Scam Alert! An insight into scamming in The Netherlands and Belgium

Scam Alert!: An insight into scamming inTheNetherlands and Belgium

Wednesdayafternoon, incoming phone call from a country code that I don’t intuitively recognize. The caller claims to be ‘Card Stop’, notifying me through a robotic voice that there has been a suspicious activity on my account. A supposedly large amount of money had been deducted from my account, but before sharing more information on the matter, I would have to confirm my identity.

For me this signalled as an obvious case of scamming, for others the fear factor might trigger them to share information that may lead to actual deductions in your bank account. Yet, this is not an isolated case!

Empowered by AI, scamming is performed at a increasingly larger scale than ever before. So, we were interested in the numbers… Have inhabitants from The Netherlands and Belgium experienced scams recently?

57% experienced a scam attempt recently

More than half of the people questioned indicated that they have been targeted by a scammer in the past 12 months. If we look at younger audiences (18 – 35 years old) the amount even increases to 73%! A gigantic percentage.  

Naturally, younger demographics are more active online, creating accounts, shopping, sharing,... Every time a profile is created, it is ‘safely’ stored in an online database. Hackers acquire their target audience through hacking these databases and using the personal information to reach out to their victims... Hence, that is why younger people are generally more often confronted with the problem.

Overall, men (64%) reported being targeted more often than women (50%). And interestingly, Belgians (63%) encounter scammers more frequently than people in The Netherlands (51%). Are the Dutch more scam resistant? Or could it be that Belgians are simply more aware when a scam attempt is being made?

Who did the scammers pretend to be?

Scammers don’t wear capes, but they sure do love a costume. When it comes to their disguise, we observe that a delivery service or financial institute (bank) are the most common cover stories being used.

Even in approach, there is a significant cultural difference between Belgium and The Netherlands. In the latter, scammers pretend to be a romantic interest, friend or family member nearly twice as often as opposed to their counterpart in Belgium. Do scammers optimize their approach based on the consumer needs?

One thing is clear: as a result of scamming attempts consumers are losing confidence. For a bank today, it is a struggle to reach out to their consumers in a credible way and it shows in our data. How confident would they feel if your bank would reach out to you through mail or phone? Merely 29% of participants indicated that they would feel strongly or extremely confident in receiving the message. While 21% stated to not feel confident at all. Not an ideal state of mind to build a constructive touchpoint with your consumer.

Empowered by AI, the scale of scamming will only increase in the years to come. Our system is already struggling, while ‘the Age of Scamming’ only finds itself in its infancy. How should you, as a bank or a player handling confidential information, deal with scamming? How do you reach out in a credible way – while maintaining a consumer experience that aligns with your brand? Many questions that need to be tackled before scammers find inventive ways to abuse your brand and to completely mess with your carefully constructed image.

Questions, that we as Haystack Consulting would love to help you answer 😊