Why the Stereotype? Fraud is not a Nigerian Nationality

I have come across several articles where every Nigerian is depicted as a fraudster. Nigeria is country with over 150 million people blessed with enormous talents, resources and cultural diversities. In my line of work as well (financial crime) I have had to prove my integrity all over and over again despite boasting of an impressive skill set. This has made me reflect several times why every Nigerian is tagged dodgy, corrupt and fraudulent by the outside world.

Fraudulent activities just like other crimes constitute a serious threat to Nigeria just as other parts of the world and as Nigerians we do agree that a small percentage of people amongst us commit those frauds and we do also believe that these frauds are not the right thing to do. But Nigerians are not by Nationality fraudsters or people whose choice trade is to take other peoples money.



Perhaps the best justice done on this issue to Nigerians is by Peter J. Riley, a Forbes commentator who had once wrote on the “Nigerian scam” and recently posted a rejoinder on the fallacy of giving fraud a Nigerian nationality. Peter Riley in his article titled “Fraud Has No Nationality – Apology to Nigeria” remarked that there is nothing Nigerian about the Nigerian scam. What better proof of this did he present other than the fact that it has been recorded that many of the so called Nigerian scammed has money transferred to China! Can we then say that fraud now has a dual citizenship – Nigerian and Chinese? No. It is apparent that people do commit fraud everywhere and it isn’t limited to Nigerians.

Statistics from the Internet Crime Complaint centre shows that the United States has the highest percentage of internet crimes committed in the world. So if Americans commit more fraud than Nigerians, why then will Nigerians be the target of the blame.  This boils down to my question, why the stereotype?  The problem with stereotypes is that they are unreal, deceiving and flattering.

This is why we should never shy away from always saying our own story and always endeavour to portray a good image of our identity. We will no doubt reprimand fraudulent behaviour but we cannot just afford to let it define our identity.

ONLINE BRAND TRUST& IDENTITY THEFT

Trust is a funny thing. I mean everybody has their own "circle of trust" when it comes to family, friends and even colleagues or peers. Think back in history to a time when trust was little more than a handshake between gentlemen. You know you could trust me because I said so.

Times have changed, so has the trust model and the way in which it is established. Nowadays many of us have "two circles of trust", one involving real people and the other is a digital one created through our digital identities.

But what does a digital "circle of trust" look like. My believe is that your trust of actual human beings is built overtime through historic interactions with them. Experience is a great trust builder and we use these past experiences to earn trust. In the online world, interaction with digital people can range from fleeting and transactional through to the longer lasting more relationship building.

Using Amazon as an example, we can see evidence of these two opposites of the interaction spectrum. If I decide to purchase an item from an independent seller on Amazon rather than through Amazon itself, I may only interact with the seller once in a lifetime, whereas I may interact with many times over with Amazon itself. So why do I trust the unknown seller so implicitly? Will they honour my purchase? Will they ship the item in the agreed time? The answer? Reputation! In the online world reputation is king. It is due to reputation that we have such things as the Facebook "Like" and the "StumbleUpon" and "Tweet" at the bottom of this post. The seller and buyer feedback in an online merchant is the way we establish a level of trust with potentially completely unknown entities

Fraudsters also have their "circle of trust" which manifest itself in the old saying of "honour amongst thieves" ! I have seen blatant examples of both trust and distrust in the fraud underground. The idea that fraudsters need to earn their trust in an economy based on deception, thievery and lies, is an interesting concept. The threat to us as consumers is that fraudsters understand the trust model and human nature related to reputation. This has resulted in some very interesting shifts in the methods that fraudsters use to harvest our personal information.

These days, fraudsters are leveraging third party brands that carry levels of implicit trust in the online world in other to launch their attacks. Phishing attacks against non-financial services companies are growing due to the better return on investment fraudsters get. Imagine it. If I built and launched a phishing attack against Bank "A" and the email landed in the inbox of a customer of Bank "B" the target is most likely to delete the email. Even if they attempted to fill out the information, it is not relevant to Bank "A" so its pretty useless anyway.

Now imagine I had built and launched a phishing attack on a 3rd party brand that has a level of implicit trust within a much broader online audience. Maybe it's actually a utility company or a government agency of sorts. Regardless of whether I am a customer of Bank "A" or Bank " B" I am more likely to fill out the information and the fraudster gets a much better hit rate and therefore better return on their investment.

What it boils down to is that we seem to establish trust far easier in the online world than in real life. There are many contributing factors as to why this is, some of which I have explored above. All I have to say in rounding off this post is that we all need to be careful with our digital "circle of trust" and be aware that fraudsters are trying to get included on a daily basis.