of your voice, which you have left somewhere on the social media, and they’re using it to create an artificial voice, which sounds like you.
And of course, we have also the deepfake videos. We are coming across the first deepfake videos, where scammers really use that technology to scam people. It even happened to myself. But that’s maybe for another time to tell that story.
Alison Bussey
We’ll keep that one for a different time. But, when you talk about AI and the voice and the deepfakes, I mean we always hear a lot about people falling victim to online scams, but it seems like it’s becoming easier with this, you know, kind of technology. It’s not just about, you know, people looking for, you know, financial stability, or missing out on something, the typical things people might think that cloud their judgment.
Of course scams can target anyone, but I think we often hear of certain demographics being more susceptible like older adults can often be targeted because they are less familiar with technology. Are there specific demographics or groups that tend to be more susceptible to online scams? Although now it seems like there’s so much happening that it really could be anyone. When you talk about all the AI and deepfakes.
Jorij Abraham
It can happen to everybody. We see it across all age groups, from 5-year-olds to 95-year-olds. We also see it in any kind of education level. Poor people, rich people, well educated, not educated. Anybody gets scammed and there’s no discrimination there.
We do see some shifts. I mean, as you said, I mean it used to be a little bit more elderly people getting scammed and especially losing a lot more money because the elderly people were targeted with investment scams because they have their pensions. Nowadays, in the last 2-3 years, we saw a shift. We see now young people, 18-35 getting scammed more, because they are online more, and they also are a little bit less careful than elderly people.
Anybody can get scammed, but we see currently that young people actually are scammed more than elderly people.
Alison Bussey
I wouldn’t have thought that just because I don’t think that’s what everyone typically thinks. So, with kind of this shift that you’re seeing, what are some red flags that people might be able to use to identify potential scams?
Jorij Abraham
I used to say if it’s “too good to be true”, it is. That rule still applies, but it’s getting hard because scammers are getting better and better and better.
I still recommend people to follow their gut feeling. If it doesn’t feel right, take time. Don’t act immediately. Scammers always are pushing you to act now, do this, I mean this is your last chance, the benefit, the opportunity is going away. Don’t act on that. Take your time to investigate. Check with your family and friends, and even better, check with the authorities. If you have any doubts, don’t give the scammer your money. Take time to investigate.
Also, don’t go for the old rules. I mean, people still contact us with. How could I be scammed the SSL certificate, the small slot you see in some browsers, it was there! The SSL certificate only tells you that the communication between you and the scammer is encrypted. But it doesn’t protect you from a scam. Other companies and consumer protection organizations say check out reviews. Reviews can no longer be trusted. We see that the amount of fake reviews is becoming so high you can no longer rely on reviews alone.
Finally, we see a lot of people checking if the company is registered. That’s also no guarantee. We set up an April Fool’s joke now with the ScamAdviser coin offering a 100% return on investment in 10 days, and we registered the company with Companies House in the UK. We became a registered company in the United Kingdom. We paid £12 which is nothing, and we used as directors the names Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff. Both no longer alive and very well-known scammers. You cannot trust the company registration alone. You have to go for your gut feeling and please always take time to investigate and talk to friends and families.
Alison Bussey
It seems like using your gut and taking your time is two of the biggest things you can do. But there’s also the idea of taking proactive action could also seem crucial when it comes to navigating online risk. Being proactive, individuals could maintain better control over their online security and keep their personal and financial information safe from scammers. What are some preventative measures you can recommend to people from online scams?
Jorij Abraham
In my view, you as a consumer can no longer be expected to recognize all the scams. The scammers are getting too good and using artificial intelligence, nobody can distinguish between, is this my son or is this a fake. And it will only get worse. We need to rely on technology to safeguard us. I of course, advise people to go to scamadviser.com to check if the website is legit or a scam. But very honestly, I like the Netsweeper solution a lot more because that’s on a much lower layer they’re protecting users, because if a website is malicious then Netsweeper already blocks it even before it can hit your browser. That in the end is a much better solution than asking people to check it manually, because scammers are getting too good, and we need to rely on technology to safeguard users.
Alison Bussey
It seems it’s almost like a toolkit. You kind of need multiple layers of protection, it can’t just be like you said, that the end user being responsible for keeping themselves safe. We’ve kind of been talking about how scams impact, I’m going to say like the everyday person or people, but there’s also many challenges faced by legal and law enforcement agencies. The overall global nature of scams, the jurisdictional complexities, the anonymity of perpetrators, I think, plus the sheer pace of the evolution of scamming tactics. So, what are the legal and law enforcement challenges in combatting online scams, and how effective do you see their efforts?
Jorij Abraham
This is a really depressive part. We talk a lot with law enforcement and they’re really good people. But very honestly, our politicians have been asleep since the year 2000 because already in 2000, we saw the economy is going to digitize, oh surprise, crime is also digitizing, and we didn’t do enough there for a very long time. We see that 90 to 95% of all the scams are coming from across the border. Scammers do that on purpose, I mean, very honestly. You’re a stupid scammer if you scam in your own country because that’s where law enforcement can get you. As soon as you are across the border, the chances of getting caught are less than 0.05%, which is nothing. At the moment we are in a situation where it’s very cheap to set up online scams. It’s very lucrative and the chances of getting caught are nearly zero. So, that’s one of the things we at Global Anti-Scam Alliance are trying to improve.
We define 10 recommendations to turn the title scams and are currently working with our partners to turn those recommendations into concrete actions and solutions to better protect consumers. Because with the current legislation and also the current discussions with Russia and China, we’re not going to solve this issue.
Alison Bussey
That did get a little bit sadder there. You mentioned technology being used to aid scammers. You know, they leverage technology to perform activities and they’re able to exploit the global reach of the internet to carry out scams and at scale. But on the other side of the coin, technology can also aid in the detection and prevention of scams and help protect individuals. So, what role do you see technology playing in both facilitating and combatting online scams and are there any tools that can help fight against it?
Jorij Abraham
As I said before, we see that scammers are very innovative, and they always use the latest tactic. One of my experiences with a deepfake was we are always looking for good developers, and I was contacted via LinkedIn by a developer from Serbia. I did a video interview with him, and something was a little bit off, and I asked him to remove his glasses and at that time he broke the connection, never came back. The scam is that he wanted to have an advanced fee for his work. On paper he looked great, but it was a deepfake, and the only way I found out was that his voice was a little bit more Asian while he himself was from Serbia.
We see scammers using the latest tactic, and thank God, we also see that the good guys are developing technologies to recognize these new fakes. But very honestly, it’s an uphill battle and the scammers are currently ahead of us. So, we really need to work together, share data in order to win this war on scams.
Alison Bussey
As you know, over the past two years, we have forged a strong partnership to make a significant impact when it comes to protecting individuals. So, you know, using technology to help them from falling victim and fostering a safer digital environment. Can you tell me how Netsweeper’s expertise and content filtering as well as internet security solutions contributes to the efforts of the Global Anti Scam Association?
Jorij Abraham
Yes, we’re very happy that Netsweeper is using our ScamAdviser data. We scan more than 30,000 new websites every day and we automatically send that data to Netsweeper, and we also get data from law enforcement and brand protection organizations and consumer organizations, and we immediately send it to Netsweeper. So as soon as we know, hey, this website is a scam, 5 minutes later Netsweeper can block it for users. That’s the way we should go because we cannot expect consumers to recognize scams. They need to be protected on a on a lower, more infrastructural level.
Alison Bussey
And it seems like quickly as you’re mentioning, the scammers are innovative and moving quickly and we need to try and keep up with them. So, we’ve kind of come out of COVID-19 pandemic it which you know affected everyone globally. But I think this also might have provided some fertile ground for scammers to exploit this kind of situation. As we were dealing with the pandemic, scammers were able to devise new schemes perhaps, to deceive vulnerable individuals.
As technology advances, so do their strategies and trends employed by scammers. Are there other trends or patterns in online scams that have emerged recently or that you’ve seen since the start of the pandemic and what should someone do if they think they’ve fallen victim to a scam?
Jorij Abraham
I think we already discussed quite a few trends. I mean we see scammers always use the latest tech and also the latest crisis. We’ve seen that with the corona epidemic, we’ve seen it with the Ukraine war. Within one day I had the first scammers claiming to be non-profit organizations, helping people in Ukraine, and it’s the bushfires in Australia, it’s the floods in California. Any crisis within a day you can guarantee they will pick it up.
How you can protect yourself… Use your own brains, stay vigilant continuously, but also use tools like those of Netsweeper and anybody can get scammed. You should never be ashamed of being scammed because it happens to everyone at least once in your lifetime, and if it happens, immediately contact law enforcement. Contact your police, they really are willing to help you. You’re not an exception, so if it happens to you, contact the police and they can help you hopefully get your money back or at least recover from this scam because it can have a massive impact on you.
Alison Bussey
You’ve given me and our audience so much useful information and as we wrap up today, I just want to get any of your closing comments or thoughts that you would like to leave us with, Jorij.
Jorij Abraham
No, I think I shared everything I wanted to share. I really would like to thank you for having me. I enjoyed the podcast and I wish you very much luck with your next one.
Alison Bussey
Thank you so much Jorij, for coming on today. We really appreciate you taking the time.
Jorij Abraham
Thank you very much.
For more resources, check out the following and download the free ScamAdviser Browser Extension: