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The purpose of this paper is to gain in-depth understandings of the stages involved in the case of a romance scam victim who was unknowingly used as a drug mule. The work compares this case with established research in this field. It also seeks to learn more about the strategies used by these cybercriminals.

The research presents a case study of a victim of a romance scam who was arrested for drug trafficking. The research involves a grounded theory analysis of interviews with the victim, legal team and family members and analysis of her instant messenger chat logs and email communications.

The analysis identified a variation on previous stage models of romance scams and re-names this as the “romance scammers” strategy model. It also replicates previous work on scammers’ techniques and highlights some new strategies, including positively and negatively framing messages, unconditional positive regard, activating norms of romantic relationships, cognitive immersion, manipulating role, sleep deprivation and signing is believing.

These findings could be used to help guide future similar court cases. Moreover, they can be drawn upon to advance future research on romance scams, as well as scams in general.

This is the first in-depth case study of a romance scam victim involved in drug trafficking and is the first research on romance scams to examine in depth a case, taking into account textual exchanges. While not undermining previous research, this paper provides valuable insights that are lacking in previous qualitative work on cyber scam victims.

This study aims to examine the demographic, socio-economic and personality determinants of financial scams.

This study uses data on scams collected in Hiroshima prefecture in Japan for the analysis and analyzes using the logit regression model.

The results show that the current level of financial dissatisfaction increases the probability of being a victim of a financial scam. No other demographic or socio-economic factor is related to incidents of financial scams. Using the “big five personality traits,” this study finds that lower conscientiousness is the only personality trait that increases the probability of being a victim of a financial scam.

Overall, the results suggest that people with low conscientiousness could be easy targets of financial scams and financially dissatisfied people could engage in potentially risky and fraudulent projects.

Financial scams are a long-standing concern for Japan. Every year, an increasing number of financial scams are being reported, though there are very few empirical studies examining victims’ profiles and other determining factors.

Drawing upon affective events theory (AET), this study aims to explore the relationship between tourists’ perceived deception and moral emotions, dissatisfaction, revisit intention and negative word of mouth.

Online data from Questionnaire Star were used to examine the proposed research model. A total of 437 valid questionnaires were collected.

The results suggest that tourist scams as “affective events” could trigger tourists’ moral emotions and dissatisfaction, thereby decreasing their revisit intention and generating negative word of mouth. Additionally, moral emotions were found to act as a mediator between perceived deception and dissatisfaction.

The insights uncovered in this study reveal the mechanisms behind tourists’ reactions to scams and provide implications for tourism destinations, suggesting ways to alleviate the adverse impact of tourist scams.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the very first study to investigate tourists’ reactions to tourist scams.

旅游欺诈, 道德情感和游后行为：对道德情感, 不满, 重游意向和负面口碑的影响

研究基于情感事件理论 (AET), 旨在探究游客的感知欺骗与道德情绪、不满、重游意向和负面口碑之间的关系。

通过问卷星收集的线上数据对研究模型进行了检验。共回收有效问卷437份。

本研究的结果表明, 作为“情感事件”的旅游欺诈可能会引发游客的道德情绪和不满, 从而降低他们的重游意向, 并产生负面口碑。此外, 研究发现道德情绪在感知欺骗和不满之间发挥了中介作用。

本研究揭示了游客对旅游欺诈的反应及其内在机制, 并提出了降低旅游欺诈负面影响的方法, 为旅游目的地提供了启示。

这是探索游客如何应对旅游欺诈事件的首批研究之一。

Estafas turísticas, emociones morales y comportamientos: impactos en las emociones morales, la insatisfacción, la intención de volver a visitar y el boca a boca negativo

Resumen

Basándose en la teoría de eventos afectivos (AET), este estudio buscó explorar la relación entre el engaño percibido por los turistas y las emociones morales, la insatisfacción, la intención de volver a visitar y el boca a boca negativo.

Para probar el modelo de investigación propuesto se utilizaron datos en línea procedentes de un cuestionario. Se recogieron un total de 437 cuestionarios válidos.

Los resultados sugieren que las estafas turísticas como “eventos afectivos” podrían desencadenar emociones morales e insatisfacción en los turistas, disminuyendo así su intención de volver a visitar y generando un boca a boca negativo. Además, se encontró que las emociones morales actúan como mediadoras entre el engaño percibido y la insatisfacción.

Los conocimientos descubiertos en este estudio revelan los mecanismos detrás de las reacciones de los turistas a las estafas y brindan implicaciones para los destinos turísticos, sugiriendo formas de mitigar el impacto adverso de las estafas turísticas.

Este es el primer estudio que examina las reacciones de los turistas a las estafas turísticas.

This paper aims to explore factors influencing Vietnamese people’s susceptibility to fraud through cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes.

This study uses the gullibility theory, the theory of planned behavior theory, the traditional theory of finance and the theory of financial behavior, to develop a questionnaire which is then sent to respondents who are Vietnamese individuals. Subsequently, the partial least squares structural equation modeling approach (PLS-SEM) is used to analyze 370 collected responses.

This research shows the important roles that trust, risk appetite and knowledge of Ponzi play in respect of fraud susceptibility, among which trust has the highest positive impact. Moreover, there is no evidence of relationships between Vietnamese people’s susceptibility to fraud via cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes and attitudes toward investment scams, knowledge of investment or knowledge of Ponzi schemes.

This paper collects only 370 valid responses, which raises some questions regarding the diversity and representativeness of the survey sample.

This study provides evidence on factors affecting Vietnamese people’s fraud susceptibility to cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes, which helps both authorities and individuals to be vigilant against investment scams.

This research proposes several recommendations to prevent investment scams in cryptocurrency trading, from the perspective of state regulators and individuals.

This working paper provides a new approach using PLS-SEM to build a theoretical framework for the possibility of becoming victims of investment scams in Vietnam using a combination of different theories from criminology and finance.

This study aims to examine how advance fee fraud (AFF) scammers build their criminal expertise over time and why the AFF scamming deception process succeeds.

This study is interpretive, based on case study interview data with two scammers operating in Africa. The interviews were done over a period of time, and the data collection and analysis processes were iterative, primarily driven by the interview data.

The authors identify four processes that explain how scammers build criminal expertise, namely, socializing with scammers, accepting scamming definitions, practicing scamming techniques and manipulating digital technologies. The fourth process (manipulating digital technologies) also explains why scammer’s tactics are successful.

AFF scamming is a major crime affecting individuals and organizations worldwide, yet it remains under researched as little is known about scammers, their expertise and why their deceptive techniques are successful. The first contribution identifies four processes by which individuals build scamming criminal expertise as they transition from scammers-in-the-making to full-blown active scammers. The second contribution identifies the rationalizations used by scammers-in-the-making and scammers to justify transitioning into scamming and engaging in scamming criminality. The third contribution explains how the digital environment contributes to the processes of building scamming criminal expertise and why scammer’s deceptive tactics are sometimes successful.

Scams are indeed malicious attempts to influence people and can take many forms, including online scams. With the increasing availability of technology, scammers have more tools at their disposal to create convincing and sophisticated communications that appear to come from legitimate sources, such as emails, text messages or social media posts. These scams can be designed to trick individuals into clicking on malicious links, downloading malware or ransomware or providing sensitive information such as login information, financial information or personal details. Scammers often use social engineering techniques to persuade their targets to take specific actions, such as creating a sense of urgency, offering a reward or prize or posing as a trusted authority. These tactics can be highly effective, particularly if the target is unaware of the warning signs of a scam or is unfamiliar with how to protect themselves from online fraud. This paper aims to explore the extent and nature of this problem and evokes the concern that the general public is vulnerable and susceptible to scams if they are not resilient and aware. This paper also explores why victims fall for online scams and uncovers preventive measures to enable a direction in tacitly strategizing ways to create more impactful and effective awareness campaigns.

This study explores these aspects through a holistic qualitative approach. Using in-depth interview techniques with six victims, six non-victims, four law enforcement officers, four scammers and seven stakeholders from various agencies such as banks, telecommunication agencies and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission involved in combating the issue of scams.

The findings generally revealed that participants who were victims of scams felt Malaysians were susceptible to scams, easily fooled and had a nonchalant attitude. Most participants also highlighted that public safety is important for ensuring a high quality of life for citizens that should work closely between the government and non-government agencies, including effective law enforcement and crime prevention strategies.

The uniqueness of this study is the feedback from scammers themselves and their input towards authority and victims. Overall, the respondents provide their views drawing strength from the ever-changing technological background as well as the susceptibility of security features and vulnerability of human engagement.