Last Updated on by SCARS Editorial Team
SCARSSCARS SCARS - Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc. A government registered crime victims' assistance & crime prevention nonprofit organization based in Miami, Florida, U.S.A. SCARS supports the victims of scams worldwide and through its partners in more than 60 countries around the world. Incorporated in 2015, its team has 30 years of continuous experience educating and supporting scam victims. Visit www.AgainstScams.org to learn more about SCARS.™ Guide: ScammerScammer A Scammer or Fraudster is someone that engages in deception to obtain money or achieve another objective. They are criminals that attempt to deceive a victim into sending more or performing some other activity that benefits the scammer. Interrogation Techniques
Updated: March 2019
Many Victims Ask How They Can Be Sure They Are Being Scammed
The simple truth is that if you are asking that question then the odds are you already suspect it. If you suspect it, then you are!
However, if you want to go through the trouble of confirming it (which we DO NOT recommend) then you can use this as a guide for how to question the scammers for you own satisfaction.
How To Question Scammers
Scammer Interrogation Techniques You Should Know (And Why Not All of Them Work)
This is not about confrontation or scambaiting. This article is about helping you catch the scammer in their lies so you can know they are a scammer. We still recommend that you do not confront them, just report, blockBlock Blocking is a technical action usually on social media or messaging platforms that restricts or bans another profile from seeing or communicating with your profile. To block someone on social media, you can usually go to their profile and select it from a list of options - often labeled or identified with three dots •••, and walk away.
When a scammer is questioned about a scamScam A Scam is a confidence trick - a crime - is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust through deception. Scams or confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, irresponsibility, or greed and exploiting that. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men' - criminals) at the expense of their victims (the 'marks')". A scam is a crime even if no money was lost., it is a pretty good assumption that the criminally-inclined will always lie! It’s what scammers do!
“I didn’t do it” “I am Not a scammer”
The irony is that real people / good guys — people who are actually innocent and being truthful — will tell them exactly the same story – “I didn’t do it”.
How do you tell which one is telling the truth?
And, if you apply pressure techniques, how do you keep the innocent ones from breaking down and sounding more like a scammer?
In court, a confession is the most trusted evidence a prosecutor can present
In some cases, a confession will explain away inconsistencies, contradictory information, and later recanted versions of the confession.
If he/she/it said it, he must have done it
A satisfied police interrogator will congratulate himself for solving the case, when in fact, he may have ruined an innocent person’s life, allowed a real criminalCriminal A criminal is any person who through a decision or act engages in a crime. This can be complicated, as many people break laws unknowingly, however, in our context, it is a person who makes a decision to engage in unlawful acts or to place themselves with others who do this. A criminal always has the ability to decide not to break the law, or if they initially engage in crime to stop doing it, but instead continues. to continue committing crimes, and cost the government a lot of money for wrongful prosecution.
Later, when the truth finally comes out, the repercussions spread farther, perhaps even crashing a good cop’s career.
The same is true when interrogating scammers!
Are interrogations successful? You bet! Sometimes!
But remember, they can also fail spectacularly.
When investigators began bringing in suspects for the Lindbergh kidnapping in the 1930’s, they got over 200 confessions. Sometimes people will confess to please the person asking.
When asking people to reveal if they are a scammer, real people may make themselves sound like scammers too! A lot has to do with your own attitude and how much they care.
However, there is a BIG difference between scammers and real local criminals!
In the case of local criminals, you guard against false positives. Meaning that it is better to assume innocence – always – until you have absolute proof. In the case of scammers, you assume they are a scammer until they convince you they are real. But this requires them to prove the absence of something.
Assuming someone is a scammer causes no harm if you just walk away. On the other hand, if you really don’t know and then report them, that is a bad thing, and we all want to avoid that. So it is important to learn the skills of scammer detection and not simply make assumptions about people that you report.
Throughout this website, we share the skills you need for proper deduction and identification of scammers. We are not going to go over that again, except to explore questioning techniques you can use to your benefit when yo