In 2012, Jan Marshall thought she was chatting online with a charming Nigerian Prince.
In reality the Bundoora resident was being duped by member of a sophisticated international scamming operation, one that cheated her out of $260,000.
“I Iost all my super, I had to sell a house I had and several years later I lost my job, I think because of the emotional impact,” said Ms Marshall, who was also hit with a $70,000 fine from the Australian Tax Office because the scammer took money from her self-managed super fund.
But while she hasn’t seen any of her money or her Nigerian scammer brought to justice, the now 72-year-old has recovered her pride and purpose by helping others avoid a similar fate.
It’s that purpose which will bring her to Altona next week for a presentation titled: ‘Dangers of Love in an Online World, Moving Beyond Shame and Embracing Empowerment’ at Louis Joel Arts and Community centre on June 24.
Ms Marshall’s presentation will focus on how online romance scams have changed and evolved in the years since she was entrapped in one.
“The whole system of using deep fake videos is much more dangerous and much more prevalent now,” she said, adding that AI was another tool scammers had adopted.
“AI means they can respond very quickly and people think they’re real.”
Ms Marshall will also highlight the emotional toll of being scammed, something she said leads many victims to not report it.
“The figures are somewhere between 12 and 30 per cent of people report being scammed,” she said, indicating that the true amount of scamming victims is likely more than double the official figures.
She said shame and embarrassment were a large part of this, but so too was victim blaming.
“I think the prevalence of victim blaming happens because there’s no focus on the perpetrators,” Ms Marshall said, adding that most were based overseas in jurisdictions beyond the reach of authorities.
“And that’s why many people don’t own up to it because they get met with “how could you be so stupid?”
Details: http://www.ljac.com.au/
