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Standing Boldly Against Romance Scams: Empowering Victims on the Path to Recovery, with Cecilie Fjellhøy and Anne Rowe, Co-Founder of LoveSaid
499 Plays1 year ago
If you are a bank fraud fighter or in law enforcement, you will not want to miss this fascinating episode. Anne and Cecilie both share their personal romance scam stories and how they had to face the realities and aftermath of emotional and financial trauma, as well as judgment from society and authorities. They decided to turn their experience into a bold movement and Founded LoveSaid, a non profit with the goal to support romance scam victims with carefully orchestrated process and tools to bring victims out of the scam and to support them afterwards in navigating the emotional and financial aftermath.
As Cecilie put it in her own words: I'm sure they (bank fraud teams) don't have much time so they just go on the phone and tell the customer "high suspicious activity here". I can imagine how they are saying it and we (the scam victims) refuse to listen and we are cutting them off. If we can have a bank of Ex Victims who've been trained to go in and talk to these victims, we truly believe that we can get there much faster in a better way than police and banks can. We truly see the power of people with experience coming in.
Resources:
Socials:
- Instagram and TikTok :catchthecatfish123
- Facebook:@catchthecatfish
- You Tube: @CatchTheCatfish
- Instagram:lovesaid_org
- TikTok:lovesaid.org
- Facebook: LoveSaid
- Twitter: LoveSaidOrg
- TikTok: lovesaid.org
This podcast is hosted by Ayelet Biger-Levin who spent the last 15 years building technology to help financial institutions authenticate their customers and identify fraud. She believes that when it comes to scams, the story starts well before the transaction. She has created this podcast to talk about the human side of scams, and to learn from people who have decided to dedicate their lives to speaking up on behalf of scam victims and who take action to solve this problem. Be sure to follow her on LinkedIn and reach out to learn about her additional activities in this space. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayelet-biger-levin/ Also check out https://scamranger.ai if you had received a message that you suspect is a scam
Additional academic research mentioned in the podcast:
Dr Elisabeth Carter’s body of work:
Forensic Linguist and Criminologist
- Carter, E. (2023) Compelled to comply: Exposing the exploitation of communicative relationships by fraudsters to gain and harness compliance from their victims. The British Journal of Criminology.
- Carter, E. (2021) Distort, extort, deceive and exploit: Exploring the inner workings of a romance fraud, The British Journal of Criminology 61(2): 283–302.
- Carter, E. (2015) The anatomy of scam communications: An empirical analysis, Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal 11(2): 89-103.
- Carter, E. (2015) Laughing matters: A conversation analytic account of the use of laughter by suspects and officers in the police interview, The Essex Graduate Journal of Sociology 50th Anniversary Special Issue 14(1): 99-113.
- Carter, E. (2015) A conversation analytic exploration of laughter in the police interview, SAGE Research Methods January 15: 68-85.
- Carter, E. (2014) When is a lie not a lie? When it's divergent: Examining lies and deceptive responses in a police interview, International Journal of Language and the Law/Linguagem e Direito (1):122-140.
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Transcript
Educating for Safe Online Choices
00:00:00
Speaker
And to make safe choices, that means that we educate them. We don't tell you we don't do that. Don't talk to anyone online because it's going to be a scam, because that's not true. And also that's letting them win. And, you know, some people always say to my victims, we don't let them win. We, you know, I'll help you to understand what to look for so that you can use social media and dating apps how you want to use it. And we'll bypass the trash.
00:00:28
Speaker
and we'll use it how we want to use it, you've got to let people have the choice.
Meet Cecilia and Anne
00:00:56
Speaker
Welcome to Scam Rangers. In today's episode, we will be featuring two survivors of romance scams. Cecilia Philhoi is a UX designer by training and Anne Rowe is a school teacher and they have both experienced
00:01:11
Speaker
the emotional and financial trauma of romance scams.
Founding Love Said
00:01:15
Speaker
They've taken their experience and turned it into an empowering mission with the foundation of Love Said, a nonprofit that was founded to help romance scam victims navigate the system and be on the road to curing themselves emotionally and financially from these scams. Hi, Anna and Cecilia, so great to have you on the podcast.
00:01:38
Speaker
Thanks for having us. Welcome. So first I wanted to ask if you can tell me a little bit about your
Anne's Catfishing Experience
00:01:45
Speaker
background. What was life prior to
00:01:48
Speaker
starting to talk about scams and fraud and founding love said, which we'll talk about a lot. Give us your background and actually how you came to speak on scams and fraud. So 2015, I was catfished by a lawyer here in the UK. Like Cecilia's, he was grooming his victims online through dating platforms, but then coming offline to meet his victims.
00:02:18
Speaker
So he was using one picture that didn't belong to him. It was a very well chosen picture that he could get away with down to the dimple in the chin and everybody laughed. All of us laughed about, that's a really old picture that you're using. But it was one he could get away with and we saw lots of the real him before we met him in person. So it was a front.
00:02:40
Speaker
obviously, to keep his identity hidden from the rest of the world. So after being green for three months, I met him in person, his motivation wasn't money. In this respect, it was sex control power over women. I was told by therapists afterwards that he was a narcissist psychopath, that isn't my diagnosis, that was theirs after hearing about him.
00:03:06
Speaker
Um, but it was that that set me on my path to recovery. So, um, this, this particular therapist really understood me and knew that knowledge was power and said, you need to go and research narcissists and psychopaths because I could not get, um, to grips with how he had done what he did to me. I'm not the naive, stupid person. Like a lot of us victims get labeled and it was,
00:03:36
Speaker
it was something that was tearing me up, that I had lost complete faith in myself as to my ability to, you know, weedle out bad people. So she told me to go and do that. And it really was my eye opener as to how he had done what he did, this emotional manipulation that I'd been through. And it was then that I learned about love bombing, trauma bonding, grooming. And I really needed somewhere to put all that information because like,
00:04:06
Speaker
all other victims when I was searching in my trauma, there wasn't anywhere for me to go to talk to other people or find out more. So I decided to put everything that I'd learned into a website.
Cecilia's Scam Story
00:04:20
Speaker
So Catch the Catfish started back in September, 2017. And that was where I put my information. And it was then that I was very public with my story.
00:04:32
Speaker
and getting trolled for it at the same time. And I had so many other victims come forward with similar experiences to me. But then I started getting messages from people where it was clear the intent behind the fake profile was financial. So I was like, okay, I can still help out here.
00:04:55
Speaker
and sort of went off and started to learn about them. But what had hit me really clearly was from the messages and things that were being sent to me, that that grooming process was exactly the same as the process I'd been through that led you, it was the vehicle if you like, to get to where they wanted the victim in terms of whether it was laundering money, getting money, whatever it is that they wanted.
00:05:23
Speaker
So I had immediate empathy and understanding of what those victims had been through. Then is my personality type. I can't let things go like that. And if I don't know about something, I have to learn about it.
00:05:37
Speaker
to the point really of obsession. So I started hanging out in the scammer groups because for me, if I wanted to support victims the right way, I needed to understand absolutely what was behind it so that I could help them with the knowledge to get through it at the other end and explain what had happened and why. So that was kind of my motive for doing it. And that's how I got involved with romance fraud. And it's been just coming up six years now.
00:06:07
Speaker
that I've been doing this. Yeah. So it's literally this month, actually.
Challenges in Victim Support
00:06:16
Speaker
Wow. I would say congratulations, but I'm sorry, is I think the appropriate wording. And we talked to a professor of psychology at UCLA in one of the previous episodes of Scam Rangers. And one of the questions I asked was about the personality type of the scammer, right? Because I completely agree with you, the love bombing, the grooming, these are all acts of a narcissistic personality type.
00:06:44
Speaker
And once you start researching, you see many YouTube videos on narcissism. And I think the challenge is that the victims of all types of grooming don't know what to look for. So having, as you said, knowledge is power and having the tools to empower people to realize, wait, this is what's going on. It helps.
00:07:06
Speaker
It helps the recovery process as well as, as everything else. And, you know, whether these particular scammers themselves are narcissists or psychopaths, obviously there's something very wrong that they think it's okay to do this, but what they have done is
00:07:21
Speaker
stolen the very well-documented scripts of narcissists and psychopaths, which are everywhere because of self-help groups, you know, those things are published and they can, you know, they're not silly either. They go and learn from what we publish, which is another reason why I'm very careful about what I put out there. A lot of my education, if you like, goes on in the direct messages.
00:07:45
Speaker
because I don't want those scammers to come to my page and go, oh, well, they know we're doing this, so I'm gonna change it. So if they see that we know and the victims are learning, they will change their behavior. And I don't wanna put that blatantly out there for them to go, oh, okay, we need to do something. Right, exactly. And how many people would you say you help a week? It's around 75 to 100 victims a week that I'm dealing with on my own. That's just in,
00:08:15
Speaker
messages, but obviously there's other people that aren't comfortable coming to messages. They will communicate through the comments, things like that. There's people that ask questions on Quora. That's my latest platform that I've been on. So I gradually, it was over COVID actually, as all of us tended to venture into something new. It was then that I started building pages across social media and I was Facebook and Instagram.
00:08:40
Speaker
I hate TikTok, that was my last big one, but actually I hate the lot of them, to be fair. They're certainly not used, are they, for what they were supposed to be used for, and does anyone care? No. I hope with the new internet safety bill that the UK Parliament is now announced. There will be some change, but we'll see, we'll see. So Cecilia, can you share a little bit about your background as well?
Creating Love Said
00:09:08
Speaker
Well, my background is that I was defrauded back in 2018 by someone that I met on Tinder. He's very famous now with the name of Simon Lavive at the time. I just moved to London and yeah, I was single and I just swiped right, met him several times, got into a relationship. He said he was the CEO of a big
00:09:27
Speaker
diamond company had done very well. But by that he had gotten enemies from the competitors that wanted to do him harm and wanted to stop him from going around doing business. So they could win instead. And he had a bodyguard. And with time, he then asked me if he could borrow my
00:09:48
Speaker
card with my name to travel around safely because he said his security team could track where he was on the spend on his card. And at this point in time, he was my boyfriend. I trusted him above everything. And I felt that he had given me experiences. So I was like, who am I to say no now to him? So I took up a credit card and he started using it, as he said, he was gonna, you know, flights, hotels, dinners that he needed to do.
00:10:16
Speaker
But of course, things were not getting better, it only became worse. So that's when I started taking up high consumer debt loans. And, you know, there were several instances of using fear, so much pressure to continue to take up these loans and
00:10:32
Speaker
pretending that I was him calling the banks. And in the end, I had taken up over nine loans and was over 200,000 pounds in high consumer debt. And I think, so I had to make myself bankrupt afterwards. I've been to two trials. It's been a tough fight, like afterwards as well. I think that is what I think a lot of romance for all victims feels is that is one thing what you had to endure during those months, three years, but why do you have to fight so hard afterwards, after it's done?
00:11:02
Speaker
You know, first of all, again, I'm, I'm, I'm so sorry that it happened to you and it, it, what I'm hearing is not only did you have to deal with the trauma of the relationship that was not real and everything that it may be to distinguish from online romance scams, which are also devastating.
Systemic Issues in Recovery
00:11:22
Speaker
And they're also relationships here. You actually met the person, you had so much more proof for yourself that this is a real thing.
00:11:29
Speaker
It's not like they didn't do a video conversation or didn't talk, he was there in reality. Yeah, and I do have to say like, I didn't receive any nicer way just because I'd met him, you know. And that's what I think is so telling what we in Anno, when we're talking about this, you get victim blame no matter what, which is so interesting, you know, where you say, well, I met him, well, you should have known, you know, how stupid can you be? No matter what.
00:11:57
Speaker
Well, I sat on the airplane, you know, the private jet. I sat in the cars. I was with him. I met his friends. You know, everything was like perfect. I met his ex who said he was amazing. You know, it's even though she was a victim from Finland before, like there's so many instances there where everything that could go wrong went wrong. But you need no care from the banks.
00:12:20
Speaker
I think it's different now, five years. I think the Tinder swindler and all is coming forward has changed something. But back in 2018, it was hell. It was a living hell that you had to go through.
00:12:32
Speaker
And I think that is why we're so passionate because we don't want anyone else to have that experience. And people need, as I'm trying to say, like I laid on his chest, you know, he kissed my forehead. I know people understand kind of what you endured as a person and then knowing that what he did was so calculated. That is really hard.
00:12:57
Speaker
for people to imagine, you know, think about the love of your life, really not hate. And really deep down inside, I believe he hated me, you know, or something along those lines and just got a kick out of it. People really don't think about that. But then you also had to deal with the system and the knowledge that you didn't have to navigate that and that people actually don't have today, whether it's online or in person, the ability to go and take money
00:13:25
Speaker
and take those loans, pay the scammer and never see that money
Guides and Support Communities
00:13:28
Speaker
again. That's all still happening. Yeah, I think that the reason why I was so passionate of not giving up is kind of the background that I had, which was in IT and with user experience design.
00:13:40
Speaker
and kind of seeing after I was defrauded the same as with Anna, there's nowhere to go, there's no proper information and the information that exists, is it truthful, is it proper? Like, you don't know, you go into maybe forums where people, you know, are talking to each other, but is this what you should be doing? And kind of the laws as well, like for me, particularly in my instance, I didn't know which law I could use when it came to, you know, I took up many loans.
00:14:06
Speaker
So I had so much pressure right after I realized I had been defrauded. So the work that I had was my dream job. So I kind of was using my work to get away from what I had experienced. It was like seven, eight hours where you can actually not think about what happened to you.
00:14:23
Speaker
But it always lingers, kind of. So I started after I was defrauded. I had such a fight myself, and I think that's where my passion for this came from, was the abhorrent behavior from the financial institutions and kind of the police as well.
00:14:40
Speaker
And when you as a victim were trying to come forward with your story, in my case, even though that was a huge case in Norway, it was just viewed as a boyfriend who had just done this, even though I told them the entire story of the Tinder Swindler, which everyone now is like, wow.
00:14:55
Speaker
Well, the police then, back then, oh, it's just a boyfriend. I was like, it doesn't make sense. This wasn't a normal, if you know what I mean, we have identity theft fraud that is going on with our proper relationships, maybe 20 years or some gambling. And the husband or wife goes through something and they do it behind their back. This was never a relationship. He never loved me. It's not my ex-boyfriend. And I think that hurts a lot when people are saying then when the police is just your ex-boyfriend, no, no, no.
00:15:25
Speaker
So I started my organization, a very small one called Action Reaction because I wanted to play on his saying for every action, there's a reaction. I tried to set up in Norway. I started working with organizations there on what I could offer with my organization. Unfortunately, I'm kind of controversial name in Norway. No banks or financial organizations wanted to collaborate with me.
00:15:51
Speaker
I decided then to take it over to the UK and I was just on the starting grounds just like and that's when I got to meet Anna and just like Anna I had so many people reaching out to me with help but I met Anna and she had actually done way more than I ever could so I was so fascinated and I was like and I had all these ambitions and hopes
00:16:15
Speaker
And then we had a lunch together. And because I was just wanting to hear, I'm not from the UK. So I was like, how are the processes in the UK? You know, what kind of organization exists? It's like a whole other country that you have to understand. So then we connected and Anna had exactly the same like kind of projects and ideas in mind. And that's when I was like, what's the point of, you know, doing this separately? Let us bring our forces together. Kind of we're stronger together.
00:16:42
Speaker
And I think it's, Loveset is so powerful because we have lived experiences. We have such a passion coming from it that I think it's hopefully the little edge that we have and with the amazing work Anna's been doing already, you know, five years of recalling it the pilots, aren't we?
00:17:02
Speaker
the pilot with what we want to do. So that has been my journey that I, as Anna was saying, you can't turn your back on something. Like it has been years, mine was in 2018, you know, it's 2023 now, but we can't turn our backs, even though time is healing, it always are, but
00:17:21
Speaker
We have new people coming to us every single day looking to us. And for me, that's not right either. I don't want us to be necessary. I would love for the police and for the financial institutions too. But I think a nonprofit will be so powerful in the space now. For romance fraud, particularly I have to say, we have a lot of amazing fraud organizations. But there's so many different types of fraud. And I feel romance fraud is the worst one. It is the worst one.
00:17:52
Speaker
So you came together to establish Love Said, a nonprofit that is really designed to offer services and guides to scam victims. So I wanted to ask, what services are you planning to offer with Love Said and help victims of scams, be it financially motivated or otherwise motivated? It's going to be like an umbrella organization where all stakeholders of romance fraud, whether that's
00:18:19
Speaker
Victims are obviously the heart of it, but we also want to be there to house all of the amazing academic research that's currently going on. We want to be there as a reference point for best practice with banks, with police, with media. We want to be a collaboration point for social media and dating platforms, if ever they decide to start taking some responsibility for
00:18:50
Speaker
you know, for what they're doing. We want to have our own database, don't we? Because we're on the ground with victims all the time. Victims are such a huge powerful resource for us for collecting data on scammers.
00:19:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think like the two biggest, the two most important projects we're working on now is to create this interactive step-by-step guide.
Building Support Networks
00:19:12
Speaker
Because a lot of times now people don't know where to look and everyone is in a different situation. Some have landed up money, some are in the midst of it. Can we give maybe friends and family some tools and help to how they should approach?
00:19:25
Speaker
The victims, when they have lent out money, where should they go? There are different rules in each country. What if we can make it globally so each country will have their own ways? And especially what we felt, how important mental health and peer support is. So when people have been going through this interactive step by step, we would love to be able then to offer this peer community.
00:19:46
Speaker
where people can come in see that you're not alone there are other people all around the world this has happened to even that's a very sad thing is empowering as well like i'm not by myself anymore and we want them to put people into different groups maybe and using volunteers like ex-victims to kind of get them through this for example if this have just recently happened to you and maybe be in the same group was it in the same country maybe get great local
00:20:11
Speaker
We would love to create events in the future where people could come together in person, you know, maybe even create, you know, overnight stays or maybe weekend trips so people can feel empowered. Like these are like more long turns, but we really, really believe the power of victims and to empower victims.
00:20:28
Speaker
because we've seen it ourselves so those are kind of where we're starting off but i think as well collecting data there are no data on this and we need to start collecting the data you know we're we're on stages and we say we don't have any numbers on the societal damages here
00:20:45
Speaker
You can say how much money, and that's why we all care about the money. Billions lost, you know, us as humans. You might just lose $5,000 in Argentina. That's horrible for you. You know, we don't really understand. Like, for some people, it might not be so much. For some, that might be their entire life savings, and maybe their kids college. So we need to rethink it, and that the abuse that these people have endured needs to be thought about as well.
00:21:13
Speaker
Absolutely. And one thing that you mentioned earlier when we discussed was the friends and family and supporting them. So kind of going beyond the victims themselves, but actually supporting their families or helping them with their families. Can you share a little bit about that?
00:21:34
Speaker
Literally this morning, I've spent my morning with a daughter whose dad, 80 year old father has been scammed. And so luckily she'd found some things on my website and then I was able to direct her to some blogs that help with the understanding about what's going on as well. That's where what I've done already is going to come into play because we've got such a huge bank of resources there. And they are incredibly helpful for friends and family to take back
00:22:03
Speaker
to their loved ones and start planting the seed. You know, those loved ones, it's like we say all the time, they are on a spectrum and depending on who they are as a person will depend how they're going to react to that information. And scammers will have worked really hard on isolating them and making everyone else the enemy. We know that. So it has to be done very, very delicately and it's almost
00:22:28
Speaker
It's better that they try and lead the victim to search for that stuff themselves rather than just throwing, well, you're wrong. Look at this at them. It's got to be done in a clever, subtle way, if you like. And that is why we're kind of excited because we've been doing some conferences for police now. We're doing the second one. But to see the feedback, because we really, truly believe that, yeah, the
00:22:55
Speaker
police are the enemy, the banks are the enemy. I've been in that situation myself where I was like, oh, get away from me, you know, and I know really well that and they've told us as well, when we try to tell these people that they're being defrauded, and I'm sure they don't have much time, so they just go on the phone, hi, suspicious activity here, you know, like, I can't imagine how they're saying it. And we refuse to listen then we are cutting off.
00:23:18
Speaker
And we truly believe that we as a non-profit, as we as, we're with them, if we can as well connect. So we are hoping to actually collaborate with police forces in the future so they can use us. So when they're saying, when we knock on their doors, we're police, hi police here, you get to be scared, no matter if you've done something wrong or not, why is police on my door? If we can,
00:23:41
Speaker
I have a bank of ex-victims who've been trained to go in and talk to these victims. We truly believe that we can get there much faster in a better way than police and banks can. Unfortunately, we wish it hadn't been that way, but we truly see the power of people from the outside coming in. I think it's really powerful what you're saying, because you're right, financial institutions might
00:24:08
Speaker
see that something is suspicious here and call the person. But, and we had someone in one of the earlier episodes talk about how she approaches, she called it bringing people out of the scam and how she approaches it with empathy.
Empathy in Scam Support
00:24:22
Speaker
But it's really hard, as you said, there's fraud analysts and the customer support teams, they have so many calls, they're very busy. So
00:24:31
Speaker
They need to be trained and have the right level of empathy to help people break the spell. But the reality is it's hard when you're speaking from an authority and someone is so vulnerable to accept that help at times. And same with police, like you said, someone. And I know that I've heard many times from financial institutions that
00:24:53
Speaker
They need to send police to persuade someone that they're being under a scam. And law enforcement could be efficient in some places in some ways, but in others, law enforcement is intimidating, as you said, Cecilia. So having an organization that will help break the spell and tools that you can use to plant the seeds, can you elaborate a little bit on what you mean by that?
00:25:18
Speaker
again, very much dependent on the victim themselves. So sometimes if the family member can take the real person's profile to them and say, look, this is actually who the person is behind the pictures that you've been used. I've learned, because everything's always a learning curve, that scammers will say to them, if it's quite a big personality, for example, that they find in the end,
00:25:47
Speaker
The scammer will turn around and say, my account was hacked or my manager runs that account. And I have a private one that I use to chat with people. And I'm sick of the scammers. It's been happening for years that they've stolen my photos. And that sometimes is enough to undermine what the victim's thinking. I now preempt that and I've got the format that scammers use from their groups where they use that excuse. And I will say to the family and friends, take this with you.
00:26:16
Speaker
Explain to them that the scammer is going to come back and say, da, da, da, da, da. And so if you can preempt what they're saying, that can be enough. Oh, actually I already knew you were going to say that and now you've just proved it. So sometimes it can be as little as that. Sometimes it takes a bit further. So they'll say, but I've seen that person on a video call. It's got to be them. They've seen obviously the person on the video call.
00:26:45
Speaker
that can be really convincing to the victims. But then I can show them from the scammer groups how they do that. I've got those from the groups. So I can say, well, actually look, this is what they're doing. And it's little bit by bit. You can chip away with the huge bank of resources. Grabify is a really great tool. So sometimes victims have got little doubts.
00:27:09
Speaker
or they've got little doubts that they're concerned, but it's not enough to make them concretely believe what's going on. So I'll say to them, do you want to try and see where that scam is located?
00:27:23
Speaker
because they've told you they're here, do you wanna see where they really are? And so I'll say, again, a learning curve, I set up a little paragraph with the linking, because I know that a lot of scammers, if they're sent a link, just a plain link, they won't click it, because they do that to hack people, they're not gonna do that back. So I, for example, I'll say to them, has he said about coming to visit you, which they often do,
00:27:51
Speaker
let's find a website that's got romantic places to visit and I'll attach that to a Grabify link and then I'll put, hey babe, you know you said about coming to visit, I found this romantic website and it's got a list of one to 10. I want you to choose your favourite and I want to see if it matches mine but I'm not going to tell you what mine is.
00:28:14
Speaker
because then they have to go in and click it to see what it is to keep up the conversation. So I'll hide the link in that paragraph and then sometimes I have to teach people to copy and paste because we you know it's something that goes
00:28:29
Speaker
Unmentioned, everybody comes from a different level of education and technical backgrounds or their age or whatever. So sometimes I'm going through that as well, copy and paste it into your messages. And then when they've clicked it emails me, and then I can send them the screenshot of
00:28:47
Speaker
where the person is. Sometimes that's enough, that's enough. Sometimes it takes a bit more. Sometimes they'll just take little nuggets away and they'll disappear for three or four weeks and then they'll come back. But you know, one thing I do know works is that even if it doesn't appear to have worked, when you've just planted that little nut, it will start to grow.
00:29:11
Speaker
But depending on where the victim is in their journey, it can take longer, sometimes for it to, to come to fruition if you like what's going on and then we just have to be there to make sure we're giving them the right kind of support at the end of it.
00:29:28
Speaker
That has always been my, like when I got to know what Anna was doing, you know, and the amount of effort I was like, when, when then the banks are saying to us, oh, we're trying to tell people. I was like, I don't think you're doing this. I don't think your time or the capacity, and I mean very clearly when we speak to employees, they really are very devastated, you know, because they want to do more. But we're saying as well, we understand you. How on earth you're not being trained to this. You don't have these resources. How on earth would you even have time to do this? You know, it's not your fault that you can't get into these
00:29:58
Speaker
nuances, into the nuances of really going through. And I agree on it's all about planting the skepticism, because once it's there, then they will find the truth. But to your point, Cecilia, what do you think banks could do more to help victims of romance scams?
Banks' Role in Scam Prevention
00:30:20
Speaker
What could they do differently? Stop the money. I don't understand. I'm going to say it. I've said it on stages all over the world now, and there are a bit. And I hear differently from all the banks I'm speaking to. Some people, yes, are getting police involved. I was shocked when I heard that because I've never heard that before. It didn't happen in my case. What I mean is that it sounds very unlikely to me that they do that a lot of the times, that they actually, if they think that fraud is happening, that they're just, oh, yeah, we'll get police involved. That sounds very...
00:30:48
Speaker
How many questions about if they really know fraud is going on, why are they still letting that money go out of their accounts? And then they know that the victims most likely, yeah, would have because, OK, they will have to maybe refund. But I have my questions and doubts on if they will just they have insurances. I know like we know a lot of what's going on in the background there. How much do financial institutions are actually thinking about how much fraud prevention they're actually doing?
00:31:14
Speaker
or how much they're just going to let go, and then they're just reimbursed because, you know, the manpower it will take to stop it are costing them more than to just reimburse. That is my biggest fear here, you know? So, yes, I believe they can do a lot more because I've heard so many different tales. Let's say, but we just have to send the money because it's their money. It's like, well, if it's a crime involved, it sounds very weird because when it comes to other types of fraud, they have, you know, they have laws that they need to... I'm sorry, but I'm just...
00:31:43
Speaker
For me, it's very disheartening to listen to. If you know someone is being defrauded, if you know Bertha doesn't have that fiancé over in Italy, you know. You know. Why? Why? Yeah, they'll be angry at you. Yeah, we'll yell. We'll write complete emails. But a couple weeks later, we will come and kiss your feet. That's why I said all the time. We need to think differently about this. Don't send the money.
00:32:12
Speaker
I don't, yeah, that is my thing. And are they not complicit in the crime? If they know that that's a crime that's happening and they're watching it happen and they let it happen, are they not complicit in the crime? For me, that's like me saying, I'm going to stand there and watch that guy go and rob that lady and I'm just going to stand there and go,
00:32:39
Speaker
rather than me going, I'm going to get on the phone to the police straight away or I'm going to go over there and go and try and stop it. For banks, they don't know that it's a crime. They see indicators of risk, right? They see indicators of risk, they see patterns that are associated with patterns that are known to be, it's not 100%, but they have enough information and enough experience potentially to be able to
00:33:03
Speaker
view the indicators of risk and say this looks like a scam because this person is now starting to send large sums of money from their retirement savings abroad or you know there's a there's always a story there. They absolutely do. They send victims letters saying this what you're doing our full department has identified that what we've seen the activity we've seen is
00:33:28
Speaker
of a fraud nature and then they still allow the money to go. That is what we don't get. And we just like to speak up because there's a lot of powerful actors on the other side. That is why we're kind of getting a bit to this point where we have to be a bit sterner, because we can sit and oh, but we don't know. And I'm like,
00:33:48
Speaker
Come on, in my example, like, come on, why wasn't it stopped? Yeah, it's stupid. Like, they could see the spend is out of control. You can see you're sending so much money elsewhere. To say that they didn't know, it's kind of, it's laughable to me. So for me, when it comes to all these new tech we're talking about, where's the bare minimum a lot of the times?
00:34:15
Speaker
where they can't even, oh, yeah, like, maybe Cecile just wanted to take up non loans. Like, I'm just putting myself in because nothing happened in my case. And I think that is what's happening in a lot of fraud cases. That is like... Do you think they could do more to prevent the scam to begin with in the case of online scams I'm talking about?
Tech Companies and AI in Scam Prevention
00:34:36
Speaker
I think that I think that is more to help us put more of the pressure on the entrances here. I think that because we're so few, like we can say, well, you know, the dating apps are really a bit meta. We've seen now UK finance speak up, we've seen Lloyd speak up here in the UK. When I need more of these powerful actors, I said that when I was in Malaysia with MasterCard, I said we need
00:34:59
Speaker
strong organizations like yourself to come up and speak up with us. Because I think we're all together. If everyone comes together, Visa, MasterCard, Bank of America, like everyone comes together and say, it's enough now, we need you to be more careful of what you put on your platforms now. We don't, that is where, there is where I think they can do more. Because I think they're a bit not scared, but they want to be on a good foot with Meta, for example.
00:35:28
Speaker
We don't need to be on good foot with meta. That's what I know. We can just say that they're not doing enough and we're so disappointed because we don't need to be on good foot with them. Or more, not good foot, but I'm just tired of that we can't be realistic with each other. Everyone is saying that they're doing everything in their power and it's just new tech and they're so good. And I'm like, it's always that you're giving up. On the good side, we've just given up.
00:35:51
Speaker
I can say that from the bare minimum, they're not doing enough. It's not even about them using AI. It's just like they're taking well-known pictures and they're still out there. So, oh, sorry. They can do so much more. I think the latest is boasting about we're using AI to help users write witty bios. And I'm like, how about using AI to stop people setting up fake profiles? Because you're not boast about that. Let's keep users safe.
00:36:20
Speaker
It's absolutely ridiculous what's going on. And they've really missed a trick with people like Cecilia and myself, because we've both been huge advocates of online dating. And they asked, because mine was on Tinder as well, he was on some others, but that's where I met him. And they've really missed a trick, because for me as a single mum,
00:36:42
Speaker
and working, I don't have time or money to go out doing lots of dates. And so for me, that online platform was absolutely brilliant to sift through the rubbish, chat with people for a while to see if there was a bit of chemistry before actually going out and having a date.
00:37:04
Speaker
You know, it was absolutely brilliant and I've got attachment issues as well. Not in the way people think, as in I get attached too quickly. I get attached really quickly to people. So for me, having that sort of online relationship for a little while is really beneficial to me because it keeps me at a distance to see how things are really fair in a little bit longer term. So they've just really missed a trick because we think it's bloody brilliant if it was safe.
00:37:35
Speaker
if it was safe. And we would be their biggest cheerleaders if they were going about things the right way and taking a little bit of responsibility, you know, for what's going on. It's really sad. And that's, that's something that I really wanted to say is
00:37:52
Speaker
There's too many people out there with victims that say, well, you shouldn't use online dating or don't ever respond to or accept requests from people that you don't know. And, you know, when, when we have to talk about empowering people and making sure that we stay in control, not the bad guys, we've got to make sure that we still have letting everyone make choices and to make safe choices.
00:38:19
Speaker
That means that we educate them. We don't tell you we don't do that. Don't talk to anyone online because it's going to be a scammer, because that's not true. And also that's letting them win. And, you know, some people always say to my victims, we don't let them win. We, you know, I'll help you to understand what to look for so that you can use social media and dating apps how you want to use it. And we'll bypass the trash.
00:38:45
Speaker
and we'll use it how we want to use it you've got to let people have the choice that's the thing that we don't want to be negative towards both meta and the dating apps we really want to be on their side but we are just getting to the point now i think we've just been in some groups and
00:39:00
Speaker
We've had been in this for a while now where we're starting losing faith in it because we've seen so many instances where they're not really focusing outwardly towards what they're communicating that they're taking seriously. I just wish they could have been more open and honest. I think that is what we need now. We need transparency. We need honesty.
00:39:23
Speaker
How are things? How is the landscape? Instead of saying we're doing everything in our power and it's just so difficult because that I think it's that it's just totally wrong from our perspective. Well, I hope they're listening. I know that there are some some people
00:39:41
Speaker
from these companies who listen to these podcasts. So I hope they're listening because it's really important to stay close to your community and have people trust in it. I really like your approach of we'll use it, but let's create a process and tools to navigate things safely so we can establish trust. I'm really worried about
00:40:00
Speaker
the erosion of trust in the era of all this crime that is happening in masses. And I think just like the mission of the Global Anti-Scam Alliance and other organizations bringing everything together, you know, if it's lawmakers and regulation and law enforcement and data sharing and everything to drive this. So I wanted to conclude maybe with
00:40:29
Speaker
Who is your target audience for Love Said? Who do you want collaboration from? You talked about your mission a little bit, starting with the step-by-step guide and helping friends and family and really providing a map to navigate the mess of the aftermath of a romance scam. How can people help? And who's your target audience? How do you get to people? And who would you like to collaborate with?
00:41:00
Speaker
Target audience is everyone because everyone is a target. There's such misconceptions around the demographics.
00:41:07
Speaker
You know, it's not all 50 to 60 year old women. It's 20 year olds to 80 year olds, men and women that are targeted and are victims of this. So it's anyone and everyone. I would go even lower because, because extortion is also a relationship scam and it's targeting teens. Yeah.
00:41:30
Speaker
So that and I think the collaborators, we would like the people who are involved in the fight now, financial institutions, we are collaborating with them with webinars and speaking at conferences. But unfortunately, we need funding to do this. So that is our dream. The more financial institutions are getting on board, you know, UK Finance would be the perfect organization to support this effort, because that's the umbrella one, because this will benefit all banks.
00:41:56
Speaker
And we would love, you know, the dating apps and meta, but we know that is a very, very long journey. But we really, really are thinking those are the last, you know, the points of contact that we would love to speak more with and actually help with both. They're talking about fraud on their platforms, as in quite recently.
00:42:14
Speaker
that they've started Tinder especially, but we need more of those messaging. So that is kind of the dream. That's where we're going for. I don't know if there are any other collaborations. We are with GALSA. We think that collaboration is the key here.
Legislative Changes and Collaboration
00:42:29
Speaker
So the more people who want to join us. And we have a lot of volunteers with us, ex-victims that Anna has helped, which is amazing that would like to help us.
00:42:39
Speaker
Also, we've got really great collaborations. It's looking into research to get academic research out that shows the parallels between domestic violence relationships and romance fraud, because it really does run together. So the grief that victims go through is exactly the same as the grief and the trauma that domestic violence relationship victims have gone through on the emotional side of this.
00:43:06
Speaker
And we've got amazing collaborations with like Thames Valley Police, Sarah there, with Essex University. I've talked to some of the psychologists there that are running research. So that really needs to continue.
00:43:21
Speaker
the University of Portsmouth. So we're really, because I think the organization we're setting up, we want to create proper change. So it's kind of like going further than, yeah, we'll be there to support and prevent, but we want to create change in the laws, in the legislation, like, for example, that the human cost here will be
00:43:39
Speaker
You know, when you go to the police and say, this is fraud, OK, how much money did you lose? Oh, deprioritize, only 10K. But what did it do to you as a human being? What did he do to you? What they did to you? You know, I think that is something we are very, very passionate about, needs to be put into place so that we'll get harsher sentences and it will be prioritized. Yeah.
00:44:01
Speaker
I mean, we're really lucky here. And I know when we talk to our American counterparts like Kathy over ours as well, you know, they will say we are lucky here in the UK that we're kind of a couple of steps ahead with things like that. And as a victim, it's really it's been really heartening to see what's changed over the last five years, because I made that connection between domestic violence as in
00:44:28
Speaker
the emotional abuse from mine and romance ward victims. I could see it straight off. But now we've got academics like Dr. Elizabeth Carter, who has put that research into academic papers, which makes it credible. And now the police can understand through domestic violence legislation like coercive control, that actually this is what is happening in romance ward.
00:44:56
Speaker
And I know Liz stands up and says when she does her presentations that if you replace the word romance fraud victim with domestic violence victim in a sentence, what the authorities and other people say about romance fraud victims doesn't then sound right. But actually they're one in the same. The trauma that they've been through is aligned. So we've got to start treating victims in a more compassionate way and actually
00:45:27
Speaker
deepen the understanding about what's happening in these scams because I do think a lot of it is lack of education and wider society. They don't realise the length that these scammers go to. They do not understand that manipulation that victims have been through before they hand money over. Nobody hands money over to someone they've never met. To say that means you absolutely do not understand the scam because
00:45:57
Speaker
to that person, they've been through such a huge manipulation that they do know that person and they have seen them on a video call, they have talked to them on the phone and so in their heart they're connected to that person so it's not that they're handing money over to a stranger.
00:46:16
Speaker
I wanted to thank you both for taking the time, for sharing your stories, for the passion that you have in paying it forward and helping victims and actually taking from the struggles that you went through to build something so empowering to others. Thank you so much. I will put all the resources that we talked about in the notes and the link to Lovesit so if people want to help out also financially, they can.
00:46:41
Speaker
And good luck. I hope you succeed with your mission and I'm looking forward to collaborating with you in the future too. Thank you. Thank you. And you and thank you for your hard work as well.