Let’s stop victim-blaming people who get scammed

How could someone be so stupid? I’ve heard myself say this when I see yet another news item about someone falling for a romance scam, or email phishing.

Shame on me. It turns out that, until recently, I’d fallen into a trap of victim-blaming that needs to be stamped out. When we blame victims, we take the blame off the offenders.

As Bronwyn Groot, private investigator at QRisk, points out, if someone breaks into your home and steals all of your jewellery we think: ‘poor person I feel so sorry for you’. “The police come around, they’ll do a report, you’ll get victim support,” says Groot.

“But if someone rings you and pretends that they are from the fraud team in the bank or pretending to be from the police and they steal your money, what do we say to them? ‘oh, how stupid’, whereas actually it was a very, very convincing fraud that got them into this place.”

Groot, who previously ran fraud prevention at the Commission for Financial Capability, would like to see the word “scam”, which she feels minimises the crime, replaced with “fraud”. That simple language-switch lessens the stigma.

“The victims are already calling themselves stupid and silly and idiotic.” They don’t need the rest of us to pile in.

Another benefit of removing the stigma is that victims are more likely to tell their story, which helps prevent others fall victim to the same scam.

An issue that both Groot and detective inspector Bridget Doell, a police financial crime specialist, find is if they put victims up for media interviews to forewarn others, social media keyboard warriors go into overdrive with even more victim-blaming. Groot says she wishes publications would turn commenting off when they report such frauds.

We are all potentially victims of fraud, so it’s important not to pigeonhole victims, says Doell. “We all think ‘how could you be so stupid’,” she says. “But when you’re at a vulnerable period in your life, you’re susceptible to fraud.”

Doell says police officers nationwide are upskilling on this type of fraud, which could have been easily filed away in the past. They are learning from the experience of the Auckland City Police Financial Crime Unit, which has delved deep into the issue of online fraud.

It’s not just the public blaming victims. Banks and other financial institutions often blame their clients for fraud. In the United Kingdom, the Financial Ombudsman Service saw complaints about banks from victims of fraud rise 36 per cent in the most recent reporting year. Banks there, like here, are supposed to reimburse clients if they’re not at fault. That isn’t always happening.

Here, if a fraud victim “did not take reasonable steps to protect their banking”, they are liable for the loss, says Banking Ombudsman Nicola Sladden.

When banks cite this and refuse to pay out, fraud victims may complain to the ombudsman. In some cases, the ombudsman does side with the victim, upholding the complaint, or at least recommends the bank reimburse some of the losses.

In one such case where the complainant lost $50,000 in a romance scam, the ombudsman concluded the bank had failed to act with reasonable care and skill in processing three of four international transactions. “The bank should have questioned (its client) or warned her about the possibility of fraud, which might have dissuaded her from making the payments,” the ombudsman concluded and recommended the bank pay a total of $25,000 to the client.