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Thank you, to all groups, for your valuable inputs. Here are some notable points, insights, and areas for further development:

a) Scammers are likely to be very good communicators, eloquent, knows how to use manipulative language to exploit vulnerabilities, among others. In other words, not everyone can successfully execute a scam. Can such qualities be learned?

b) Victims are usually from vulnerable groups. Can a victim be someone who is not vulnerable? The answer is yes - some of you shared that overly ambitious and greedy individuals can fall prey too. Victims can be of any age. The elderly are still at risk but with the digital nature of scams, the spotlight is now on young adults and the digitally savvy;

c) Interesting points on gender differences. Do go through your classmates' views!

d) The points on the impacts of scams on victims were well done. Consider if there is sufficient interventions for victims. If not, what more can be done?

e) Enforcement agencies have to use more resources to investigate scams that are transnational in nature. They also have to deal with the distress of victims and their families. The public may perceive enforcement agencies negatively for their lack of ability to apprehend the perpetrators.

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Profile of Scammers
- eloquent
- pleasant
- quick witted
- sly
- sincere sounding
- try to play victim card

Profile of Scam Victims
- naive
- gullible
- optimism bias
- think too smart to be scammed

Impact of scams on victims
- financial loss
- emotional damage
- everything gone
- painful lesson
- expensive lesson
- affect families as well

Impact of scams on enforcement
- difficult to catch perpetrators
- increased crime rate
- scams keep evolving
- victims expect swift responses
- need to educate the general public

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Lai Ying, Kai Ting, Sakinah, Alyssa, Casey, Jaslene

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Lai Ying, Kai Ting, Sakinah, Alyssa, Casey, Jaslene

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(a) - Eloquent, can articulate very well
- Quick-thinking, can reply quickly to victim's queries
- Know the weak spots of the victim
- Know how to fish information from their victim
- Charming, attractive [specific to love scams]
- Know how to manipulate people, probably knows a bit of psychology

(b) - Lonely [specific to love scams]
- Vulnerable
- Lack of social bonds, reclusive/introverted
- Naive/gullible
- Not digitally-savvy
- Ambitious, greedy
- Overconfidence that they won't fall for scams

(d) Impacts on victims:
- Devastated because they lost a lot of money
- Lose confidence
- Distrust towards everyone else
Impacts on enforcement:
- Ramp up measures to deter scams
- Increase awareness/educate against scams
- Education against scams is more passive, rather than active. E.g. Enforcement usually has to wait for scams to happen before reacting to them, cannot really prevent first.
- Allocate resources to countering scams

(e) Extra qn: Which gender, male or female, is more susceptible to scams?
- For love scams, predominantly males because of lust
- For other scams, mostly females. E.g. Home-makers are not as exposed to outside world as males

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a) Scammer could be tech savvy and persuasive in getting the scam victim to follow their instructions. They are also motivated by the money.

b) The scam victims could be gullible and vulnerable such as elderly. They could also be coping with setbacks such as unemployment and happened to see a scam relating to job ads. Males are generally more susceptible to scams as they are over-confident and feel that they will not get scammed. Furthermore, the younger generation are more susceptible to scams as they spend more time online shopping.

c) The circumstances could be for money, thrill, greed and peer pressure. They might also feel that the chances of them getting caught is low.

d) Victims would lose their life savings. They would also lose their confidence as they would not have thought that they would get scammed. This could take a toll on them mentally as they do not have enough resources like money to support themselves now. They would also feel shame and it might be harder for them to reach out for help. Scams will also affect the victim’s family as the victim might reach out to them for money which might be difficult for them as they could have their own financial problems. Scams can impact enforcement as the number of scam cases are high and there are too many cases for the police to handle. It might also be difficult for the police to retrieve the money that the victims lost as some scammers operate overseas. This could lead to a lack of trust in police officers as victims might feel that the police are not working hard enough on recovering their money back and to prevent such scams from happening.

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a) Profile of scammers
-some level of technological prowess, knowledge of specific nature of scam (if bitcoin spam, they have prior knowledge of the industry)
-knowledge of the field, arguably more than the victims
-manipulative, know how to talk and influence victims
-possible access to victim's data; hackers selling victims info from the Darkweb (i.e. IC, name, they are able to craft documents prior to contacting victims to sound more legitimate)
-they target fear of authority; scammers pretend to be law enforcement officers/police officers/inspectors from MOM/MOH

b) Profile of victims
-elderly (have big amounts of money), youngsters (i.e. football/investment scams: those that are already looking to get extra money in a quick/easy way are easier to tempt/influence) demographics
-demographics are very targeted to the scams (i.e. gender is based on nature of the scam. for love scams, males are easier to get targeted. for investment, scammers will target more guys because in general there are more male investors in the industry)
-victims are not aware/wary enough of their digital footprint
-risk-takers

d)
Victims
Negative
-loss of money
-trust issues
-lose self esteem, get depressed
Positive
-educate themselves and others of their experiences

Enforcement
Negative
-need to allocate more manpower, resources and funds to combat and educate public

Positive
-stricter regulations on businesses/banks (to the banks who need to implement tighter controls it might be a hassle, but at the end of the day, it also benefits them and their customer base)
-leads to more transparency between law enforcement and businesses; stakeholders and businesses due to need for exposure.
-more preventive measures rolled out by businesses and gov/orgs to the public i.e. Telcoms issuing scam notifications which can lead to lower risks of scams happening in the future

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a) Impersonation
Highly manipulative
Good social engineering skills
Pushes for fast decisions
Typical scam methods such as phishing, remote hacking, usage of previously obtained email.
b) Vulnerable or desperate
Elderly
Have low self-confidence
Limited knowledge of tech, financially/emotionally unstable
Greed, Naive with promis of easy money
c) Scammer looking to make easy profit
Anonymity makes it easy to do, hard to catch
Targeted types of scams: friend account, e-commerce
d) Victims: usually monetary loss, emotional distress, self-harm and trust issues
Enforcement: loss of public confidence, difficult to trace scam methods (inefficient deployment of labour)

Zam
Cass
Sky
Kelly

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Question A
- Charismatic
- Eloquent
- Has convincing and Persuasive Skills
- No formate to messages
Question B
- Gullible
- Vulnerable (EMotion)
- Wrong day wrong time can be scammed (WE BELIEVE THAT EVERYONE CAN BE SCAMMED)
- Money Scam -> Gender Neutral
- Love Scam -> Female profile used to scam a male
Question D
- Impact on Victim
Monetary Loss
Trust Issues
- Impact on Enforcement
Demoralised
Desensitizing
Need to push out more campaigns to educate the public
Engage stakeholders in the community to educate and support crime prevention

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What is the typical profile of a scammer

Someone that is technologically savvy

Someone that can be persuasive

Someone that is vulnerable e.g. in debt, jobless, in need of money to pay off essential items (groceries)

Someone that is up-to-date to current trends

25-40 (technological savvy. around this age, individuals hold responsibilities. when unable to fulfill such responsibilities, they may resort to scam)

What is the typical profile of a scam victim?

Emotional in nature

Easily persuaded

Elderly

Desperate/vulnerable

Low-self esteem

May not be well-informed or knowledgable (e.g. cannot differentiate what is “too good to be true”)

Identify the circumstances behind the commission of scams?

Guilt tripping victims (e.g. telling someone that if they do not donate, they are cruel and do not care about underprivileged / if you do not donate to xxxxx cause, you are part of the problem and you support such act

Blackmailing (love scams)

Explain the impacts of scams on the victims and enforcement?

Victims may lose their entire savings or a large sum of money

Money may be meant to support family members or pay off current loans

Victims can be traumatised and feel helpless (may be difficult to retrieve the scammed money)

Victims may feel ashamed and stupid for falling for scams

Loss of confidence

Deligitimize current efforts on scam prevention by the police

Loss of public confidence in the police force

Scams are constantly evolving, police constantly need to adapt to various types of new scams

Gendererd nature of falling prey to scam

men are delusional

men are trash

men think they are too good and smart to be scammed but still get scammed LOL (men lost twice as much money to scam as compared to women)