'I'm a Home Office security expert - if someone uses these phrases they're scamming you'
BBC Morning Live criminologist Dr Elizabeth Carter said simple normal words are being twisted to coerce victims
A security expert has explained the words and phrases that mean you’re being scammed. Criminologist and forensic linguist Dr Elizabeth Carter appeared on BBC Morning Live to explain how there are key ways people speak in scams - and if you hear people talking like this you should get suspicious.
Dr Carter who also works with the Home Office, banks and the United Nations said that when a tactic works, scammers save the ‘script’ and then sell it to others for more people to fall victim. The BBC show heard that 1.8 million over 65s have been scammed online in the last year alone.
Dr Carter explained that there are phrases people use, based on an understanding of psychology, to get victims to do what they want, without knowing they’re being scammed - until too late. She said: “I work with the police, banks, local government, Home Office, the United Nations to help them to design tactics and strategies to better protect the public.“
Phrases you need to watch out for from scammers
‘Set up and drip feed’
Dr Carter said that one method of scamming was called ‘set up and drip feed’. She said: “These are real scripts that I’ve worked on from real frauds, and what I do is unpick that interaction between the criminal and the victim. To try and understand what’s going on and once the scam works, the criminals then sell on those scripts to other fraudsters as well, so they get money from that as well.”
She explained that criminals ‘seed’ information early on in the relationship with one phrase for exampled being, ‘it was so hard when the pandemic started, my business almost went bankrupt and I’m very thankful to my brother-in-law, who introduced me to a sideline to make more money.’ She added: “Now the reason why I call this a set up and drip feed approach is because information is set up very early on in the relationship. It’s sometimes to do with money, it’s sometimes to do with the situation, but the key is it’s then dropped and then later referred to, much later on as fact, and they plant the seed then it then it’s acted on, and it totally gets away from the out of the blue asking for money. It’s all based on what’s thought of as fact. And it feels really natural.”
‘Just’
Dr Carter said this word was known as ‘softening of language’. She said: “It feels really natural, which I think is part of its part of its power, because we don’t think that people are going to be using such ordinary conversational terms as a tool against you, but these criminals really do. So they use the word, the term ‘just‘ to minimise what they’re saying.
“This is a common one. It says, ‘I’m just checking the market now to see if it’s good or bad. It’s crypto trading. Are you familiar with it?’ Now that word just really softens what they’re saying. It seems as though it’s just part of the normal chat. Now this is where we can really see the romance investment fraud hybrid working for that criminal, because it’s part of a romance, it’s part of a relationship. ‘I’m just checking the crypto chat’, and it really draws in. The victim to say, oh, what is it that you’re doing? I want to be part of it and taking, you know, take taking notice and interest in what the other person’s saying. “
Language of romance to ‘script future behaviour’
The scammer tries to use the language of romance to influence behaviour. Dr Carter said: “In romances and in any kind of relationship, we really want to put our best self forward and what these criminals do is that they script. So ‘this is the kind of person that I’d really like to meet’. The other person, the victim in this case, would want to live up to that. And this example shows us, it says, ‘I hope you’ll stay gentle, just like how I met you at first.’
“Now this is scripting future behaviour. It’s saying, oh, I really like you, you’re really gentle, it’s something I really like. This now puts the responsibility on that partner, on that victim to stay like that, to stay nice and stay gentle. So when that perpetrator, that criminal starts asking for money. That victim doesn’t really want to start saying, are you real, are you a scammer, are you a fraudster? They want to stay as they’re perceived. They want to have the best possible perception on them.”
If you’ve been scammed, report it to Action Fraud immediately by calling 0300 123 2040 or visiting their website here. Also, contact your bank to report the fraud and secure your accounts. If there is an ongoing crime or danger, call 101.