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.™ Special Report: Deciphering the Lottery ScamLottery Scam These scams involve someone claiming you won a prize. However, they say you must pay a fee or provide sensitive banking information in order to get it. They keep the money, and you get nothing for it. Rings
Another Kind Of Relationship 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.
In Recent Years There Has Been A Shocking Increase In Jamaica’S Homicide Rate That Has Refocused Attention On Lottery ScamsLottery Scams These scams involve someone claiming you won a prize. However, they say you must pay a fee or provide sensitive banking information in order to get it. They keep the money, and you get nothing for it. In The Caribbean Island Nation
But it is not a uniquely Jamaican problem, with well-organized lottery frauds operating throughout the Americas, costing the United States hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars each year.
The total number of killings in Jamaica jumped to 1,192 in 2015, a 20 percent increase from the previous year with the majority believed to be gangGang A gang is normally a group or society of associated criminals with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over a territory or business practice in a community and engages, either individually or collectively, in illegal, and possibly violent, behavior. Online gangs are not limited by territory and may operate side by side with other gangs while engaging in crime online. Some members of criminal gangs are initiated (by going through a process of initiation), or have to prove their loyalty and right to belong by committing certain acts, usually theft or violence, or rituals. Gangs are usually rougher and more visible than scammer cartels, and more often arrested.-related (last year data is available). Authorities point to violence between lottery scam rings fighting over profits and valuable “leads” or contact lists as the major cause of the spike. This type of advance fee fraudAdvance Fee Fraud An advance fee scam or fraud is a form of fraud and is one of the most common types of online confidence tricks. The scam typically involves promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money, in return for a small up-front payment, which the fraudster claims will be used to obtain the large sum. If a victim makes the payment, the fraudster either invents a series of further fees for the victim or simply disappears. usually targets elderly Americans, Canadians, and English speaking victims worldwide but also fuels gang warfare in the origin country as rival scam rings compete for resources.
To give just one example, the massacre of six family members in Kingston in October 2015 was linked directly to lottery scam rings. Jamaica’s National Security Minister, Peter Bunting, said at the time that this “heinous crime shows that scamming not only affects those who participate and directly profit from it but those who associate with them,” reported Fox News.
Is It Cultural?
According to the Jamaica Observer, in an article by Donna P Hope, Ph.D.
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The first time I ever came in contact with any form of scamming was during one of my infrequent trips to New York, USA, in the early 1990s. Some of my friends had migrated — or run off — to the US and were figuring out their immigration status while hustling away in Brooklyn or The Bronx. One such friend explained that a planned shopping trip was imminent because of “a new credit card” that had been acquired from “the credit card guy” for US$50 with a spending limit of US$500. I did not understand.
Back then ordinary Jamaicans did not have credit cards. We saw them in movies and marvelled at how ‘rich’ these people were that they could simply run a card and buy anything they needed. My friend explained that this new credit card was part of an underground industry in which i