Cyber Scammers Reinventing Traditional Techniques
Tricksters Trick for Money. In every culture around the world, for millennia, people sat around the fire sharing stories about tricksters. Tricksters functioned in these oral traditions in different ways, as forces for good and bad, and everything in between. One of their key roles was to model for people how not to behave. In many ways, the techniques of the trickster (from here on referred to as scammers), can be adapted to any commodity and sales method, including cyber or online environments. Scammer tricks are constantly being reinvented for this reason.
At Cybertrace, we have decades of cyber forensic expertise in hunting the worst kinds of tricksters across cyber terrains. We are highly attuned to the techniques and tactics these people use to manipulate people into handing over their money and quite often their very dignity.
Come and join us by the fire, while we share with you what we have learned from our decades of experience in investigating the worst kinds of scammers so that hopefully, you won’t fall for their tricks and techniques.
But before getting into the nitty gritty, it’s important first to better understand the cultural context and significance of scammers. Throughout time, they have reminded people about what happens when we give into the lower forces in our nature – greed, manipulation, stealing, lying and disrespect, to name a few.
By telling stories of scammers’ chaotic and errant techniques and behaviours, people have been able to understand and affirm the safe boundaries required for their community to function in healthy and sustainable ways.
But trickery is not always a straightforward concept in the human psyche. As a culture, we have complex relationships with tricksters and their tricks. As much as we cheer Bart Simpson’s trickery on, for example, we also laugh when he is punished. And even though he usually manages to trick even the disciplinary process, such as by writing lines like “I didn’t do it” on the blackboard, in some respects, the simple act of writing the lines forces him to stop and do something he doesn’t want to do. Through this, a modicum of rightness is restored in the Simpsons universe.
Restoring some semblance of rightness in the worlds of scam victims is what we at Cybertrace pride ourselves on doing. Will the scammers we catch never trick again? We can never be sure, but facing legal consequences will surely discourage them.
Will our clients receive their money back? Unfortunately, with cybercrime, this varies greatly and in many situations, they won’t.
Will our Clients be able to make better sense of what has happened to them, thus returning them to some modicum of harmony and rightness in their own universe? We truly believe so.
Most people have enjoyed watching scammers on TV and movies, and reading about them in all kinds of literary genres, from vampire novels to biographies on Chopper Read.
It can be dangerous, however, to find too much enjoyment in the exploits of scammers in stories and digital content. When we focus too much on scammers as entertainment, we can forget that they exist in real life and that we may be very susceptible to techniques employed by scammers.
Many of us are simply unprepared for the moment that a trickster bursts off the screen and into our lives. Suddenly these lovable devils who walk among us are a whole lot less amusing. They become downright terrifying.
Once bitten, we now begin to think of these elusive, sneaky, and slippery people as something far more problematic than “just tricky”.
We start to see that they are tricksters, grifters, scammers, and ruiners.
Cybertrace brings you this knowledge in the hope that it will prevent you from becoming a victim of cyber scammers. After all, knowledge is power.
Scammers Tempt You
One of the manipulative tactics in many stories (and in real life!) of grifters is to initially reel the punter in by tempting them with a little gift or a promise.
Do you ever go to carnivals and venture down the sideshow alley to play the ring toss or the laughing clowns?
If so, you may notice that when you first put your money down you get a little win – a small cheaply-made dolly or a plastic ball bearings puzzle.
Your senses are tantalised by the heady carnival environment. The music, the screams from the rollercoaster, the sickly but nostalgic smells of fairy floss and Dagwood dogs.
You’ve won something small and tacky, but still, you think to yourself, it’s worth more than the $2 you paid, so why not have another go?
The giant teddy bear with the cute bow-tie, high on the shelf above the oscillating shocked-looking clowns is grinning at you with benevolent Ursus knowing.
You can win me, it seems to be saying.
You look around you. Can anyone see me? What if I lose? What if this is a trick?
Everyone is busy eating and laughing. You look at the carny running the sideshow with the bumbag, bowler hat, and gold tooth. He appears indifferent. You look up at the giant bear again and can almost hear him saying, C’mon. Your grandson will love me.
You think about how well you did that first time, winning the ball-bearing maze game. You think you’re feeling lucky, but it’s more likely the giant Fanta snow cone still buzzing around in your nervous system.
So you hand over more money. You look at the ball, you look at the clowns, you believe you can time it right. You pick a clown (red’s your lucky colour! Or is it blue?). You aim, you drop the ball into the cavernous open mouth.
But the clowns keep turning at precisely the wrong moment.
How did that happen? You ask yourself. I’m sure that I did it right?
You put down more money, just one more go.
And more money.
The carny’s eyes dart from you and your wallet to the next group of people ambling along drunk on roller coaster adrenaline and refined sugar.
Your ping pong ball never makes it down the little aisle that leads to the big prize.
You’ve been had. It was fun at first. You won something little. Maybe it was worth $1 or $2. But you put down $15 in the end.
You walk away with your crappy prize and your dignity is lost in a clown’s mouth.
This is one way that scams work.
The same exists in the cyber world, except that everything is much more accessible which is turn greatly increases the risk to you, and the reward for the trickster!
At Cybertrace, we see cyber tricky temptation tactics time and time again.
The technique with cyber victims is that they’ll be asked to put down a small sum, when supposedly purchasing bitcoin. The scammers will give them a return; either in the form of a deposit in the victim’s bank account, or perhaps access to an account with a sum of money in it. By doing this, they are doing two things – building trust and tantalising their mark.
The victim’s tricky desire for more becomes activated.
The victim looks around them to check what other people think, in the great carnival of late capitalist society. Friends and family are off somewhere else, busy with life in complex and demanding conditions, or tempted by some other form of trickery themselves.
Often, victims are alone with nothing but the carny and oscillating clowns. Or in the case of a scam, someone regularly talking down a phone line, building a relationship with the victim and using logical-sounding dulcet tones about how well their money is doing.
Before they know it, victims are putting down more money for bitcoin. And then more. The scammers are showing them cyber facilitated manipulated investment platforms with faked statements of significant growth of their funds.
The demands by the scammers grow. They tell you that you need to put more in, or you won’t be able to withdraw your funds at all. The scammers ramp up the stress. Tempting promises turning into veiled threats. The frequency that began as the low hum and hubbub of a happy crowd, turns to the screeches of ghouls in a ghost train. By this stage, the victim would just be happy to withdraw their initial investment and leave the stress of it all behind them.
But it’s too late.
Or is it?
Beating Tricky Tacticians at Their Own Game
At Cybertrace, we use cyber strategies, techniques and tools sharpened by combined decades of experience to root out these tricksters turned rancid. We are meticulous in leaving no stone unturned, no tunnel unflushed, no call centre cave dingy. With our expert cyber investigative practices, we blast even the most hardened scammers into the light to be seen for what they are.
Little by little, with our work, we are making tricking less possible or viable for the scammers. And the victims can rest in the wisdom and peace of order returned to their world.
Stay tuned to our blog for more posts on how scams operate so you can arm yourself in the great carnival of life where cyber trickery abounds.
