The authors comment that -
Advance fee scams come in many guises. Some regularly seen examples involve:In response, the AIC, Victoria Police and University of Melbourne surveyed a sample of people who had sent money to Nigeria. That sample was identified by Victoria Police personnel using financial intelligence from the Australian Transaction Reports & Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), covering Ipeople living in Victoria who had transferred money to Nigeria using an international funds transfer service during the 12 month period from 1 April 2007 to 31 March 2008. Yes, government does watch money flows• offers to participate in business deals with wealthy individuals;In each case, the motivation behind the deception is to secure a payment from the victim which is paid in the expectation that a substantial benefit will follow. Of course, this fails to eventuate and the victim is left without the anticipated reward and without the funds paid in advance. Effective prevention of, and law enforcement responses to, such crimes are problematic. This form of fraud is often associated with offenders based in West Africa (and in particular Nigeria) but is now geographically widespread. The use of electronic communications makes it extremely difficult to prevent scammers from reaching potential victims, and the ability of the scammers to conduct their operations anonymously from cells in a variety of countries means that few offenders are arrested and prosecuted. ...
• assisting dignitaries by paying fees to move large sums of money out of a foreign country in order to receive a share of the proceeds;
• paying fees in order to receive lottery winnings, an inheritance or some other prize; or
• paying money to develop a personal relationship or marriage with someone met online.
Rather than selecting potential victims on the basis of their observed wealth or ability to pay, such as occurs with corporate fraudsters or burglars, advance fee fraud offenders disseminate millions of invitations randomly in the expectation that a small number will respond and be available for victimisation, sometimes following a convoluted process of trust-building and deception. This process entails offenders understanding the psychology of their intended victims and adapting their strategies accordingly. Victims may continue the fraudulent relationship even after they have lost considerable sums and be unwilling to desist even in the face of clear and compelling evidence that the activity is fraudulent.
Not everyone is at risk of becoming a victim of fraud despite the wide net being cast. Rather, it is the behaviour of the consumer that is important in determining whether or not a person is taken in by a scam (Holtfreter, Reisig & Pratt 2008). Two theoretical approaches have been used to understand how people are victimised. One involves consideration of the behaviours that increase the risk of potential victimisation and the other examines the choices and decision-points of people who are exposed to fraudulent offers.
Victoria Police sent a questionnaire to 1,410 such people in September 2008, with follow-up letters a month later. 202 responses were received (ie a response rate of 14.3%). The surveys were anonymous,. Respondents were invited to participate in follow-up interviews by calling the AIC; three such interviews were conducted. (Disappointingly, "the findings were not included in the current report owing to limitations of space".)
Of the survey respondents, 54.5% were male, with the highest proportions aged 35–44 years (31%), having completed secondary schooling (32%) and having an income of under $20,000 (28%). Of the 202 responses to the survey, 120 (59%) were identified as victims of advance fee fraud. The remaining 41% were non-victims and were mainly people who said they had sent money to family or friends or had made donations to agencies in Nigeria. The authors comment that "this high rate of victimisation is itself an interesting finding and suggests that this approach could be used to identify individuals who should receive advice about the risks involved in transferring funds to high-risk destination countries in the future".
More than a quarter of victims had responded to invitations concerning online transactions, charitable donations and job-related scams, while the remainder were classified as having responded to ‘other’ types of advance fee invitations which included lottery scams. three-quarters of victims had sent money to offenders on more than one occasion and over 40 percent had sent money five or more times. Some respondents either could not remember or were not prepared to say how much they had sent. Of those who did nominate an amount sent, the totals ranged from $100 to $120,000, with a mean of around $12,000. Most of the money came from personal savings: 80 % of victims nominated this as the source of the money they sent but some people took out a personal loan (13%) or borrowed money from family or friends to send (10%). A small proportion of victims (5%) had mortgaged property in order to raise funds to send to the fraudsters.
