“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” quips one dog to another in the famous “New Yorker” cartoon by Peter Steiner. The pithy statement encapsulates the enjoyable side of Internet anonymity – but says nothing about its dangers. The very same anonymity that fosters free expression also creates an environment where scammers, sexual predators and other unsavory characters can thrive. A scammer will choose one or more targets and slowly work to build his victims’ trust. He will seem like the perfect gentleman – keeping in touch, sending gifts, making the victim feel special – until one day he asks for money, promising to repay it as soon as possible. The reason varies, and often a heart-rending story is attached, such as a medical emergency he doesn’t have the funds to cover, a death in the family or a robbery. Although an unbiased, outside observer would see this as a reason to suspect something, by then the victim trusts the scammer and so the money is sent. Over time, there are more and more emergencies, more reasons for the scammer to ask for money, and soon enough the victim is broke, possibly even in debt. At that point, the scammer breaks off all contact and disappears. According to Nickolas Savage, assistant section chief of the FBI’s Cyber Division, the average loss for a victim of such a scheme is between $15,000 and $20,000, although there have been cases in which scammers extracted hundreds of thousands of dollars from their victims, with one con man managing to obtain a successful executive’s entire life savings – almost a million dollars – before being arrested in 2012. Writer Bio
