Scammers are brilliant at targeting the vulnerable and then often using the fear of exposure to extort even more out of them. Education about these manipulators isn’t enough. Can we do more to make a global impact knowing that less than 0.1% of scammers are ever prosecuted?

Today’s guest is Jorij Abraham. Jorij Abraham is the Managing Director of the Global Anti-Scam Alliance with a mission of preventing consumers worldwide from getting scammed. He is also the General Manager at ScamAdvisor.com, the global blacklist for malicious websites. In addition, Jorij is an ecommerce professor at University of Applied Sciences TIO.

Show Notes:

• [1:01] - Jorij shares his current roles and background in the field.
• [2:27] - He fell into ScamAdvisor when working in ecommerce.
• [3:42] - Scammers are remarkably smart when it comes to marketing fake sites.
• [5:12] - Subscription scams are specifically successful in getting quite a lot of money from victims.
• [6:18] - Scammers tend to take advantage of current events such as the energy crisis and abortion and then extort their fear of exposure.
• [7:26] - ScamAdvisor.com sees over 4 million visitors per month and they are from all over the world.
• [8:24] - In most countries, victims of scams are unable to get any help.
• [9:49] - Jorij explains how the laws work regarding scammers and the pitfalls of the process.
• [11:40] - It’s important to educate consumers, but there’s only so much that can be learned.
• [12:56] - The tips and tricks that helped just a few months ago are already not working all the time.
• [14:33] - Jorij describes a Ponzi scheme that took down the government in Albania.
• [16:10] - One little bump in supply and demand has drastic ripple effects.
• [17:32] - Scams are not simple anymore. The marketing power is extremely impactful and mostly successful.
• [19:11] - Even in the Netherlands, FBI phone scams are successful.
• [21:00] - Jorij predicts that legislation will be necessary.
• [22:10] - Awareness is good, but consumers need more protection.
• [23:35] - Phishing scams are created to filter out specific groups of people.
• [24:37] - Jorij shares his thoughts on retraining scammers to do good, especially since they are skilled hackers.
• [26:34] - How can we reduce scams?
• [27:41] - The Global Anti-Scam Alliance is a networking organization with the goal of pushing everyone together to define new ways to combat scams.
• [29:17] - Jorij describes the changes coming to ScamAdvisor.

Thanks for joining us on Easy Prey. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave a nice review. 

Links and Resources:

• Podcast Web Page
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• Easy Prey on YouTube
• Easy Prey on Pinterest
• Jorij Abraham on LinkedIn
• ScamAdvisor.com
• Global Anti-Scam Alliance