How do we avoid falling for online scams?

They managed to extract. About 20, 000 pounds from me. Um, I was massively in love with this person. We were going to sail around the world, buy a yacht, sail around the world, live happily ever after.

Um, but of course it never happened. It was all absolutely fictitious. And the amount of trouble they took. It's absolutely, to convince me that they were real is just unbelievable and so skillful.

OJ: This is Nikki MacLeod, a retired professor of neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh. Nikki made both UK and international headlines earlier this year after revealing the harrowing discovery that a promising three month relationship she had invested in emotionally and financially, was in fact an elaborate online romance scam…

We think it couldn't happen to us. We think- we can spot the false profiles on Facebook and other social media platforms but figures from Action Fraud, the UK's national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime, suggest otherwise. These show that between January 2020 and December 2024 nearly 40,000 cases of dating fraud were reported, with total losses exceeding £400 million. And in the UK more than half of online fraud cases reported relate to 'impersonation fraud’, according to Ofcom, the UK independent communications regulator.

Welcome to LSE iQ, the podcast where we ask social scientists and other experts to answer one intelligent question. I’m Oliver Johnson from the iQ team. We work with academics to bring you their latest research and ideas and talk to people affected by the issues we explore. In this episode I ask, how do we avoid falling for online scams?

I find out what type of person falls for an online scam-

who are the fraudsters and how does colonialism motivate them?

And what’s the connection between criminality and pop music ?

Let’s return to Nikki, who told me how she had been joining different Facebook groups, looking for company at a difficult time in her life:

NM: I was joining all sorts of groups here, left, right and centre to try and meet people, just to, just to talk to and meet a new bunch of friends I was chatting in these [00:04:00] spaces on Facebook and, um, and suddenly this person popped up who looked really interesting.

This person introduced themselves to Nikki as, Alla Morgan- an oil rig engineer.....

Ok, I know what you're thinking....

But Alla had pictures and videos to back up her story. She even sent videos of herself speaking to Nikki. Things progressed from there.

NM: We got on pretty well and she was incredibly attractive.... and we started talking and just chatting away and having a normal conversation like you'd have with anybody. And our life histories,

[00:05:39] she'd had a daughter, she'd lost a daughter during the COVID, um, epidemic and, I recently lost my two children...we are a bit downtrodden from having lost our kids. And we just chatted away and about the state of tea in China that called it sort of stuff.

Bridge: Things were going well until Nikki and Alla’s conversations hit a problem

NM: And [00:06:00] then she started telling me that, oh, she was losing her connection. She the really poor connection on the internet for talking to people on Facebook and wherever. And would I buy her some steam cards? I had no idea what a Steam card was,

‘Steam’- or gift cards are typically sold as vouchers for the online purchase of video games or digital products. Nikki spent several hundred pounds on them in her local branch of Curry’s, the electrical store, before one of the sales assistants asked her why she was buying them. They told her that Steam cards are a popular currency amongst scammers.

With Nikki’s suspicions alerted, Alla was keen to reassure her. She was – she said - going to come and visit...

NM: I thought, Oh, this is wonderful. This, this gorgeous person is going to come and see me in Edinburgh. But for her to get to Edinburgh, I had to pay two and a half thousand dollars for a helicopter trip from, um, Uh, an oil rig in the North Sea to come to see me in Edinburgh. Uh, for two or three weeks on a vacation.

[00:07:58] But then, [00:08:00] the HR department of her oil company, wanted, uh, another 11 or 12 grand to compensate for her while she was coming to see me, um, on holiday.

Um, and I refused to pay that. I said, this is, this is bloody nonsense. No, I'm not going to pay that. So she never came, but I still lost the two and a half grand.

Nikki had already paid the money for the helicopter trip, that Alla never took. But the extraordinary amount of money being requested by the oil rig’s supposed HR department brought her to her senses. She wasn’t going to pay any more.…But still, her conversations with Alla continued and then came an offer Nikki couldn’t refuse….

NM: eventually our conversation, got round to the fact that my daughter was living up in Aberdeen. She was leaving her husband, was one of my other daughters, because I got two from a previous [00:09:00] partner. And, um, she asked me, um, oh. Is she, is she wanting to buy a house?

[00:09:08] I said, yeah, she is. She's leaving her husband, she's got nowhere to live. And she said, oh, I can help you and I've got one and a half million dollars in my bank account. Um, would you like me to buy her this house? I said, yes, you bet. And so she gave me access to this bank account

Despite a suspiciously simple looking password, the bank account Nikki was directed to looked legitimate, and did appear to hold $1.5m. She proceeded to try to withdraw $85,000- enough to buy a 2 bed flat in Aberdeen.

NM: And when I did that, the bank account was suddenly frozen. And I got emails from the bank saying, Oh, you need to pay 11, 800 to unlock this bank account. And this person, Alla Morgan, said, Oh, it's all right, just pay them, and I'll pay you back because I've got all this money. And I'll pay you back, don't worry about it.

Convinced everything was legitimate, Nikki began submitting payments via PayPal.- But, in doing so, she had fallen for an Advance fee fraud scam - where victims are promised a significant sum of money in exchange for an upfront payment - which they never receive. And because Alla asked her to tick the ‘friends & family’ payment option, she wasn’t covered by PayPal’s Buyer Protection. This meant that although she was able to claw some of the money back, most she never saw again.

NM: So in the end I lost altogether, I lost 20, 000 pounds. and that's basically the story and I feel really completely stupid But now I've lost all this money

[00:26:52] OJ: What, if anything, do you know about the person or people that scammed you? [00:27:00] [00:27:01] absolutely nothing. Um, the police suspect that they're a syndicate in Nigeria.[00:27:05]. There's probably not just one person. There's a, in fact a whole cottage industry in Nigeria….

So who are these online fraudsters- who wreak such financial and psychological harm?

Although online scams are a global phenomenon much of the research looking at the perpetrators focuses on West Africa.

Dr Suleman Lazarus, Visiting Fellow at LSE's Mannheim Centre for Criminology, analysed the case files of 50 convicted romance scammers in Nigeria. He found- that most were young – nearly 82 percent were under 26. And 74 percent were university students.

SL: most of them, they are either [00:05:00] university graduates University student or university dropout…

….they started their criminal career from Hustle Kingdom, cybercrime school [00:02:00] or cybercrime academies, they call it Hustle Kingdom, HK, where people can enroll and educate In cyber criminal activities to become experts in cyber criminal activities .[00:02:30]

Hustle Kingdom describes the informal schools which train would-be scammers in internet fraud through organized learning, peer support and mentorship.

Some graduate to become ‘Yahoo Boys’ - their name harking back to the early 2000s when young Nigerian scammers used Yahoo email accounts to conduct phishing scams and other fraudulent activities. They are known for being involved in advance fee fraud, phishing and romance scams, often targeting foreign victims, like Nikki.

SL:Anyone can be a victim, but from the online offenders view and business strategy, those operating from West African countries.[00:17:45They tend to prefer white, pretend to be whit e males or females because of the, um,[00:18:00]what they call racial stigmatization on when you go to most of the dating, uh, platforms. If you create a profile as a black male from West Africa or elsewhere, then your business opportunities are very, um, limited...

from the convicted case file that I analysed, they tend to also pretend to be military officers because of the additional layer of, uh, of benefit from, you know, for someone pretending to be a military officer, because the person can be away for some time without any communication ....

:And pretending to be a white male or female also, it opens the door for people all over the world, Australia, SL:UK, Sweden, to become their potential lovers....

One of the key tactics of online fraudsters is known as "social engineering" where they study their victims and then use that information to manipulate them emotionally and psychologically to gain their trust and exploit them financially.

CLIP: Yahoo Boy confession video

SL: what the offenders, the cybercriminals look for is that particular one that Where is the weak point for this particular person? if you talk about romance fraud, where relationship, friendship is central, then they exploit the personal situation based on their research of their victim, [00:32:00] of their client.[00:32:03]They refer to the victims as clients

To give an example, one offender described a situation where an Australian lady was very difficult to manipulate for a long period of time from his own perspective. But when the cat of this Australian lady died. That was when he was able to get what he wanted because the lady was vulnerable at that point in time, the old lady.[00:32:41] SL: So what they look for is where that vulnerability lies. They befriend the victim, gain the trust over time, move from one stage to the other, get to the point [00:15:00] that the victim need them, feel that they need them, you know, rather than the other way around

Bridge: It was in this way that Alla Morgan was able to prey on Nikki.

NM: during lockdown, I lost my, both my parents and my partner of 25 years decided to disappear, take off with, with our two children. Um, and, and during that also, the father of one of our children died

[00:01:18] Um, so he killed, in fact, he killed himself. So that was pretty horrendous. Um, and so that was quite a lot to deal with. And I, I just got pretty downhearted, actually.

Bridge: As well as exploiting these vulnerabilities to strike the initial bond, Alla Morgan seemed to share common interests with Nikki

I'm a queer woman and, um, of a certain age now… my previous partner, she was [00:22:00] amazingly politically active and we used to, we used to both be active politically in.[00:22:07] Um, queer politics and green politics and um, we used to just talk till the cows came home. And it was, it was, and I was really missing it [00:22:18] OJ: Was Alla Morgan able to discuss these topics with you? Yes! With some credibility? [00:22:24] Absolutely. They, they could talk about anything. I mean they were basically acting, um, and they were acting at a very high level they knew how to pull all my strings, basically

Bridge: Nikki wasn’t only duped by a fraudster who preyed on her vulnerabilities in the aftermath of a difficult separation and who had clearly studied her background and interests. She had also fallen for a Deepfake video of someone claiming to be Alla Morgan. Andrew Murray is a professor of law at LSE and an expert in New Media and Technology law. He told me about how scammers are using generative AI to create these convincing deepfakes – images sound and video that can pass as real people and real voices.

AM: We're all very, um, careless with our voice. We record videos and put them up into social media, um, and all these kinds of things.[00:23:37]AM: Or you agree to be on a podcast and the next thing you know your voice is, is out there in the world for anybody to Um, and so we see examples of some really targeted, highly sophisticated fraudulent activity for, where for example, um, there have, this has been mostly it seems in[00:24:00]the past targeted at the Chinese and Chinese expat community, but there is no doubt it's going to target other parts of the community.[00:24:07]

AM: Parents get a text message saying their child has been kidnapped. And they get a voice message from their child saying they have been kidnapped and they're in danger. Um, and if they don't pay a certain sum of money. And usually this is done using time differences where the child is maybe in the US and their phone might be turned off at the side of their bed or they're asleep and they don't pick up their phone. The parents are at home in China. And, and they're given very short windows to, to read. to, to, to deal with this. And it sounds like their son or their daughter. That's how accurate it is. Um, you know, what do you do? Do you assume that it is a fake and risks some harm to your child? Or do you pay?

Bridge: The deepfake videos that Alla Morgan sent to Nikki of herself were created from videos from a real person’s Facebook account.

NM….they'd stolen the identity of a French sailor whose, whose name was Sophie Bavière, the scammer took some videos that were on her Facebook, uh, of her on one of her ships that she was sailing, um, being the captain. She has oil tankers and tall ships and all these incredible ships that she was sailing around the world. And she, she makes these little videos and tells people how she's getting on. And the scammer had clearly stolen some of these videos and put a fake voice over onto the videos with my name and. Like she was having a normal conversation with me and they were so convincing

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Lisa Mills is a Senior Fraud Manager with Victim Support- an independent charity in England and Wales that provides confidential support to victims and witnesses of crime, including those affected by fraud like Nikki. I asked her what kinds of trends she is seeing

LM: So I can confidently say within my local area, within the team that I manage, we've seen particularly with romance fraud, a year on year increase. So it can form between a fifth and a quarter of all the referrals that we receive.

I cannot overemphasize how common fraud now is and how common online fraud is. Banish all preconceptions that you might have and things that you might read about in the media. Personally, our team supports [00:34:00] victims from the age of 18 upwards. I think our oldest victim was 101. There is no typical victim of fraud. It's across all genders, across all ages. We support people from across a wide range of backgrounds. People, for example, that have been victims, have been police officers, people that have worked for financial institutions

Lisa told me how the emotional fall-out-experienced by many victims - is exacerbated by the misunderstood nature of online fraud- which can often lead to victim shaming, and in turn the under-reporting of crime.

[00:04:34] LM: The people that we support are certainly not stupid. a lot of the cases that our team supports, we are people at the highest risk of re victimization. So that could be many factors. It could be, yes, you've recently gone through a life-changing event, so you might have suffered bereavement. You might have experienced a divorce all manner of things, a really shocking health [00:11:00] diagnosis

[00:02:19] LM: How often do we hear that expression? Or why did somebody fall for that? I wouldn't have fallen for that. And you never hear that sort of negative terminology around any other crime. You certainly wouldn't say it if somebody experienced a burglary or, they were attacked in the street. And I think that does reinforce why fraud is so widely underreported also, because people feel that They've invited this thing to happen to them, which clearly they haven't.

The impacts are wide ranging. And they are very impactful. It's not just in the short term, but in the longer term also. And it takes people to very dark places.

[00:01:57] LM: People are not looking for [00:02:00] sympathy. So victims clearly want to be validated and heard and listened to about what they've experienced. But unfortunately, we do continue to see a great deal of victim shaming. And I think that comes into the sort of language that is used when we do talk about online crime and fraud.

Other than turning to organisation’s such as Victim Support, what recourse do victims of online fraud have?

I asked Andrew Murray what kind of legal protections there are for people who fall for these types of scams.

AM When people go online, We get a completely different world view. So, so people go online, they start doing all kinds of activity. They might start [00:02:00] buying Bitcoin. They might start banking. They might start sort of sponsoring a school overseas or something like that.

[00:02:09] Uh, and you then go into this, this virtual environment that crosses borders. So if someone is made the victim of a fraud or scam or something like that, there are sort of Two key problems. The first is identifying where the fraud or scam has occurred because the person who's carrying out the fraud can be anywhere.

[00:03:19] The second problem then is enforcement. So, if you've been scammed in the United Kingdom, you're looking probably for enforcement through UK law, through the UK police, the UK courts, etc. But they have no jurisdiction in these other places. So, for example, if the scammer is in Russia, you’re highly unlikely to find any cooperation from Russian investigators or enforcement authorities, because the current political situation is, of course, we have isolated Russia.

the cost of tracking them down and the cost of enforcing the law against them is incredibly, incredibly high and it's incredibly difficult, which means the detection rate and enforcement rate in these online scams is, I'm afraid, very low.

With it being extremely unlikely that scammers are caught , improving online safeguards is essential. The UK's Online Safety Act has just come into force in March 2025. It sets out new digital safety laws designed to regulate online platforms and protect users from harmful content. Andrew tells me how this is intended to work:

AM: The Online Safety Act creates specific responsibilities on intermediary platform providers. Um, these are basically any company that allows two people to be connected over a network, accepting some direct services like phone and, and direct mail. Email and direct messaging.-

But any social media network, for instance, is covered by it. Um, and what this does is it creates responsibilities on them to have what are called, basically, [00:11:00] safe platforms. And amongst these, there's an a group, , of what are called priorities that they have to um, fulfill, and to which they will have to, in time, report back to the regulator on.

And one of these priorities is the reduction of online fraud. So they are expected to put tools in place to help identify and remove potentially fraudulent content. That could be something as, as sort of obvious as an advertisement for a fake Bitcoin. Um, or it could be something a little bit less obvious like the fake social media.

I asked Andrew what measures online platforms should be putting in place to protect the people that use them.

AM...to be fair to the platforms, i think a lot of this is very hard to identify. Um, Can you tell a particular online account is about an imaginary person for instance.

I think there are things that we can do collectively. So, as I say, one problem is around AI generated content. So, so something like asking the companies that operate, um, AI tools, which are accessible to the public, to embed into their tool some kind of watermark or, or piece of metadata that identifies.[00:14:00] [00:14:00] That this is not a genuine image, or this is not a genuine sound file, um, or something like that. Which would then make it harder for criminals to, to use these tools to create fake identities or fake profiles or something like that. Um, the problem is of course the criminal underworld will probably supply their own version of, of these tools.[00:14:20]

But, you can make it harder for people. Then I think, you know, the platforms.

The main responsibility really, I think, is when people report things to them, that they act expediently, that they don't drag their heels. The problem is that they have, um, obviously vast amounts of data and vast amounts of complaints, and it costs quite a lot of money to be able to operate.[00:14:47] Kind of the safety systems…………

Now, what I'm really worried about is it's not specifically around fraud, but around safety. We've got Meta Facebook now announcing that they're going to [00:15:00] do away with their current system of, of fraud. Safety which has review by human operatives and replace it via a kind of crowd sourced if you will system of flagging content, um, f or automated response…………..

[00:15:14] So the companies rather than investing more seem to be investing less in these systems and they're doing so partly through the claim of protecting free speech and free expression. Um, I think we need companies. to be required to, and, and this is where actually the UK Online Safety Act is good. The companies will be required to show they have safety systems, and if they can't show they can be fined or they can even be removed from access to the UK market, they can be blocked.

Operating largely free from the fear of repercussions, what motivates online fraudsters to cause such harm? Obviously money is key, but Suleman Lazarus' research suggests, at least in West Africa, it can be more complex .

SL Because some people, it's [00:08:00] very comfortable to make a quick assumption, it's as a result of poverty, it's as a result of deprivation, but not Everyone who is poor, living in abject poverty, suffering for years, hunger, subscribes to that type of business. So there is something beyond that.

Some highly educated university graduates, who create bespoke fake websites and other infrastructure on request online scammers, frame their actions in terms of colonialism – as a way to reclaim the wealth they believe was unjustly taken during colonial rule…….So the colonial justification is very deep.

[00:08:32] SL: Because most of the people using that colonial justification saying that something like, Oh. All the gold and diamond they stole from our forefathers, uh, slavery, exploitation, injustice, and this

If you ask them, why are you doing what you're doing, then they will tell you the story. It's not just that they can have a fair, what I would describe as a fair employment opportunity, but that is not going to solve the problem for them. For them, the ideology is deep seated, that you. The global, um, architecture of, um, world economy, the west and the rest.

And locally the Yahoo boys and other similar groups enjoy a venerated status as skilled tricksters, even using their fraudulently acquired wealth to forge links within West African popular culture and music.

CLIP: Afro beats/ Yahoo Boys music, glamorising YB’s

SL But the successful yahoo boys will invest by music labels it's a business strategy.[00:23:26] will be better understood as a relationship of two hands. One hand, the left hand washes the right one and the right one washes the left hand. Then two of them are clean or cleaner. Yahoo! Boys, they set up music industries as a type of, as a part of investing their fund. They set up music industries. They buy a music label, set up, and those talented singers. People from the street will come to the studio and display their talent and When they hammer, that means when they succeed, the relationship between them and the singers are also a tight because they started from there that gave them the platform that gave them the microphone in the first instance,… they will sponsor their gigs around university campuses, here and there, for them to make it. And once they also make it, then Yahoo!

SL: Boys also, they are the full force of their client. They will go to their parties in Dubai, in New York, because they could afford it. most of them will be there, the yahoo boys, the affluent, you know, whenever they want, which would champagne and wait and, uh, you know, that type of lifestyle.

without that type of setup, they wouldn't, you know, so they give them what the Nigerian government or the Ghanaian government will never give them.

So that is the relationship. Based on that, some singers, they praise the yahoo boys. And they praise their business and they praise, they dehumanize the victim because they have the same voice…. you cannot describe them as a subculture because they are part and parcel of Nigerian Ugandan culture.

With little to stop the fraudsters, online scams are unlikely to go away and will become ever more sophistacated – making it feel like it’s not if we will be scammed, but when? What can we do to avoid falling for online scams?... Here’s Lisa from Victim Support.

LM in the first instance, if you feel that it's happening to you, basically you want to keep your information safe. So approach your banks to make sure that your money is safe, that you're not going to be losing any more money, you're not going to have any authorised [00:30:00] payments that are coming out. Make sure that you report it to Action Fraud. For those people that aren't aware, Action Fraud is the UK's reporting centre for fraud and cyber crime.

...... we have to think that there are people out there that are determined in committing harm against us every day.

[00:31:20] So who is the best person to maintain control over your money? The answer is you. Who is the best person to keep hold of your personal and financially sensitive information? That's you. So don't let anyone harass you into giving that information over....

And maintain that sense of connection with others, because your existing support network really is your best protection. So if you feel like you're having a little wobble, Then reach out to somebody because they are the ones that care about you the most.

Suleman also recommends reaching out to friends and family and to be extremely careful about what you share about yourself since any information can be used to exploit you.

SL: sometimes certain information that we share on social media and we see it as petty. [00:33:00] It doesn't really matter. It's just this. It's just that I'm meeting John there in this bar every Friday or every day. There's some certain type of data that we share and we do not know the implication.

So my One of my main piece of advice would be to be cautious in what we share or to share as less as possible.00:35:02] You know, so share sharing as less as possible. Yeah. And if there's any kind of a new engagement with any person, whether from the bank. In your love domain, relationship, you share with your friends too. You tell your friends or your relative, this is what is going on in my life. Because the more you keep it secret, the better for the, for the frosters.

It’s these close friends and family who are more likely to question some of the more outlandish things that can happen and which people have sadly fallen for. Here’s Andrew Murray

AM: if somebody says they are a well known personality, and they are contacting you to tell you about this great opportunity, Question why, you know, why does Martin Lewis think that I need to know about this investment scheme?never do anything under pressure. If somebody's putting you under pressure to do something, question why. So a lot of the time fraud, especially online fraud, works by putting you under a pressure situation, giving you a deadline or telling you something is urgent or, or oftentimes representing a person of authority

[00:28:29] So, we all need to do our bit. If we want the law to work and we want the courts to work and the police to work, we have to kind of minimize their workload a little bit. Uh, and that means sort of taking on responsibility. Um, I think the best advice to start with is question everything. Um, There is a danger it could send you crazy.....

As for Nikki, she’s still online but much the wiser

NM just want everybody to know how, how easy it is to fall for this nonsense, and just be really careful

I'm gettingabout 20 friend requests every, every day, and then 99.9 percent of them are from scammers, and I can spot them a mile off,so I'm pressing the delete button a lot, every day

This episode was produced and written by me, Oliver Johnson with script development by Sue Windebank. If you’d like to find out more about the research in this episode, head to the shownotes. And if you enjoy iQ, please leave us a review.

Join us next month, when we ask Is AI destroying the planet?