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The purpose of this paper is to examine the discourses surrounding accountability as it relates to fraud victimisation.

This paper is based upon interviews with 31 professionals across the fraud justice network (FJN) in the UK and Canada.

The paper highlights the complexities that surround participant’s perspectives of liability when it comes to fraud. Professionals articulated responsibility falling across the spectrum of victims, offenders and third parties. Further, it is evident that perspectives of accountability are largely influenced by the various types of frauds that exist and the ways in which victims incur losses.

Interviews with selected FJN professionals may not be representative of those across the broader sector in each country. Despite this, there was still a diversity in views which highlights the tensions that currently exist as to where accountability is positioned.

The findings clearly indicate that accountability is not directed at any one party, rather there appears to be an interplay across offenders, victims and third parties. While the offender is arguably the one who should be held most accountable for their actions, a lack of official responses to fraud offending means that the offender is largely invisible. For those who place accountability on the victim, there is evidence of neoliberal discourses that argue for prudential citizens, or those who take responsibility for their own actions. This is in contrast to those who believed that victims could not be held accountable for actions beyond their control, and instead third parties were accountable, and should increase their role in education and awareness.

This paper articulates the discourses of accountability that exist for fraud, and how the current thinking can contribute to interactions with victims, as well as current responses to victimisation. Further work is required to better identify the criteria against which victims are being held accountable, as well as better understand who bears responsibility with responses to fraud victimisation.

Fraud is not a new offence. However, the recent evolution and proliferation of technologies (predominantly the internet) has seen offenders increasingly use virtual environments to target and defraud victims worldwide. Several studies have examined the ways that fraud is perpetrated with a clear demarcation between terrestrial and cyber offences. However, with moves towards the notion of a “digital society” and recognition that technology is increasingly embedded across all aspects of our lives, it is important to consider if there is any advantage in categorising fraud against the type of environment it is perpetrated in. This paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper examines the perceived utility of differentiating online and offline fraud offences. It is based upon the insights of thirty-one professionals who work within the “fraud justice network” across London, UK and Toronto, Canada.

It highlights both the realities faced by professionals in seeking to ether maintain or collapse such a differentiation in their everyday jobs and the potential benefits and challenges that result.

Overall, the paper argues that the majority of professionals did not feel a distinction was necessary and instead felt that an arbitrary divide was instead a hindrance to their activities. However, while not useful on a practical front, there was perceived benefit regarding government, funding and the media. The implications of this moving forward are considered.

This paper provides new insights into how fraud justice network professionals understand the distinction between fraud offences perpetrated across both online and offline environments.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how COVID-19 may alter the vulnerability levels of older persons, and how this may change their potential for fraud victimisation. This is particularly focused on the government’s use of isolation, restrictions on activity and physical distancing to combat the virus.

In the absence of statistics, this paper examines what is currently known about older persons and fraud, as well as the recent knowledge of COVID-19-related fraud. On this basis, the paper hypothesises the conceivable changes to vulnerability that potentially expose older persons to fraud.

This paper argues that COVID-19 has not seen “new” fraudulent approaches, rather offenders have used COVID-19 as a context to their existing schemes. Further, the current response to COVID-19 can substantially increase the number of older persons experiencing levels of vulnerability, and therefore increase their fraud risk.

The current paper applies existing knowledge into the current circumstances of COVID-19 and lays the foundations for empirical work to be conducted in this area.

This paper provides an impetus to target the well-being and connectivity of older persons, (regardless of the COVID-19 context), to reduce their vulnerability to fraud victimisation.

This paper highlights the importance of connectivity for older persons, and the need to focus on overcoming social isolation and loneliness.

This paper is the first to hypothesise the effects of COVID-19 and its associated government responses to the overall vulnerability of older persons, with a focus on the potential for fraud victimisation.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the reporting of cybercrime in Australia, specifically the reporting of fraud.

Using an evaluation of the (former) Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network (ACORN), this paper provides a commentary on the report findings, including both positive and negative aspects of the reporting mechanism.

The paper focuses on three key challenges that were identified in the evaluation: victim satisfaction; quality of data; and unintended consequences. Each of these topics is outlined and located within a broader context to better understand the evaluation findings.

This viewpoint paper is a commentary based upon an evaluation of ACORN which itself has several limitations of its methodology. Despite this, the evaluation provides important insights into the challenges that currently exist with the online reporting of fraud offences both in Australia, and worldwide.

This paper emphasises the structural and systemic issues that exist for the reporting of fraud in Australia. It therefore warns against placing blame exclusively on police agencies as responsible for these results. Instead, it advocates the need for society to take a more coordinated and collaborative approach to the policing of fraud, which includes law enforcement, government and industry partners.

The paper documents some of the underlying reasons for additional trauma and harm experienced by victims of fraud in their efforts to report their incident and receive what they perceive to be an appropriate criminal justice response. These must be acknowledged in order to make the required change.

This paper is a commentary and reflection on the current way in which fraud is reported in Australia. It points to a need to rethink this approach in some key areas. It highlights the critical need for an education campaign to dispel some of the myths that exist in relation to realistic police responses to fraud, and also calls for the need to consider alternatives to the exclusively online system currently in operation, as well as larger questions about notions of justice and appropriate responses to fraud victims.

This paper aims to explore current knowledge of business email compromise (BEC) fraud, or approaches that specifically target organisations for financial gain, through the exploitation of trusted relationships. BEC fraud affects organisations globally and is estimated to have netted offenders over US$26bn since 2016. Despite the sheer magnitude of these losses, there is a dearth of academic research seeking to better understand this crime type, and prevent it from occurring.

This review summarises the known literature on BEC fraud. It uses a variety of academic and industry sources to ascertain the current state of knowledge, including how it is perpetrated, its impact (on businesses and individuals), how law enforcement have responded and its prevention.

This review highlights many gaps in knowledge surrounding BEC fraud. There has been a large focus on the technical aspects of BEC fraud, to the detriment of the human elements. Often, BEC fraud is successful through targeted and effective use of social engineering techniques and is able to overcome any technical solutions through the manipulation of personal relationships. Further, while the financial impacts of BEC fraud are obvious, there is no known research which has explored the non-financial harms of BEC fraud (across organisational and individual perspectives). With companies starting to (unsuccessfully) take legal action against those who have responded, there is a clear need to understand how organisations can better respond to incidents when they occur. Finally, there are gaps in knowledge on what is the best combination of both technical and human measures to prevent BEC fraud.

This review is based on information presently available, and as indicated, there are significant gaps in what is currently known.

This review highlights the need to undertake research into the current gaps, with a view to improving best practice knowledge on prevention and response.

Currently unknown, BEC fraud is posited to have significant impacts at both personal and collective levels. Increased knowledge of these non-financial impacts will improve how organisations respond to BEC fraud and how employees can be supported before and after an incident occurs.

Despite the magnitude of the problem, there is limited academic scholarship on BEC fraud. This literature review offers a summary of current knowledge and advocates a strong research agenda moving forward.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the current prevention messages that exist surrounding the prevention of online fraud. In particular, it focuses on the amount and level of detail that is promoted for each type of potential fraudulent approach.

Multiple data sources are used to establish the main premise of this paper. This includes the publication entitled The Little Black Book of Scams, qualitative data from victims who have experienced online fraud, and materials collected through a police investigation into online fraud.

Results of this analysis indicate that current prevention messages are characterised by a large degree of detail about the various ways that (online) fraud can be perpetrated. This is argued to be ineffective, based on the experiences of victims who were unable to apply their previous knowledge about fraud to their experiences. Additionally, the categorisation of fraudulent approaches is highlighted as unimportant to offenders, who are focused on obtaining money by whatever means (or approach) possible.

This paper provides the impetus to evaluate the effectiveness of current prevention messages. It points to a simplification of existing prevention messages to focus more importantly on the transfer of money and the protection of personal information.

This paper argues that current prevention messages are characterised by too much “white noise”, in that they focus on an overwhelming amount of detail. This is argued to obscure what should be a straightforward message which could have a greater impact than current messages.

By envisioning the learning environment as an eco-social system, this study aims to map interrelated enablers of students’ sustainability-oriented learning (SoL) in the context of a university course at the interface of science and society.

A case-study approach was used to delineate what enables student learning in a university-wide transdisciplinary Master of Science course. A sample of 102 students, university and societal stakeholders participated to this study, by sharing their experiences and views through focus groups and questionnaires.

A main finding is the development of a configuration of six intertwined enablers that through their interplay help to cultivate students’ SoL, in the course under exploration.

This study paves the way for a re-orientation of how to explore learning in complex environments. It shows that adopting a relational, situated and systems approach is not only feasible but is also desirable to understand and guide learning practices in complex environments.