WTF! - What the Fraud!

In this episode, Adam and Louise sit down with Paul Maskall, a leading expert in fraud prevention, to discuss the emotional response to fraud. They explore why people often think fraud won't happen to them, despite it being one of the most common crimes in the UK. The conversation delves into human behaviour, how criminals exploit our emotional states, and ways we can better protect ourselves in the digital world.

Paul offers deep insights into the psychology behind fraud, social engineering, and the limitations of human intuition when facing online manipulation. The discussion also touches on how organisations like UK Finance and City of London Police are working to protect consumers and businesses from fraud and scams.

Key Takeaways:

1. Fraud is common, yet under reported: You are more likely to be a victim of fraud than any other crime type in the UK.
2. Human vulnerability: Fraudsters target emotional and psychological vulnerabilities, often exploiting moments of distraction or emotional distress.
3. Intuition is not always enough: People often trust their gut feeling, but Paul highlights that our emotional instincts are not always accurate when assessing fraud risks.
4. The role of technology: Both criminals and anti-fraud agencies are using technology, but it is essential to be mindful of our emotional states when interacting with potentially fraudulent messages.

Notable Quotes:

1. Paul Maskall: "Your vulnerability to fraud doesn’t depend on intelligence or tech skills – it depends on being human and breathing."
2. LouBax: "We’re humans; we’re trusting by nature, and criminals know that."
3. Paul Maskall: "It's like pushing a wet noodle up a hill, trying to convince people of risks they can't see."

Resources & Links:

• Consumer Friend Website – for all consumer rights information
• UK Finance – For insights on fraud prevention and financial security.
• Action Fraud – Report any fraud incidents here.
• Stop Fraud UK – Resources for staying safe from fraud.

Timestamps:

• [00:00] – Introduction to the episode and guest
• [05:30] – Paul Maskell’s role at UK Finance and City of London Police
• [15:00] – The psychology of fraud and manipulation
• [25:45] – Trusting your gut vs. emotional manipulation
• [35:00] – Final advice on preventing fraud

Release Date: 16/09/24

Host(s):

• Adam Carter
• Louise Baxter (LouBax)

Guest: 

• Paul Maskall  – strategic fraud prevention and behavioural lead for UK Finance and the City of London Police

Please like, subscribe and rate to help increase the reach in the UK. You can also follow us on socials:

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• Website: Consumer Friend
• Twitter: @ConsumerFriendUK
• Instagram: @ConsumerFriendOfficial
• TikTok

Transcript

Consumer Friend Podcast – UK Finance 

[00:00:00] This is Consumer Friend.

Welcome to the Consumer Friend podcast. As ever, Consumer Friend is here for all your consumer rights issues at consumerfriend. org. uk and on these podcasts. Please like, subscribe, and rate the show to help get our message out there. Today, we are going to be looking at the emotional response to fraud and why people disassociate themselves from the crime, thinking it will never happen to me, when actually it's the most commonly experienced crime in the UK.

You are over two times more likely to be a victim of fraud than any other crime type. We are going to be talking to our financial industry expert who has gone down the rabbit hole to discover so much more about human behaviour and the reason why we make the choices we make. But before all that I should probably say hi to my partner in crime.

Maybe I shouldn't use crime actually. My partner in life. No, that's going to upset the wife. Oh God, no, that's just making you just, start again. I [00:01:00] should say hi to, uh, to all round good egg. Hi LouBax. How are you? 

I'm good, thanks Ad. I, uh, just had Marmite and Marmalade on toast together. 

Wow. Honestly, you're making these little intros so much more interesting now.

I know. Well, it's because you said don't be boring. I thought, what can I do? I can chuck in like Marmite. Marmite. And marmalade together, together. I made my mum taste it because she's taken um, she's taken Bertie like old school stationery shopping because he starts secondary school. So she's gone to take him to WH Smith's to buy all of his stationery for school.

I used to love that. Yeah, love stationery day. Go and get a new pencil case. Yeah, yeah, really good and new pencils. Now I had a worry earlier this morning because I never get introduced on these podcasts so no one really knows who I am. 

What do you mean they don't know who you are? They don't know how you are.

I'm a bit worried. They don't know how you are because There must be literally hundreds of people going, who is this guy? I don't know who this guy is. Thousands of people, millions of [00:02:00] people. I'm like, I'm like Obviously. I'm like the secret podcaster. I'm like Banksy. I'm like the Banksy of the podcasting world.

Is that delusions of grandeur, is it? Is that, is that putting myself a bit 

Did you just actually compare yourself to Banksy? 

I mean, I did, but kind of in a joking way. I hope no one takes that seriously.

The problem is, right, Banksy, nobody knows who he is. I don't, you'll find out. Your face is all over the internet and your voice is all over the podcast. So I'm not sure that you have the same sort of mysterious. presents that Banksy has. All the talent, to be honest. I can't believe you just used my real name.

That's really upsetting.

How, how are you, Adam? I'm good. I'm amazing. Thank you so much for asking. I've always been great. You know, I'm always having a good time and enjoying life. Uh, we'll do that for the last four seasons. Yeah, I just, that's for the last four seasons. I've always been great. Thank you everyone. Thank you, Louise, [00:03:00] for asking.

Excellent. Uh, likes. It's all right. Shut up. Okay. So today we are thrilled to introduce a special guest who is at the forefront of combating financial crime in the UK. Paul Maskell is a strategic fraud prevention and behavioural lead for UK Finance and the City of London Police, where he plays a pivotal role in safeguarding the financial sector from a variety of threats.

With a background that spans law enforcement and cyber psychology, Paul brings a wealth of knowledge on the combination of technology and security. His insights are particularly valuable as he tackles the challenge of fraud in an increasingly digital world. We're excited to dive into his expertise and learn how consumers can better protect themselves in this evolving landscape.

Hi Paul, how are you? Thank you for coming on the podcast. Hello, Adam. Thank you very much. My pleasure. It's a real pleasure to be here. Great. So tell us a little bit about yourself. I mean, I've obviously done a little bit on the intro, you know, it's kind of like a bit of a black moment. What'd you do?

Where'd you come from? What's your name? All that kind of stuff. Yeah. Uh, so yes, as you quite rightly said, I'm Paul Maskell. I'm the strategic fraud and behavioral lead, [00:04:00] uh, for UK finance and city lender police. So yeah, it's, it doesn't even fit on a business card, so it's quite a long different title, but it also covers a multitude of different settings as well.

And in a sort of a nutshell, I cover, Much more, why is it that humans are generally much more vulnerable to things like online scams, online manipulation, that sort of stuff. And what I try and do is take that kind of academic learning, I do a part time PhD in the subject, in relation to online manipulation, and I try and apply that to, much more realistically into, again, financial industry strategy, but also how do we look at, from across both law enforcement and public protection, how do we look at actually protecting ourselves very, very often, much more effectively in this respect.

Because the problem is, with fraud being, what, 40 percent of all, all crime in the UK, and it's also simultaneously one of the most under reported crimes, it's, Most of what we're doing so far is not always that effective. So that's what I try and do in relation to combating that. So if we're going to take it back a [00:05:00] notch, who are UK Finance?

What is UK Finance? What do they do? So UK Finance, a little, little known trade association, especially for amongst the public, is that actually it's the, it's the main organizational trade body that looks after and looks at evidence based practice across the UK. Pretty much the entirety of the financial industry.

Um, so our members are, again, uh, most of the financial industry from fintechs or, uh, financial services, banks. Most of the big banks are members of our different streams, and we have different elements. We have economic crime, we have payments innovation, we have mortgages, uh, or tax and all these sorts of things.

things. And basically we're kind of a team of experts of various guises in various roles that service a lot of those different platforms. So yeah, it's very much that collaboration across different organizations, but also looking at, right, what's the best way we can kind of service and look after the financial services.

But my role is much more about, yes, let's look at how strategically we can protect the public from economic crime. And I guess that's why [00:06:00] that's where City of London Police comes in because City of London Police is the lead force in the UK for fraud. 100%. So this is where my, my, essentially my work identity crisis comes from, is that I'm half funded by UK Finance, but I'm also half funded by City of London Police.

So, City of London Police has the national lead portfolio for fraud and cybercrime. So they look at a lot of the national direction, national strategic direction in relation to how we go about protecting consumers, how we look at protecting businesses, but also how do we facilitate that education and what do we, put in place in order to facilitate that across the board.

This goes for things like training. This goes, for instance, in relation to the education that we give out. What do we do on social media? It's, it's a massive spanning portfolio. And that's why as of January this year, in fact, is I was brought on into their new economic crime and cyber HQ to do a lot of that kind of strategic direction of what we can do better in that behavioral space as well.

Great. So in terms of. Your knowledge and your expertise and your insight. So you've done a PhD in, in [00:07:00] what was it, what was the title of your PhD? So it's probably best to give you a little bit of background here actually, because it's, it, so I started my career, so I went, I left being a hotel manager and I went into police intelligence.

So it was quite a big career change, probably back in 2011, 2012. And for me it was very much this, I did, worked in intelligence for about two years and then I went into counter terrorism. So I worked in counter terrorism, in radicalization, and it was very much the case of where I was, uh, I think it was mid 2014 when I worked in, in CT.

Very often it was the case where, The ISIS caliphate was created, a lot of young people were travelling out and being radicalised in that sort of vein. And what really started it for me was very often this case of saying, well, okay, why are these people being essentially groomed online and fed a story or fed a narrative in which they wanted to believe?

So, what I really kind of found fascinating was, okay, well, how is it that we are manipulated online? How are we able [00:08:00] to believe a different story, a different narrative, and all these sorts of things much more effectively than we would do in the real world, etc., without the usage of social media and tech?

And when I moved from counter terrorism and went into cyber and fraud, I found pretty much exactly the same thing. Whether it's online safety, whether it's disinformation, whether it's fake news, whether it's the business or the business that you're trying to give education to or the consumer that you're trying to convince that they need to take action.

Actually, it was like kind of pushing a wet noodle up a hill because you're trying to convince people of a risk that actually people don't see. And that's very often where this kind of, as you quite rightly said at the beginning, this rabbit hole for me changed because I was trying to convince people, and for crime prevention in this space, you basically become a salesman, but without the profit to tell us whether we're doing any good at it.

For me, it was, okay, well, how does a hu how does a human assess risk? So, like, understanding how people perceive risk, how they understand it, turns out, spoiler alert, really poorly. Yeah. We're we're we're The more [00:09:00] I've gone down this road, and especially over those nine years, so I'm currently in my second year of my PhD, but this is a culmination of about nine years of this work, of Uh, we're looking at what's called cognitive heuristics.

So cognitive heuristics is basically the complicated word of saying the mental shortcuts in which human beings use in order to make decisions, either by automatically or again, judgments and all these sorts of things. The more I've gone down that route, regardless of the technology, I don't know how humanity got this far because we are generally rubbish at making decisions and it's really surprising that humanity is still about.

But the, the. The fact is, is that actually what I then discovered over those nine years, and what I'm increasingly discovered with actually the research in my PhD, is that our relationship with technology compounds this. For instance, if I give you an example, is that if I say air crash, like a good, a number of your listeners, or your friends, or family, or even yourself, Absolutely petrified of flying.

[00:10:00] Like, or you might get on a plane, you might white knuckles into the seat, etc. by the time you get there, but in reality it's one of the top ten phobias of how people assess risk. The problem is, if I say to you, well it's actually much more likely that you die horribly on the way to the airport than ever up in the air, it's the old adage, and everybody knows it, but it's But, again, you don't really associate it, you don't get to the airport and go, Oh, thank God that dangerous part of my journey is over, now let's go on a nice safe plane.

Like, people don't do that. Because the fact is, is that from an air crash point of view, you can thank 1990s action movies, 2000s terrorism, sensationalism and media, and you have a very visceral and very emotional sense of what can happen to you going at several hundred miles an hour in a steel and aluminium tube.

Now, the problem is, is that a pileup of the M25 does not make a good news story, nor does it make a particularly interesting Fast and Furious film. So, when it's assigning risk, is it what this is really crucially about, is what's called the availability heuristic. Now, [00:11:00] in English, is that people assess the risk.

the importance or the provenance of something based on the ease of which information comes to mind. So if I say air crash, people have it immediately in their head. That's, again, I can understand it, I can have an emotional sense, I can see it from films and all these sorts of things. Car crash, Actually, you really only have an image in your head that represents a problem once you've just been involved in one.

And this is where you then take it into crime, and you say, well actually, terrorism, everybody has an image in their head that represents the problem to them. But the problem is with this, is that from a terrorism point of view, it's much more likely you get struck by lightning than being involved in one.

But if I then say fraud, if I then say scams, or cyber, disinformation, and all these sorts of things, especially around the world of fraud, there isn't really an image that comes to mind. Because it's online, it's very abstract, um, most of the branding that we use in this field is blues, blacks, binary code, guys in [00:12:00] hoodies, laptops.

Yeah, yeah, whenever you type in on Shutterstock or Stockimage, you get the, you get the guy behind a computer in a hoodie. And that's the problem, is that you don't, you don't You're never exposed to the risk. You're never exposed to an imagery that assesses the risk, etc. And that, what that basically means is that if I try and educate you in this field, is that if you don't think it's a problem to you, or you don't assess the risk properly, then all of these subjects, and fraud and scams is a part of the larger issue around cyber, online enabled crime, radicalization, grooming, safeguarding, all of it comes into the same pot, I guess.

Because without an emotional image or a motivation for you to do something, it's like me asking you, I want you to learn German, but I never want you to go to Germany or speak to a German person. Are you motivated to pick up Duolingo? No. So, and that's the problem with fraud education, is that we're trying to educate people, and we are selling a product to people who are already imagining the product is something real to them.

So, very often when we're trying [00:13:00] to, to get across this, is that we're forgetting that crime prevention is marketing. We're trying to market to people that aren't necessarily emotionally motivated to even think it's a problem. And that, and don't get me started on the kind of languages that we use and all these sorts of things that again, Lou and I have talked about a lot.

So I was, I was, I was thinking if you want to educate people on not being afraid of getting onto a plane, what you probably need to do is we need to make a Netflix film of a day in the life of an airport where all the planes, Take off safely and land safely and nothing goes wrong. Yeah, because you're not going to watch it.

A. Nobody's going to watch it. And B. Again, what do we use when we try to highlight the safety or something or the probability of something? Statistics. Yeah. Like, nobody is motivated by stati Yeah. No, but, but the thing is, nobody's really motivated by statistics. Like, I think it's a, a generally a faux pas to quote Stalin in a presentation or a podcast.

But, but, Let's do it. But it's the death of one is a tragedy versus the death of a million is a statistic. It's very, very true when you're talking [00:14:00] about that is sort of, there's the emotional impact of, you know, One person has been impacted by this crime versus 20 million that these people have been impacted by the crime.

There's diminishing returns of what you assess as, Oh god, this is a horrible thing, or could this happen to me, etc. So very often statistics, when we try and put it on social media, are, well, actually 40 percent of all crime is fraud. Yeah, but what does that actually mean to me? Like, does that, that impact me?

That's the thing is that we also use it in conjunction with language. For instance, again, like, like it was one of the only crime types you fall for. So the problem is with this is that if you Fall for, it's blaming, it's blaming. Exactly. And that's the thing, is that, by extension as well, is that we blame the victims, there's an accountability and inference that, yes, we blame the victims.

There's also an element where it completely removes the criminal element from the conversation. So if Mrs. Miggins fell for a scam, well actually it completely removes the criminal that directly or [00:15:00] indirectly targeted her to steal her money or her data. There's also the element of, well actually, when we use that language for the people who haven't been a victim.

What's your immediate response? Well, actually it's overconfidence. Cause if I say to you, Adam, or Lou, don't fall for something. What's your immediate response? Yeah. Well, of course it wouldn't. Almost gets people's back up. That you, you would think that I would fall for that. Yeah. So do I follow on social media if something's asking me to do that?

No, and that's, that's, that's the big problem we have. It's also, it's, it's also relative, isn't it? So we talk about things, uh, trying to educate people on things, um, like, not this that they don't think is going to happen to them, but we haven't got capacity. The world is, we are, like, and Adam will love this, Adam loves all this media literacy stuff, in the fact that we get bombarded with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of different messages all day.

Eat five bits of fruit and vegetables each day. Don't have too much salt drink. Drink six to eight glasses of water, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Nobody really goes, obviously we don't drink water, we're, we're gonna die, I'm [00:16:00] aware of that, but like we know nobody ever like really, I don't know anybody that actually counts.

Do you count how much water you have every day? I don't think you do. I do on my app. Bottles. Do you actually? Oh god, seriously. You need to get more hobbies or something. I have a water llama. I'm, I'm with Adam on this one. Um, I'm a, I am a terrible hunts plant. So I try to remind myself of how much water I'm taking in.

But maybe this is the wrong, maybe this was the wrong thing. Maybe I've got the wrong audience here. Right. Okay. So, okay. But things like that to that, but again, that isn't like, so having water, there's a knock on effect. You, it makes you feel better. You, you get, but it's not, we've got no capacity to fit this into our brains.

It's these anti fraud messaging education. It's like me educating you on when we went out to the stuff that we do with About faulty goods. You don't need to know how to get your faulty TV sorted out until your TV's faulty. You don't need that 100 percent and this and this highlights A larger issue in relation to that relationship with tech that we talk about is that there [00:17:00] is an overinflation of expectations.

So very often you should do this, you should do that, you should be, uh, eating this, this healthiness or something like that. And very often in the inundation that we have in our social media feeds, we're constantly exposed to this all the same time. There's also this element of where actually the content in which we follow, actually is governed by our own confirmation bias.

So I only read what I want to read, I only follow what I want to follow, and I only believe what I want to believe. But also social media will only give me content that I already believe, or follow, or should know, etc. Because, based on, because why would I market information to somebody that doesn't believe in this particular news article, or this, this content, etc.

So very often we have this kind of mutual grooming relationship with our content, and very often our own, etc. Vulnerability is basically cultivated by the content that we choose to consume and not to choose to consume. Think about that, again, eating healthily or whichever. Think about fraud education.

Why would I follow it [00:18:00] if I never think I'd fall for it? Why would I engage with it or take it on board if I never think that I'd be duped or fooled into that process? This was explained to me as, uh, if someone wrote an article saying, Ice cream is bad for you. You're never gonna, you're never gonna read it.

You're never gonna watch the documentary. If someone wrote an article saying ice cream is good for you, whether it's true or not, people are gonna go, I like ice cream. If it's good for me, I'm gonna watch that, I'm gonna read that article. And that's, that's that confirmation bias piece, isn't it? And emotion, again, all of this is marketing.

So, the fact is, is like, one thing I'd highlight is that what's the difference between fraud and marketing? I don't know. It's not really, it's just clever and illegal. Yeah, exactly. The only real difference in the way in which I commit fraud, or social engineering, or scams, or things like that, versus marketing, is the intention of the author.

That's really the only difference, because I use a combination of context, authority, urgency, scarcity, but really importantly is emotion. And this is the [00:19:00] thing, is that emotions get clicks, like, if I go, if I have, uh, an article says by the way, ice cream is really bad for you and can cause this X amount, et cetera, I was like, my emotional, my immediate emotional response in the center of my chest is, I want to avoid this information at all costs.

Yeah, I don't want to know. Again, ignorance is bliss. Like, coffee, any study that comes out with coffee saying too much coffee is going, I'm like, oh no, I'm not, I'm not. I wouldn't read that. I wouldn't read that. I wouldn't read it. Also, it's like when you cut, like, my car's making a funny noise and I just keep ignoring it.

I've gotta take it to the garage. I was supposed to take it last week and I haven't. I've got to take it today. I was supposed to take it first thing this morning and I haven't because I don't want to know. But this is called the ostrich effect. I don't want to know. This is an ostrich, ostrich bite.

What's wrong with the car? Although it completely ruined my day when I realized that ostriches don't actually in fact put their heads in the sand, but it's still. What? I know, I know, I know. It's not an actual thing and even, but heuristic for romantic short film. It's because you avoid, yeah, you avoid [00:20:00] negative feeling stimuli.

So for instance, again, that warning light, I'm like, I don't want to deal with that right now, the conversation you have to have with a partner, or you, again, well, why people don't necessarily want to check their bank balance after a, a, a spendy weekend, et cetera, like that. It's, it's the ostrich effect, because we avoid those negative emotions in those sorts of things.

Two questions. Adam is the king of avoidance, so Adam will understand all of this stuff. What, me? No. As you were the audience to get to know you a bit better. So that's what we're doing. These are all his faults and all the applications. All the illusion. All the illusion, the Banksy illusion. But the thing is he's very open about it.

He's like, don't want to deal with that. Not going to, I'm pretending that's not happening. I'm like, okay, then that's your choice. But with these, with the fraud messaging and, and, um, So when people do become a victim, because obviously we're trying to change the language, we don't say felful, we don't say it's too good to be true, we [00:21:00] don't say those things.

So when we're saying to people that have become a victim of what are essentially organised crime groups who are targeting people when they are situationally vulnerable, let's just, oh, grooming for adults, coercive control, whatever we're calling it, financial abuse, that, that, that, the lies we tell ourselves are always the best lies That anyone could ever tell us, aren't they?

Oh, we are very good at lying to ourselves. We are like, oh, I'll do it. I'll start the diet tomorrow. Oh, don't worry about it. It's only five pounds. Oh, don't worry that that won't matter. I'll just one more drink or any of that stuff. Or Yeah, eat the ice cream. Eat double ice cream. It doesn't matter. It's only, it's only one day.

And then the next day you do the same and it saves repeat patterns. So with the when, when people do find out then, and they are, um. Because a lot of the time we see people caught in a rationalisation trap where even when they are a victim of scams and fraud, getting those people to actually see that they're a victim, especially in things like romance fraud, you can't get people to, so the rationalisation trap is they're like, well this, it can't be a scam, it can't be fraud.

Can you just explain that a little bit to us? So this [00:22:00] is, now, this is interesting because again, for me, is that for every human being out there, there is a need to be met. Whether, say for instance, is that any behaviour that you have, whether it be shopping, whether it be drugs, alcohol, gambling, whatever your vice is, everybody has a flavour of it in some ways, etc.

Uh, mine is buying Lego, uh, but generally speaking is that everybody has a need to be met. And you can trivialise that, etc, etc, etc, etc, but as you quite rightly said, Lou, there's the romance scams for instance. Is that, what need is that being met? Is that isolation, loneliness? Uh, self doubt narrative, like that self narrative.

If you've ever suffered from anxiety and depression, you know that the narrative in which you tell yourself, and the story in which you tell yourself, is, is crucial to whether your, your mental health is good or bad. Now, for me, in fraud education, if I could afford therapy for the entire UK population, I would, because, This is the problem, is that in [00:23:00] any sort of manipulation, there is a need being met.

Now that can be from childhood trauma, that can be from background, that can be context and environment. There can be a number of different factors that will lead us to make decisions based on our own biases, based on what we need in those sorts of situations. Just like that last relationship that you shouldn't have been in, and you look back and you go, hold on a second, why was I there?

We didn't see those red flags. But very often it's this case of where the emotional projection becomes very, very great, because criminals are very good at manipulating us. But if I said to you, well, have you ever taken a text message the wrong way from a partner? Like, have you ever taken an email the wrong way from a colleague?

Well, the problem is, like that text message from the partner, You read it based on the emotional context of your communication. So whether you had an argument that morning before you left for work, or you've had a really nice time recently. You had a weekend away together and your relationship is going really well.

You read it in the context of your emotion and your relationship. And how you are [00:24:00] feeling about yourself at that very moment. If you are stressed and distracted at work, you may read it in a different way than on a, a much more calmer day. And that is no different to scams. That is no different to fraud and social engineering, because we read it based on the emotional context of how we feel very often.

Is it in those sorts of situations when we are a victim, is that we build the picture. So for instance, another analogy would be, have you ever read a book that's been turned into a film? And did you agree with the casting choice? Yeah, you see it differently in your head, don't you? Exactly, and that's the thing, is that the author can be the most beautiful writer in the world, but you create the character around the framework in which the author gives you.

And everyone has their own individual version of that. Exactly, and that's the thing, is that because you create the character around the framework, that's no different to online communication. So actually, the less information I give you, and the more hope and the emotional need that you need and [00:25:00] require, the more you fill in the gaps.

So when we talk about criminals becoming more sophisticated, I'm like, yes, some, in some ways. But actually, because of our relationship with technology and text messages and emails and social media and content, is that we are much more emotionally subjective. Yeah, yeah, it's now everywhere. Like, Rampantly emotionally subjective.

Just look at a comment field, you and like, like, like. But you, but we can't read, you can't read the room, you can't read the, the things that people aren't saying or writing down. You can't get the sense. So like, you could, I could write, I'm really annoyed today. And you read that, oh my gosh, he's annoyed with me.

But if I said that to your face, like, I'm really annoyed today, you know that's not because I'm annoyed with you. So it's about, so it's the tone, isn't it? The intonation, the way that your body language is, all those other things that we don't read, and like you say, especially in relation to romance, fraud and scams, and sometimes those people will be situationally vulnerable, and there might be, let's go with like the darkest thing, like there might have been a bereavement or a recent relationship [00:26:00] breakdown, which leads to situational vulnerability, and that susceptibility, because that, want that need, I know everybody wants to be loved, let's be real.

Yeah, we're human beings, yeah, exactly. Yeah, so you read those, and the criminals that do things like romance scams, for example, they pick on people deliberately that are socially isolated, because then those people don't have someone to go, what do you think of this? And then to give a really objective viewpoint of those messages as well.

And I think this ties in. It's really difficult. This, this ties into the intuition myth. Like, now I'm Trust your guts. Yeah. Trust your instincts. Because I think it's rubbish because now the more and more I've learned about intuition, and you've, you've probably heard about like the autopilot, like, uh, again, is that you have like, uh, kind of, um, system one and system two or hot and cold, uh, all these sorts of things.

System one is your autopilot that basically functions 90 percent of the time. And system two is the much more analytical and takes note, et cetera. So [00:27:00] the best example I can think of is when you're overtaking, if you're driving along and you're overtaking a vehicle, very often you might turn to the music.

You might put, make sure both hands are on the wheel. Uh, your friend who is in the passenger seat might actually. Kind of stop their conversation mid flow while you're doing that, because that's the switch from autopilot that you're used to driving all the time in a safe and safer environment to something you need to concentrate on and backwards and forwards.

And as soon as you've overtaken the vehicle and you're back into autopilot, you switch back. Now, this is the problem is that most of the time we lead on autopilot. Most of the time you're on your device or any sort of social media or any content, guess which mode you're in? Autopilot, um, and especially from scrolling through.

But also on this basis is that when we talk about the intuition and saying, trust your gut, if it feels fishy, it's going to be fishy. No, your intuition, how often, again, last relationships, your last marriage, your last job, very often your intuition is only as good as your experience up until that point.[00:28:00] 

So, again, if you're not motivated to take on board the education in the first place, how do you build an intuition in order to spot the phishing email, or the text, or what that person's talking about on the phone, etc., trying to convince me to buy an investment, or, you know, I've got a direct message saying, you know what, I love you, I think you're incredible, I really want to get to know you.

Very often the education we use, like, oh, it's, if it's too good to be true, then it is. Well, what, what, what is too good? Like, can anybody give me some sort of magical spreadsheet that gives me the answer to what too good is and what am I not deserving of in a deal or relationships or whatever it may be in that manipulation?

Trust your gut? No, your intuition is designed, and when we talk about trust your gut, is very often it's designed to make you comfortable, not right. So in a relationship, well, trust your gut. No, but your gut is basically on your decision based on all of your subjective biases up until that point, all of your trauma, everything that makes you, you.

And because you will make a decision to make yourself comfortable, [00:29:00] but not necessarily correct in the instance. And because as you quite rightly said, Lou, online, you don't have any of the body language, you have nothing else. All you have. is what you believe, and what you build. So we create the character around the individual who's, who's manipulating us.

Um, very often, if I, I use the example of, very often in relationships, your partner is not who they are. There is, the old adage is, there is what you believe they are, they believe they are, and what they actually are. So, very often, If you think about that and compound it with our relationship with technology, and if you never see the face, if you never see the individual, the other end of that communication.

You will know, will believe what you want to believe. Yeah, absolutely. So it's, that's, uh, but also we are humans. We are, we are trusting by our very nature. Yes. And therefore the criminals are obviously very much aware of that and are producing the messaging that is persuasive. They're using technology [00:30:00] that's persuasive.

So we as humans, yeah, I mean, and the internet's only been around for what, 35, 40 years. I don't know. How long has it been around for? So it's very new to us as a human race. So our brains haven't evolved to understand the fact that there's millions of people bombarding us with messaging and information.

And we're unable to almost critically analyze that information, understand why we, why we're seeing it. We, we trust it and we believe it. But it's also as well, we can't, but we can't go against. So whilst we say, So I just want to just revisit this before we move on really quickly around the intuition point that doesn't mean You shouldn't listen to your intuition.

So just from a perspective So, you know with with sometimes you'll get like in relation to fraud and scams or any anything that you're doing if something Like sometimes we talk about so like romance scam, for example butterflies That's anxiety Because something's off. It's Right, now that might be your off, right?

That doesn't mean that that person is off, but something in that situation is making you feel anxious. [00:31:00] So it's actually trying to address what that is, but that doesn't mean ignore it, because sometimes that anxiety is what keeps us safe. And that's the thing The intuition keeps us safe. It's basically your emotions.

are like smoke alarms. And this, I love this analogy because your, your emotions are like smoke alarms. They have no differentiation between whether you're burning down the house or burning the toast. Now, sometimes you will react that it's burning down the house, but you're burning the toast. So very often it's up to us in to interpret it.

So very often, yes, your intuition or trust in your gut in a situation where you want to believe that this person loves you or you want to believe that you can make a good return on your money in a cost of living crisis and all these sorts of things, is it's trusting but verifying. Now, this comes, to be fair, you can extend this to everything, everything online, everything you see, everything you read, every news article you read, etc.

But it's very much, it's also about trusting but verifying yourself. And that's really where it comes down to, is that, yeah, okay, my gut instinct is telling me [00:32:00] this, but why is it telling me this? Why it is up to me to interpret that emotional response. So Based on facts as well, based on evidence, what you see, what you don't see, what you're told, what you're not told, based on extra checks that aren't reliant on the person at the end of the communications, like you say that verification bit, but quite often with these things, some think, and when we talk about, and when we've spoken to, to a couple of people on the podcast about romance fraud and stuff like that, they found out that there was something because something was off and then they've gone down and investigated what was actually off, like Anna from Love Said we've spoken to, but it's those things, isn't it?

So like there is a, like where we say, Don't trust your gut, but do trust your gut. So it's almost trust it, sit in it, and then try to understand why you're feeling like that. And is that you or is it something else? So if you can, again, in that emotional response, especially now with social media and content, I think very often it's the case where we allow our emotions to dictate our behaviour.

Now again, this is [00:33:00] applicable to everything, but we are very much, we are, we, we allow those emotions to dictate the behavior and we will follow that roller coaster and essentially we will sit in that current of emotion and we will be take, we will take in, uh, as a kind of a back, a passenger in what our emotions are dictating.

Now in those sorts of cases and why Fraud and scams and manipulation is on such a colossal level is that because you're in the safety of your own home You might be familiar you're on your device you're not necessarily mindful of actually being able to To take on board what your emotions are telling you in those sorts of moments And you just get taken on by the current especially doom scrolling through social media and that sort of stuff But very often that is the case around Your intuition is about making you comfortable, 100%, so very often, actually, hold on a second, I'm not comfortable in this sort of situation.

But trust it, trust it in those sorts of aspects, but it's about verifying, you cannot treat it as absolute gospel in [00:34:00] certain instances as well. Whether that be relationships, whether that be work, whether that be, again. online manipulation, whatever the context. So there is a balance, but it's this perception that intuition is some sort of magical white charger that will come in and to rescue you in these situations, um, is, is very often the point.

With the media literacy stuff, for example, like, so again, that's, we're, we're doing some writing for media literacy in schools at the moment, and some of the stuff, scrolling. My, my, uh, on TikTok, and I can get lost in TikTok, which is not a healthy thing to do either, but at the minute I've sort of taken, I said this to you Paul earlier this week about me taking an interest in bloody and Adam camper vans.

What I'm getting is camper vans now and all it's doing is making me want to buy a camper van even more because I'm seeing everybody living their best van lives. I was going to go off grid. It's been 15 years old. It's improved since then. You know, if you say camper van and all of a sudden you're seeing camper van on your social media feed.

That technology's old now. There are other ways of them getting that message to you. Subliminally. Blah, [00:35:00] blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's what, that's what I'm saying is like, so all of this stuff around, um, Fraud and scams and all of those sort of things is, is, and, and all they're doing is just tapping into, like just back to our wants, our needs, our desires.

I like, that's a great idea. Go live off grid. They're keeping, they're keeping you on the platform. But all they're doing, all they want to do is keep you on the platform. The longer they keep you on the platform, the more money they make. And we do live in a capitalist world and it's, it's, it's, Is what it is.

It's the same with Scam Vic. Scam. The same with criminals, though. The longer they can keep you in contact with them and talking to them, the more money they make, the more they can man and the more they can manipulate the best relationship I can build with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Okay. So we've covered off what the reason people don't think that they're gonna be a victim of a scam or fraud, and then we've sort of covered why.

Um, then that rationalization trap of people have become a victim. So what happens then? So once people then start to realize, and I always think about it like a. A window de misting or a shower. 100%. door demisting. [00:36:00] What, what, what words, what advice would you give those people? I think the first, first port of call is contact your bank.

So if you have lost money, it's fundamentally about contacting your bank in the first instance, because they are the ones going to be able to support you, whether you have lost money, whether you've transferred money, et cetera, in those, and they will, they are geared now, especially, uh, in recent years, there's been massive, massive, uh, changes in order to support victims of this sort of crime.

And very often it's the case of that then going forward, and if you, uh, wish to go and then report to things like action fraud, it's very much about kind of feeding into that larger picture from an action fraud perspective. I think after all that, is it, you can rationalize yourself being a victim of burglary.

Now, you can see the broken glass, you can see the stolen television, or whatever, etc., or an heirlooms that have been stolen from you, and at no point do you, you know, see yourself as anything other than a victim. The problem is with fraud and scams, is that very often you turn the language that we've talked about on yourself.

I fell for it. I was duped. I was stupid. [00:37:00] Again, I can tell you until i'm blue in the face that that is not the case You were directly targeted by an individual that wanted to steal your money or your data We are fighting against a societal stigma Around how you perceive yourself as a victim and how we see victims of fraud in this space Fundamentally, if you see think you're a victim of fraud, um, then 100 percent contact your bank, but also explore How you can look at support from friends and family and online charities as well so I mean, I agree with all that.

Make sure you report it because people need to know, decision makers need to know about the importance and the severity of this crime. But I want to ask you how people can better protect themselves from, from fraud and from scams, financial crime, whatever, whatever industry we're in and we want to call it.

But I guess, I guess that's not the right question. I guess the question is, what should these agencies that are working in counterfraud, what should City of London Police, UK Finance, National Trading Standards, Trading Standards, Police Forces, Neighbourhood Watch, Citizens [00:38:00] Advice, whoever it may be, what should they be doing that they're not currently doing now?

It's about, so there's two things to this, there's two things to this, is that your vulnerability to fraud and scams or any sort of manipulation and the prerequisite for that is that you're human and breathing. It doesn't matter who you are, what you are, what you believe, how confident you feel, is that there is a flavor of fraud for everyone.

Everybody on this call, or everybody out there, has been told something that they wanted to hear at the wrong time you should have heard it. That is no different to social engineering and scams, and that is the crux of the, the matter. Now, from an education point of view, is I can give you the top 10 tips to protect yourself.

But I can't motivate you to go and do it. And that's the biggest issue that we have is that we're trying to motivate people that don't cognitively cannot see the risk until it's actually happened to them. So very often it's a case of saying, we need to market and look at fraud. in a very, very [00:39:00] different way.

We need to look at it as a well being, a digital well being aspect, a mental health element in relation to that. Because again, just things like domestic violence and coercive control and online coercion and grooming and disinformation, all of these risks that are plaguing society in so many different ways nowadays are all born of online and abstract and it's about seeing this as a well being issue, not because somebody is stupid enough to fall for it because that's absolute rubbish.

So basically we should all go to Bali and build boats. I mean, I'm up for that if you want. We can take my van. We can take the van. We'll take the van. We'll take the van to Bali. It's fine. Yeah, it's um, yeah, yeah, that's amazing. Paul, that's absolutely amazing. Thank you so much. I guess a final, a final bit here is around that technology and how we should be using technology for good.

Obviously criminals are using the technology for bad, if there is a [00:40:00] good and bad analogy there. How else can we be using technology to help improve the systems? Well, I think it definitely comes down to verifying. So, again, whether it's a number, whether it's a text message, whether it's an email, etc. If it comes out of the blue and you're distracted and your emotions, as I said, it's about trusting your emotions but verifying whether it's in those sort of situations.

So if you think, oh, this is a really good opportunity, yeah, but do your research. Do those checks. The information out there that is designed there to manipulate you, and there's also information out there designed to help you, whether it be trading standards, whether it be the Stop Thing Fraud campaign, and all these different elements for education, there's always an opportunity for you to verify.

And that's the problem, is that we forget to verify when we have that kind of emotional bulldozer taking us through that process. It's about our emotional mindfulness and how we utilize technology to research and to, to look at the offers and to look at what we're doing regardless of the flavor of fraud.

Um, but that's the [00:41:00] thing, is it, it comes down. It's trying to take yourself out of that emotional hot state as well, isn't it? It's trying to go like, do you know what, I'm going to, I know I need to make a decision on this. Or even if you feel like, just go, five minutes won't matter, take yourself away from it.

And I mean, that's a life lesson everywhere, to be honest. Just take a little bit of time out. Again, I do a lot of work around this, and the thing is, it's no different to having an argument with a partner, because the fact is, is actually you're going to have a much more progressive relationship. result in your conversation, if you actually take yourself out of that hot state.

Because if you're just, like, again, angry part versus angry part, and you're just constantly going at it with each other without actually taking those moments to actually reflect on why those emotions are telling you these things. Paul, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for coming on to our podcast.

Great information. I could talk to you for hours. Unfortunately, we have come to the end. Thank you. Any final thoughts from either Louise or Paul? Lou, you go [00:42:00] first? No, I think we just need to do another episode of this. There's so much more to come. I absolutely do. And Paul, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast.

Any final thoughts? I think it's just to reiterate that everybody's been told something they wanted to hear at the wrong time you should have heard it. And, and remembering that that's the same as anything from broad any manipulation. Perfect. Thank you very much. Bye bye. This is Consumer Friend.