Online romance scams targeting older individuals are predicted to have a 75% year-on-year surge, driven by scammers exploiting the needs and vulnerabilities and of the older people online coupled with easy access to sophisticated technologies.
EmTrust is an end-to-end B2B verification and safety service enhancing security on dating sites and social media platforms. By leveraging horizon scanning and cross-platform intelligence, it improves scam prevention, effectively minimising scammers' contact with older users seeking companionship online.
To support our research, understand how romance scams unfold, and gain an understanding of the victims' emotional journey throughout a scam, we partnered with a number of charities like "Catch the Catfish", "LoveSaid" and "ScamHatersUnited," who are relentlessly working towards spreading awareness about romance scams and supporting victims in redressal.
"HourGlass", which is an elderly charity, helped us unfold the challenges faced by the older population in navigating their journey in the rapidly digitalising world.
Romance scams occur when a fraudster adopts a fake online identity to gain a victim’s affection and trust. The scammer then uses the illusion of a romantic or close relationship to manipulate and steal from the victim.
As a part of our problem discovery process we conducted research through a variety of methods and resources:
These learnings helped us realise that preventing romance scams at source was crucial because it spares victims the emotional distress, financial loss, and trauma that can be very difficult to remedy later. Timely cross system action can also disrupt scammers' operations, reducing the overall damage of these scams.
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OfCom is enforcing the online safety bill which mandates stringent user verifications on digital channels. Digital services have signed the Online Fraud Charter with the UK government, committing to active scam prevention measures.
We bring value to our customers (dating platforms & social media channels) by enhancing safety on their platforms and by helping them build a better brand image, establish user trust and be compliant.
For our end users, we ensure a safe and secure online experience, authentic relationships and transparency.
Protecting user data from any breaches will be one the most important challenges that we will face as we store confidential information which needs strong security mechanisms for protection.
Emerging technology coupled with adaptability of scammers will pose new threats. It would be important to constantly learn and develop to stay one step ahead.
Removing fraudulent profiles will reduce active users, potentially preventing online platforms from adopting Emtrust and affecting the goal of scam prevention.
We would like to thank our tutor, Federico Vaz, for his exceptional support, guidance towards the right direction, and expert feedback in times of doubt. Additionally, Kam Chana was an expert for our project. Her valuable feedback and thought-provoking questions helped us think beyond the obvious and explore new directions.
Furthermore, this project would not have been executed to its full capacity without the support and resources provided by Ruth Grover from Scam Haters United and Anna Rowe from Catch the Catfish and we are extremely thankful to partner with them for our project.
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