How to Spot a Fraud

There are many things in life that our education fails us to prepare for. We learn many things the hard way because of this. One of those difficult life lessons is on how to spot a fraud. You'll only learn this after being conned a couple of times.

Knowing how to spot and subsequently avoid a fraud can save you a lot of money and prevent needless headaches. But unfortunately, even if you do spot a con, you may not be able to do anything about it. Especially when the fraud is family.

A recent example from my life was an episode with Aunt May (name changed to protect identity). She called me one day out of the blue saying she urgently needed Rs 1 lakh to pay off a loan. She needed me to pay it for her that day itself. She then promised to pay back the money the very next day itself.

Now there are many problems with this story.  Firstly, Rs 1 lakh is a lot of money. Especially for someone like me who wasn't paid on time for most of last year. Aunt May on the other hand, made more than 2 crores during the previous 6 months alone. Now, what she does with that money is none of my business but it was a bit rich of her to ask me for money.

Secondly, the part about her paying me back the very next day is exactly the sort of hyperbole that these sort of frauds can't help themselves from indulging in. This wasn't one of those "Whoops, I don't have any change on me at the moment, will pay you back tomorrow" situations. If she had enough money to pay me back the next day, why couldn't she have paid the loan herself? This was a preposterous statement.

Having had to deal with these types of people in the past, I was pretty sure the loan was going to be more than 1 lakh. But even I was surprised to find that it was in fact Rs 2.4 lakh and the people it was owed to were desperate to get it. Aunt May switched off her phone at this point because of course she did. Some people have a remarkable ability to go lower than you ever could have imagined. I avoid most frauds I come across but you can't choose family, can you?

It is important to be cognisant of how these types of people appear. Innocent people trying to earn an honest living are their typical targets. They'll never have enough money even if they are much better off than you. And they'll always make promises they can never keep, often managing to contradict themselves. If you do lend money to these types, don't expect to get it back.

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