To the scammer, the act of requesting money from strangers online is not at all personal – it is a business. Artistic people are more likely to be scammed than people working in the financial sector. They are masters of manipulation, intentionally seeking individuals who are vulnerable in one way or another – those who are lonely, bereaved, divorced or struggling with mental illness.
They create fake profiles to prey upon the sympathies of their intended victims, many of whom they identify as well-educated or wealthy. Gambian scammers are using social networking sites to find victims targeting people in far-away countries. Online crime is seen as a very easy way to make money, and the details of victims can be passed through networks of scammers or even sold on the dark web. Scammers work in networks, and often when one victim has handed over money, they will be contacted by more and more people requesting donations. Scammers can be very clever and deceptive, creating sad and believable stories that will make you want to send them money. In many cases, scammers trawl the Internet for victims, and spend weeks or months building a relationship with their victims. More recently, great numbers of scams have been recorded in Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), and unfortunately now The Gambia has also seen a significant number of financial scams.įrom our experience, we have seen victims lose hundreds or even thousands of pounds, dollars or euros through scams, drawing money away from legitimate children in need and inadvertently feeding organised crime.
Internet scams first gained notoriety in the 1990s, with many people falling prey to stories of need or requests for money transfers from Nigeria and other parts of Africa. We have seen the same exact scenarios repeated almost word-for-word amongst hundreds of requests for aid since we began working in The Gambia, and we ask everyone who comes to us with a similar story to exercise discretion and care when encountering a request. Many people pretending to represent families in need on social media have a common trend of phrases and scenarios they use to build up a story and evoke sympathy.
0 kommentar(er)
