What The Fraud?

“It’s a relationship that is manufactured. To the victim, it is real.”

We’ve watched the documentaries and listened to the podcasts, so why are romance fraudsters still getting away with it? Romance fraud costs UK victims more than £106 million a year, with survivors losing an average of £11,000 each, and many cases go unreported.

In this episode of What the Fraud, our host Vicky Baker speaks to Anna Rowe, founder of Catch the Catfish and co-founder of LoveSaid, and Simon Newman, CEO of the Online Dating and Discovery Association (ODDA). They explain how love bombing, trauma bonding and cognitive biases keep victims hooked, and why telling someone “this is a scam” can push them further in.

From organized crime gangs running scam centers the size of cities to deepfakes and face-swaps that make “just ask for a video call” outdated advice, this conversation looks at how romance fraud is becoming more personal and more industrial. We also hear about Anna’s “Who Saw It?” campaign, and why both guests are calling for a joined-up, government-led response to fraud.

Links:
Sumsub's Website: sumsub.com
Sumsub's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/sumsub
Sumsub's Instagram: instagram.com/sumsubcom
Sumsub on X: x.com/Sumsubcom
Sumsub's YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@sumsubcom
ODDA x Sumsub, "Are you real? How dating apps must re-architect for the AI fraud era": https://sumsub.link/onb
Vicky Baker on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/vicky-baker-2426263
Anna Rowe on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anna-rowe-95323753
Simon Newman on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/simon-newman-85458241
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Is anyone too smart to be scammed… or are we all just one bad moment away?”

We all like to think we'd spot a scam a mile off. But vulnerability has far less to do with intelligence than with timing, emotion, and context, and fraudsters know exactly how to exploit all three.

Welcome to the new season of What the Fraud, and to our brand-new host, investigative journalist Vicky Baker. This season, we're looking at the personal side of fraud: the human moments behind the headline numbers.

Our special guests this week are Nick Harris, Head of Financial Crime, and Iain Orpen, Head of Fraud Prevention at Capitec Bank, South Africa's largest retail bank. They explain why everyone has a vulnerability scammers can find, and why judging victims only makes the problem worse.

From a deliberate job scam run by journalist Joel Cedras and romance scams that play the long game, to deepfake calls and malware disguised as free streaming apps, this conversation explores how scams are becoming more personal and harder to spot in the moment.

We also examine why shame and re-victimization keep reporting rates low, how banks can spot the signals of a scam before money moves, and why industry-wide collaboration and tools like "Trusted Approver" are essential to protecting vulnerable customers.

Links:

Sumsub's Website: sumsub.com
Sumsub's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/sumsub
Sumsub's Instagram: instagram.com/sumsubcom
Sumsub on X: x.com/Sumsubcom
Sumsub's YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@sumsubcom
Vicky Baker on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/vicky-baker-2426263
Nick Harris on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nicholas-harris-67403a24
Iain Orpen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/iain-orpen-65810b1b9
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Meet Vicky Baker, the new host of What The Fraud? from Sumsub.

An investigative journalist specialising in fraudsters and con artists, Vicky is fascinated by the stories beneath the scams. The trust people place in others, the psychology behind manipulation, and the moments when a lie becomes believable.

In season six, What The Fraud? looks beyond the technology and headline figures to explore the personal side of fraud. Why do we trust someone who is trying to steal from us? What makes any of us vulnerable? And what would it take to stop the crime before the money moves?

The new season of What The Fraud? with Vicky Baker.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Customers don't choose between security and convenience. They expect both."

Africa's payments, banking, and digital commerce ecosystem is expanding at extraordinary speed, and fraud is scaling right alongside it. In this special episode of What the Fraud?, recorded live at Seamless Africa in Johannesburg, Chantal Lamprecht from Sumsub sits down with leaders across telecoms, mobile money, and digital banking to unpack how fraud actually works on the ground in Africa, and what it will take for the industry to stay ahead.

Our guests include:

Kgabo Seopa (Managing Executive: Products & Solutions, Vodacom Business) on the shift from telco to "techco" and why cybersecurity is now core to that transformation, the AI-versus-AI arms race between fraud teams and fraudsters ("it's a war that no one is a winner"), and why South Africa needs a SABRIC-style information-sharing body for telecoms and merchants, not just banks.
Pulane Motlokoa (Group Senior Manager, Enterprise Risk, MTN) on embedding risk into product design from day one instead of treating it as a final checkpoint, why fraudsters increasingly target human psychology rather than technology itself, and how MTN standardizes risk principles across diverse African markets while leaving room for local flexibility.
Bonolo Sebolai (Fraud Prevention, GoTymeBank) on why roughly 80% of fraud ultimately comes down to manipulating human psychology, what it really means to integrate AI "vertically" into a bank's fraud strategy, and why customer relationships, not technology alone, are a bank's real competitive edge against fraudsters.

Links:

Sumsub's Website: sumsub.com
Sumsub's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/sumsub
Sumsub's Instagram: instagram.com/sumsubcom
Sumsub on X: x.com/Sumsubcom
Sumsub's YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@sumsubcom
Kgabo Seopa on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kgabo-seopa-139a6b8/
Pulane Motlokoa on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pulane-motlokoa-ca-sa/
Bonolo Sebolai on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonolo-s-83a5aa90/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"The fraudsters have the same AI tools we do. The difference is who uses them faster."

Africa's payments, banking, and digital commerce ecosystem is expanding at extraordinary speed, and fraud is scaling right alongside it. In this special episode of What The Fraud?, recorded live at Seamless Africa in Johannesburg, Chantal Lamprecht from Sumsub sits down with leaders across crypto, legal, and iGaming to unpack how fraud actually works on the ground in Africa, and what it will take for the industry to stay ahead.

Our guests include:

John Jacobs (Head of Financial Crime, VALR) on why crypto fraud runs on the same decades-old typologies as traditional finance, just faster and borderless, why attribution, not tracing, is the hardest part of on-chain investigations, and why Africa's crypto adoption boom is fueling a rise in money mule recruitment.
Larry Cooke (Larry Cooke, Africa Head of Legal at Binance) on the regulatory gaps opening up as crypto credit products emerge, why "thoughtful" regulation beats "more" regulation, the rise of P2P fraud and reverse chargebacks, and why closing the trust gap between regulators, exchanges, and users is the real work ahead.
Mandy Alexander (Head of Financial Crime and Customer Care Product, DigiOutsource / Super Group) on 20 years watching iGaming fraud teams evolve from chargeback-chasers into full-blown "FRAML" operations, why friction should only ever be justified by data, and why patience, not chasing shiny new tools, is what actually delivers ROI from AI and automation.

Links:

Sumsub's Website: sumsub.com
Sumsub's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/sumsub
Sumsub's Instagram: instagram.com/sumsubcom
Sumsub on X: x.com/Sumsubcom
Sumsub's YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@sumsubcom
John Jacobs on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/john-jacobs-87b183122
Larry Cooke on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/larry-cooke-38390b115
Mandy Alexander on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mandy-alexander-8560a2a

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.