Scambling: When Losers Become Addicts

While I have no data to support the claim, I suspect that most victims of Sweepstakes fraud get scammed once and that's the end of it. When they realize they haven't won millions, and that a package containing their prize check will never arrive, they stop paying bogus fees.

Sadly, a small group of victims become cash cows who can't stop giving milk. For these individuals the impulse to pay becomes so strong that it morphs into a compulsion I call "Scambling."

Though technically not gambling (gamblers at least have a chance to win, and their behavior is occasionally reinforced by payoffs), the parallels between Scambling and compulsive gambling are striking.

Take, for example, my father's irresistible urge to send cash to the con men, which bears all of the hallmarks of compulsive gambling, namely:

• Large losses
• Denial
• Lack of impulse control
• Overestimation of the odds of winning
• Clandestine activity (secret phone calls, and money transfers on the sly)
• Disregard for the harm losing does themselves and others
• Belief that they'll be vindicated, when they hit the jackpot

To me, nothing comes close to explaining my father's behavior as well as does addiction. What but an addiction would you call it, if a loved one sent money eighty-six times, to twenty-five strangers, in three different countries, with a hundred different phone numbers, and thirty different aliases?

Whatever it is, I sure as hell wouldn't call it a sweepstakes.

Fool Me Once . . .

There is an old proverb - some say of Chinese origin - that goes, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

I have a question: Who is the shame on, if a person is fooled eighty-six times?

That's roughly how often my elderly father has sent money to Jamaican fraudsters, either directly, or through payment processors (a.k.a. "money mules") in the U.S. and Canada.

Confronted with such a number, it is easy - as posters in several discussion threads have done - to lay the blame squarely on victims and deem them deserving of everything they lose, for being so gullible. 

This is absurd, of course, because no one but the criminals deserve to be taken, least of all an impaired octogenarian blinded by his desire to win big for his family. So blinded, in fact, that he cannot see the truth, or face the fact that he has been fooled incessantly, by those who the shame is truly on.

From Victim To Helper

Sweepstakes scam victims can get taken so badly, that they will do almost anything to recoup their losses. A few become so desperate, that they consent to help their victimizers rip off other people.

Case in point: My father, who has agreed to both receive and send checks, for his Jamaican handlers.

EPISODE 1: THE PAYMENT PROCESSING SCAM

This game requires at least three players: A prospect (potential victim), a helper, and a crook.

Step 1: The crooks contact the prospect, and tell them they've won millions of dollars, which will be released once they pay the requisite fees.

Step 2: If the prospect agrees to send money but refuses to wire cash, the criminals instruct them mail a check overnight to a payment processor in the U.S. or Canada (because the fraudsters don't want to receive checks, which can be traced).

Step 3: The processor cashes the check, and immediately sends all or a portion (after extracting a "commission") of the proceeds to the scammers, either directly, or through a fellow money launderer.

For all its phoniness, the Payment Processing con can be especially effective because:

• It preserves the crooks' anonymity.
• It gives the fraudsters an opportunity to swindle new prospects, while making past victims more beholden to them.
• As the lone identified party, the payment processor is the one on the hook when the prospect discovers they've been had.
• If the check bounces after funds have been withdrawn, the processor must repay the bank.

Luckily, things didn't go down as planned when the scammers tried this number on my father. Thanks to a tip from his bank, I was able to intercede before any money changed hands

EPISODE 2: THE SCAMBUSTING PLOY
After my dad failed as a payment processor, the crooks tried to find other ways to use him. One of their more imaginative ideas was to have my father pose as a fraud-fighting senior citizen out to get the Bad Guys. Here's what happened:

First, the crooks gave my dad the name and phone number of a retiree they were targeting.

Second, they had my pop call him up, and ask if he would like to help my father in a sting operation designed to catch the crooks red-handed. Specifically, my dad would send the prospective victim a check, which he would subsequently cash and wire to the crooks - all purportedly under the watchful eye of law enforcement authorities, who would follow the money trail back to the perpetrators.

Third, my father sent the man a bad check, intentionally filled out for conflicting amounts (one had an extra zero).

Thankfully, that's as far as it went, because the prospect's bank refused to cash a check made out for two different sums. They cried BS, and so did my dad's would-be helper.

By all accounts, these are the only two times my father has aided the con artists, a fact for which I am grateful. And if there is a lesson to be learned from my dad's collaboration with his victimizers, it is this:

Never underestimate the power of desperation.