It is common knowledge that before you pull your credit card out of your wallet and provide billing information online, you need to be certain you are not dealing with crooks. You also look for some sign of security assurance on a website before clicking on the ‘pay’ button. That’s something you probably wouldn’t do before handing your credit card over to the cashier at the department store or the supermarket. Have you ever wondered why?
The main reason for the lower levels of trust in online shopping, contrary to belief, isn’t security breaches. Just like hackers can steal information from a website, they can probably do the same from the computer at the store. In fact, most people are reluctant to provide billing information online because they are afraid of no other than the seller. They are afraid that if they get cheated, they will have nowhere to turn to.
Think about it: If you buy a bad pair of earphones at the electronics store, you know you can always go there physically and demand a refund. However, there’s more to it than just that. A lot of people feel there is no control over what happens on the world wide web, that the authorities don’t really take action against dishonest websites and portals. Let’s try to understand why.
Jurisdiction
The biggest problem governments have with internet scammers lies in the argument regarding the authority of any official body to act against them. Can the American government, for example, take action against a website that has stolen money from Americans, but operates from Chile? Does the USA need to turn to the Chilean authorities for help?
Sure, there are international cyber protection bodies, but it seems like they lack the tools to do anything against these scams, since the governments themselves can’t reach any agreement that will enable them to really act. Be sure that if these crooks even have an official location where they operate from, it’s a place where regulation is very, very lax.
Sophistication
The internet crooks know what they’re doing, you can be sure of that. They will most likely do anything they can to make tracking them down nearly impossible. They also gear up with the best lawyers possible, so if you do manage to get hold of them and drag them to court, you’re in for a really unpleasant experience.
Take forex trading scams for example. The minds behind these frauds are clever, they operate from different locations but list themselves in countries where they know it would be hard to bring them to justice. They call you from unlisted numbers, they switch emails constantly, they have several billing addresses, and so on. That makes serving them a lawsuit very hard – but not impossible, as you will see if you keep reading.
A blinding eye?
Keeping in mind the jurisdiction problems and the sophistication of the crooks, it’s clear why governments find it hard to operate against the online scammers – hard, but not necessarily impossible. If countries really wanted to, they could form a mechanism which effectively tracks down the scammers and makes them pay for their deeds.
Sadly, there just isn’t enough motivation for that, and sometimes ego and politics are what prevents effective action. In other words, governments prefer to look away rather than take action, which requires putting politics aside and joining hands, nationally and internationally. That is certainly something that the scammers are aware of – and take advantage of.
All isn’t lost
As we’ve seen, authorities and institutions aren’t giving online scams a good fight back. That does not mean, though, that all is lost for victims. Where governments aren’t acting, private companies are filling the gap. We at Roselanegp Ltd specialize in finding the masterminds behind the manipulations that make people lose their money, and making them pay.
This work demands technological and legal tools combined. Sadly, sometimes shedding light on the hole that the thieves are hiding in isn’t enough, and legal action is unavoidable. That’s also part of the service we offer, though, and the nearly $10M we’ve already managed to recover can attest to that. If you’re in this situation and you don’t know what to do, give us a call. We may just be able to help you retrieve your money (or at least a significant portion of it).