Season 4, Episode 5: Romance fraud – who is responsible for protecting the public?

Transcript

Stella Tsantekidou 

Hello, this is Stella Tsantekidou, Head of Policy at Catch22, and this is the Catch22 podcast Policy series.  

Romance fraud in the UK has seen a significant increase in recent years. According to Lloyd’s Bank, there was a 30% increase in romance scam reports last year. The average amount lost by each victim was over £8000, and men now make up the majority of reported cases, particularly those aged between 65 and 74 who are most likely to be tricked.  

Barclays Bank also reported the surge in romance scams, noting that people aged 51 to 60 are the most susceptible, accounting for over a third of all money lost to these scams. Despite over half of the younger age group, 21 to 30 years, being confident they would not be a victim, they are actually twice as likely to fall victim compared to those aged 51 to 60. Barclays emphasises the emotional impact these scams have on victims, beyond the financial losses.  

There is a plethora of evidence online about the red flags to look out for when dating, such as profile inconsistencies, quick replies, and unusual requests for money. So social media is still a key attack vector for these scams. And scammers increasingly use all sorts of apps, not just Tinder or Hinge, but also Google Hangouts, as well as online games, to reach victims who aren’t even actively looking for a relationship.  

So these findings show us that romance fraud is evolving, and it is increasing in sophistication as well as the broad range of people who are falling victim to these frauds. At Catch22, we are seeing an increasing number of people coming to our services with romance fraud cases, and we see that often they have very few options to find justice as these crimes mostly take place online. So this is a very important policy issue that has not yet been looked into.  

With me to discuss the rise in romance fraud is Elizabeth Carter. Lis, would you like to introduce yourself and tell us a bit about what you do, and what got you interested in romance fraud? 

Dr Elisabeth Carter 

Yes, indeed. Thanks, Stella. I’m Dr Elisabeth Carter. I’m a Criminologist and a Forensic Linguist, and I’m based at Kingston University in London. And what I do is I analyse the interactions between fraudsters and victims. So, I look at the text messages, the emails, the WhatsApp’s, any communications that they have, telephone conversations and so on. And I analyse these using forensic, linguistic, and criminological techniques such as critical discourse analysis.  

And what my research has shown is that the language is very clever and it’s very subtle to manipulate victims of this crime and the language in frauds is very similar to the language used in domestic abuse and coercive control. And this is absolutely key to try and understand how people can become victim of this crime and also know the compassion that victims need when they have reported they’ve been a victim.  

In terms of where I came from, like most people in the fraud space, I come from a variety of backgrounds and I’m a linguist by trade and I moved into criminology fairly on in my Master’s degree, and I ended up looking at police interviews using these interactional techniques. And I quickly realised that fraud is the place to be when you’re trying to understand how can these criminals be so effective. And to make people do things that they know is outside of their psychological and financial well-being. But in the time, in that moment, it feels right. 

Stella Tsantekidou 

So, you’re a linguist that’s very interesting and how did you go from being a linguist to … how do you find out that this is something that’s very important and that language can perhaps help with finding solutions to tackling fraud? 

Dr Elisabeth Carter 

Yes, I started off in linguistics and psycholinguistics and then I started studying how language can be used, particularly in cases of brain injuries. How it can be used in rehabilitation, but also how it can be damaged but with different types of brain injuries.  

And moving into criminology for my Master’s degree I was very interested in the language in police interviews and how language can be used by police officers, and also by suspects, for their respective roles. So, police officers obviously trying to get the truth, get information from that suspect, and suspects needing to present a very truthful facade, even if they’re guilty of the offence or not, they’re trying to make their way through a very high stakes environment. And I found they used all sorts of different techniques and one of them was laughter. And I thought, wow, laughter is something you wouldn’t normally find in a very constrained, high stakes situation. It’s conversational.  

And I made lots of strategy changes around policing and then I started becoming more and more aware of fraud and thinking, well actually, it’s being used here for a very disturbing way. And it’s being used to make people part with their money and personal details and leaves them psychologically harmed and financially bereft as well. And I thought, well, I have these skills, I have these techniques, I want to use them where it can be best, have best use, and have some kind of impact either to try and prevent people from becoming victim of fraud, but also to help victims that have been in that situation to understand that it’s not their fault and they have been groomed. And I’m in a really lucky position that my research has been able to be used in policy and practise across the entire counter-fraud sphere, and it’s a great source of personal pride to me that individual victims have had a better experience because of the research. 

Stella Tsantekidou 

This is very interesting and I’m sure you have a lot to teach us about public messaging as well later on in the conversation. But first a very general question, just to set the basis, how would you define romance fraud? 

Dr Elisabeth Carter 

Romance fraud is when an individual believes that they’re in a legitimate, real, romantic relationship with someone, but in fact the person that they believe they’re in a relationship with is actually only in that interaction in order to try and take their money or personal details, or both. 

Stella Tsantekidou 

And it looks like romance fraud is rising. Is it actually rising? Is there data that proves that this is rising, that it didn’t used to be as much of a problem? And do you have an idea of what could be behind this changing, this rise in romance fraud cases? 

Dr Elisabeth Carter 

Yes, it is rising and there’s a number of reasons for it and also a few caveats, I’m always full of caveats when we talk about data, and the reason for that is that a rise in reporting doesn’t necessarily equate to a rise in number of crimes. What we do have is a chronically under-reported crime when we’re talking about fraud. Current estimates say it’s only around 15% of victims ever report they’ve been a victim of fraud to the authorities, which is Action Fraud if you’re in the UK, but also if you’re in Scotland specifically, you need to dial 101 for that to report fraud. And such a low proportion of victims of this crime ever report it.  

So it might be that more people are reporting the crime, and I believe that’s the case in the rise in reports in terms of the younger age brackets, they’re becoming happier to report these types of crimes. The reason behind the lack of reporting is usually shame or not knowing where to report the crimes, and a lot of my research centres around trying to drive down that shame and particularly in wider society that you know, ‘how could you fall for it’ narrative, I’m trying to get stamped out for good. And linking fraud to domestic abuse and coercive control is a really key part of that because we have that innate sympathy and empathy with victims of those most fastidious of crimes. But yet we don’t with fraud, and I’m trying to make that link quite strongly through my work.  

But having said that, I do believe that romance fraud is rising, and a key component of that is COVID-19, where a lot of people, most people, made that move online in order to communicate and socialise and develop relationships, more so than ever before. And also, you find more criminals in the online arena as well to try and defraud this larger number of individuals who are in that space and perhaps haven’t been there before. So, it’s two things really. Yeah. 

Stella Tsantekidou 

So, would you say that the tactics are changing, the tactics that the romance fraudsters are using are changing? As well, and what are these tactics? 

Dr Elisabeth Carter 

The tactics themselves largely remain consistent, although they change slightly in relation to wider context. One of the key things that romance fraudsters do, and any fraudsters actually do, is link what they’re saying to context.  

So, during COVID, for example, when everyone was in lockdown, and you couldn’t leave your house, there were a lot of shopping delivery frauds, for example, because it made sense given the context. Disinfectant services of driveways and things like that, and then later on vaccination frauds as well. And with romance frauds, these criminals would use excuses such as, you know; I’m in the NHS, I’m a nurse, I’m a doctor, I need supplies, I’m away from my friends, I can’t socialise with anyone because I’m in the hospital every day. And they’d use those kinds of tactics to try and explain why they couldn’t meet, why they couldn’t video call. So, it’s usually very similar tactics across all types of romance fraud, no matter if they’re female or male perpetrators, but with a slight twist given that context. 

And, what unites all of them are some main areas. One of them is isolation, really important to isolate victims from asking advice or opinions from people around them, because it’s a bubble of coercion and people on the inside don’t know what’s happening, people on the outside can see it quite easily. Which feeds into that false narrative that victims of fraud can see it, but don’t do anything about it – you can’t really see it once you’re in a grooming relationship.  

And another one is getting somebody to respond quickly in a so-called hot state, so they feel compelled and worried, and they need to act urgently. And that stops individuals from taking that time to think through, look at evidence, maybe look up online, you know, names of the person in the profile, or do we reverse image search, and those things that we tell people to do.  

And finally, they draw on this innate characteristic of all good humans, which is sympathy and empathy. And they say they’re in certain situations which will draw a protective response from the victim. And this can start really early in the relationship before money is even mentioned. For example, you know, saying ‘oh I’ve been scammed before, I’m really worried about dating online.’ This is the fraudster saying this, that they’re worried about being defrauded online, and then immediately that puts the victim, the person they’re speaking to, into a position where they feel like they have to be really gentle with the person they’re interacting with. They have to be really careful not to scare them, so they’re already trying to protect them. And this is one of the key similarities between fraud and domestic abuse and coercive control, where the victim feels responsible for the fraudsters, psychological or physical, well-being. And that’s when they start asking for money. 

Stella Tsantekidou 

So, this is very interesting. Have you watched the Tinder Swindler on Netflix? 

Dr Elisabeth Carter 

I have indeed, yes. 

Stella Tsantekidou 

That’s I think, that’s the most popular depiction of romance fraud that most people will be aware of, and I was absolutely shocked when I watched it. It’s interesting that you’re saying about people pretending to be nurses and doctors and working for the NHS during the pandemic, I wasn’t aware of that. But obviously it would make a lot of sense that scammers would use that as an excuse. I wonder, how much do you think the public is aware of these sort of tactics because, I have to say, when I watch the Tinder Swindler, what really, really shocked me is the fact that the women that were scammed, they were scammed for huge amounts of money, and they were all very, you know, professional women, who know how to use social media and dating apps. Clearly, quite intelligent individuals who had a social network themselves, so they weren’t isolated. They were certainly lonely to an extent; they were looking for a relationship. But they weren’t what would come to your mind when you’re thinking about, you know, the average romance fraud victim. 

Dr Elisabeth Carter 

Yes, and that’s a really interesting thing really, because romance fraud victims are, by and large, intelligent, professional, and not really what this societal image of what a romance fraud victim should be. And that’s really what prevents a lot of people from reporting because it’s oh, it shouldn’t be me, it should be someone who isn’t intelligent, doesn’t know how to use the Internet, and all these kinds of things, or maybe someone who’s older. But that’s all really a fallacy.  

And in in regard to the Tinder Swindler, the Netflix series, it did bring romance fraud, and fraud more generally to the public consciousness, which is good. However, it was damaging in that it didn’t show the full extent of the grooming that the women were subjected to. So, they were operating within that very same situation where they’d been groomed and coerced, and their reality had been distorted to the point where they believed they were making good decisions. And it didn’t put that across in that show. So, and crucially, viewers couldn’t put themselves in the victim’s shoes, whereas in reality, in that situation, they would have acted exactly the same.  

Also, interestingly, the social media response to that was quite telling and I think it’s very gendered, victim shaming and victim blaming. And there were lots of messages saying that the victims were gold diggers and all this kind of thing. But really, these are ordinary, intelligent women who are doing something that’s completely normal and completely allowed, which is looking for love, and being attracted by somebody who has money, which is not a bad or shameful thing at all. So, it’s – and it’s quite interesting that the criminal was kind of glorified a little bit and has never really come to justice even though it’s subject to this really big documentary.  

So, yeah, I’m on the fence about how harmful or how good that series was. But I was really shocked about the response to it, and also the lack of it showing that grooming that led to those decisions being made, which were good decisions in that reality. 

Stella Tsantekidou 

You are very right and when I’m thinking about it, you are quite right, I didn’t really show the extent to which they were groomed, why they were led to these decisions. And I’m sure that if we were present, which would be impossible to do in a documentary, to go through all the texts, all the personal meetings, and the discussions that they were having we would empathise with the victims a lot more. 

But I have a final question for you, Lis, and it’s about whose role is it to protect the public? Is it the government, local or national? Is it the police? Is the individual, is it family? Is it the employers? Is it charities like Catch22, who provide education for how to use social media safely? Whose role is it? 

Dr Elisabeth Carter 

This is a really easy one for me. It’s absolutely everybody’s role and it should be really transparent that everybody has a role to play in this. And currently the balance is skewed the wrong way, it’s skewed towards the general public and victims of this crime. They are completely responsibilised. You know, you have to spot whether something’s a fraud and you have to stop it before it gets too far.  

Now with this grooming, most frauds do not have red flags, or those red flags are so dampened down and overtaken by a context making it feel right and making, not even making questions a possibility. That makes frauds not visible. So, then what happens when someone is a victim of romance fraud, for example, they then feel that they failed. They haven’t managed to do something really basic, which is protect themselves. But actually, someone who’s been groomed and who’s being coerced, shouldn’t be made responsible. Just like victims of coercive control or domestic abuse should not be made responsible for what has happened to them or for not being able to get out of that relationship. So, it’s everybody’s responsibility.  

Legally we’ve got everyone from the police, we also have government, both government more broadly, but also local government too. The charity sector is really important in terms of education and quite often the public will listen to the charity sector more or might disclose that they’ve been a victim of fraud in a non-legal disclosure. And there is actually a charity. There’s an organisation I’d like to talk about this point. It’s called LoveSaid. And they’re doing a really, really good job and that’s Anna Rowe and Cecilia Fjellhøy. And Cecilia is actually one of the victims that’s shown in the Tinder Swindler. And they’re providing a service that’s where people can say ‘I’m not sure if I’m a victim of fraud, could you let me know’ or some more general support about a family member, or they can disclose it there, get loads of resources and it’s a bit of a halfway house, really. Somewhere where you can safely land. Just like just like Catch22. And I think the more of these organisations, the better. 

Stella Tsantekidou 

Yeah, great. Thank you very much, Lis. That’s all we have time for today. Thank you so much for this super interesting conversation.  

If you or someone you know has been a victim of fraud, you are not alone. To report fraud in the UK, visit action.fraud.police.uk. To report fraud in Scotland, dial 101. For further support, Catch22 Victim services can help. Visit catch-22.org.uk for more information.