There is a psychological aspect in the personality of fraud victims, especially those who fall into the trap of naive methods that are not accepted by reason or logic, which is misleading and deceiving the soul, and thwarting all attempts of the mind to reject the temptation, as if the victim is deceiving himself, and not the imposter.
There is no doubt that greed is a common feature in most of the victims of the scam, so they are an easy prey for fraudsters who play on this chord, by luring the target person with imaginary gains and quick opportunities to get rich. But apart from greed, there are cases and issues in which the fraudster almost gets tired of the victim’s naivety.
Among the cases that deserve contemplation is a person with a great deal of culture and awareness, who saw a promotional advertisement on a social network for famous shoes that are sold for almost half of their price, and following much hesitation he made a fatal mistake and recorded his bank card data with the intention of buying a number of them, and later realized that he had fallen into the trap. His credit card data was stolen and a large amount was withdrawn from it before he froze it.
When I asked him why he made this naive mistake despite his knowledge of such fraudulent methods, he told me something strange that is the subject of this article.
He reported that a voice inside him warned him several times, but he resisted the voice of reason and blamed himself harshly for being manipulated and not as a result of his financial loss, depicting what happened as someone who defrauded himself, not believing that he brought his card and recorded its data on a suspicious site despite all his experiences.
In the past, fraudsters had a relatively difficult time communicating with their victims, but in light of the communications revolution and the dominance of social media, the criminal and his victim have become in the same boat. Rather, these networks provided complete information to the fraudster regarding his victim, so he studies him well and monitors his activities, thoughts and behaviors, and then chooses the appropriate entrance for him. .
Just like what happened with a man whose case was finally heard, a woman lured him in a naive manner, convincing him that she had a wealth of gold and wanted to clear it through customs, and she only needed 50 thousand dirhams.
After hesitation, he suppressed the voice of reason as well and paid her the amount, but the amazing thing is that he did not stop at this stage, but rather continued to transfer money to her, and made payments in cash, until the total amounts he paid reached regarding 200 thousand dirhams, without answering a question raised inside him every time. He: “When will I stop deceiving myself?”
The majority of fraud victims blame themselves following falling into the trap. Rather, quite a few of them refrain from reporting to the police because they feel embarrassed to explain what happened, and I remember that one of them was slapping and describing himself as stupid and other descriptions that are not appropriate to mention, because he resisted from the beginning a voice that warned him of the consequences. He is paying for it now following losing all his savings.
Law enforcement agencies in the UAE and modern legislation provide full protection from these criminals, but who protects us from ourselves?!
Arbitrator and legal advisor