Why Cashiers Asking “Do You Know This Person?” Is No Longer Enough In The Fight Against Romance Fraud

Becky Holmes is an acclaimed author known for her witty and insightful take on the world of online scams and fraud. With a sharp sense of humor and a keen eye for detail, Becky has regularly highlights the human stories behind modern scams, making complex cybersecurity topics more relatable and engaging for her readers. In addition to her writing, Becky actively contributes to public discussions on fraud awareness.

Understanding Romance Scams

I did a TV appearance recently where I talked about romance fraud. When it was put up on YouTube afterwards the comments were overwhelmingly positive. Except one. And that’s the one I remember word for word: “Female? Check. Over 40? Check. Plus size? Check.” Now I’m not denying that I am all of those things, but what was depressingly predictable is that the implication was clear – victims of romance fraud are all fat middle aged women. Add to that desperate and stupid and you have the perfect stereotype. Well to that YouTube viewer I say “au contraire”.   

I have interviewed around 40 victims of romance fraud and no one fitted that mould. Among them was a CEO, a lawyer, an HR director and a detective. Men and women who are life-savvy and ‘respectable’ members of society. Also, let’s face it, seemingly ‘ideal’ banking customers; decent salaries and regular income. In fact, with the exception of one person who didn’t work due to disability, every single one of the people I spoke to was employed with fairly regular and predictable spending habits.  

How is it then that when some of them, out of the blue, sent large amounts of money over to banks in Nigeria and Ghana or suddenly invested in crypto currency, their banks didn’t question the transactions?   

Negative banking experiences

The one victim of fraud I did speak to who was questioned by their bank had such a negative experience that she went through with the transaction very quickly just to get out of the building. She went into her local branch to transfer a second large lump sum to a bank in Nigeria. The cashier loudly asked her, in front of a queue of people, whether she knew the person she was sending the money to. She replied that yes, she did, so the cashier simply put the transaction through. The victim then walked, red-faced, past the queue of people and vowed never to use the branch again.   

She confessed to me that had it been handled differently she would have been extremely grateful to have been able to discuss her already-existing concerns and be gently dissuaded from parting with that second lump sum. Now you might say “it’s not the bank’s job to counsel people in their life choices” and of course that’s true. However I argue that it is the bank’s job to identify and then advise their customers against potentially fraudulent financial activities. Admittedly there will be many times when a customer will scream “it’s my money and I want you to do as I say” but there will also be times where, like the victim I interviewed, an intervention would stop someone losing their savings and often with this crime, their self-respect. 

This is no mean feat and I’m not suggesting it’s in any way an easy task. Successful romance fraudsters have social engineering down to a tee and they have learned to ‘groom’ victims into behaving in certain ways, including preparing them for interactions with their banks.  

I have heard multiple accounts of fraudsters saying to their victims “they might ask you if you know me”. “This is such a silly question.” “Of course we know each other – we’re going to be married one day” or “banks can be really prejudiced and they won’t understand that what we have is special. Remember it’s your money, not theirs”.  

Manipulative tactics are the new norm

Another reason that romance fraudsters are so successful is that they play on one of the most basic human needs: love. We all want to love and be loved. Unless the human race evolves into cyborgs with no concept of affection (I’m not fully discounting this) this is not going to change and an understanding of emotion-led human behaviour needs to be integral to every bank’s DNA. Financial institutions need to consider this crime in their marketing, fraud alerts and detection software but most importantly, when training customer-facing employees. Asking a customer “do you know this person?” and then ticking a box is no longer an option. 

While I have your attention (assuming I do), let’s also talk about language. Why is it that we talk about ‘falling for’ fraud and yet we don’t use this derogatory term with any other type of crime? When’s the last time someone was described as having ‘fallen for a mugging’ or ‘falling for a burglary’?  

It simply doesn’t happen, and yet these are also crimes where someone takes something from someone else. The difference is that those two examples conjure up images of an unavoidable, possibly violent, encounter whereas fraud is seen as someone willingly handing over their money. This is particularly the case in romance fraud where, as we have already established, the victim will likely be an unintelligent chubby woman out of her mind with desperation for a man (cue eye roll). Financial institutions should stop using phrases which blame and belittle the victim. I spoke to a man only a few weeks ago who left his building society because they told him he had “been a little naive” after he informed them of the romance scam he had been the victim of.  

So my message to banks is this: the people being defrauded in romance scams are just that: people. And the thing about people is that they remember. They remember customer service, they remember helpfulness and they remember kindness.  

Learn more about romance scams and their impact in our article here.