Emotional manipulation is everywhere around us. Every day we’re presented with ads to suggest we buy things, presented with news telling us what to believe, and most of the time we don’t give it a second thought. Romance scams make use of the very same marketing tactics; however, they employ them with the sole intent to defraud and manipulate someone into giving them money.
Romance scam victims are socially engineered to send thousands to “lovers” abroad through emotional manipulation while unknowingly facilitating different types of crime. Some of these crimes include gift card fraud, business email compromise, check fraud, or re-shipping scams, which consist of receiving and sending goods. These unwitting participants become the underlying money networks responsible for billions in fraud, both foreign and domestic. With victims in 90% of the countries in the world, this is far from a US-only problem.
At Cofense, we have a long history of addressing the human aspect of cyber fraud, an element that intimidates many organizations. We understand that there’s a lot more at stake than simple bits and bytes and have seen the benefits of what millions of educated end-users can do to protect a company. We want to give back to the world this Valentine’s Day by creating this three-part series on romance scam recovery. In this series, you will learn how romance scams work, what to look out for, what to do if you’re a victim, and who to reach out to for help...read more
