Coming up on trust issues. People think that I started dating the guy on Tinder, and after four weeks, I transferred him 150k. For the first seven months, he was like a perfect boyfriend. Most financial institutions have spent years investing in better fraud detection. More signals, more intelligence, more sophisticated models. But what happens when you've correctly identified a scam victim and they're still determined to send the money? Today's guest believes that that's where the industry has work to do. Eileen Charlotte became internationally known after surviving one of the most infamous romance scams in recent history. Since then, she's dedicated her career to understanding how fraudsters manipulate trust, create dependency, and influence victim behavior, and how banks can intervene more effectively when customers are under that influence. In this conversation, we explore the psychology behind modern scams, why traditional interventions often fail, and what financial institutions can do differently to break the spell before another customer becomes a victim. I'm Chris Willis. This is Trust Issues. Welcome to Trust Issues. Hosted by Chris Willis, Chief Marketing Officer at Altsia. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Today's fraud attacks exploit both tech and human vulnerabilities. Outsia tackles this by unifying signals, decisions, responses, and investigations in one predictive AI platform, helping financial institutions detect fraud and scams with far greater accuracy. Hello, Eileen. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I feel like everybody thinks they know a little bit about you, having seen you on the top-rated Netflix documentary, The Tinder Swindler, that focused on your experiences being a victim of a scam. But I I want to take it back to before people know. I want to start with your story, but not from the moment things went wrong, but before that, because I think that context here really matters. Who were you before this happened? What was your life like prior to starting this process? My life looked like, for now, it looks like a dream because I was a very independent woman. I'm an only child born in the Netherlands, just a little bit above Amsterdam. And I was also always very happy my parents are still together. So I'm very proud of that to have that loving relationship from my youth. And I was always very passionate about high-end fashion. I bought my first Louis Vuitton back when I was 14. After my studies, I started to study fashion. And I ended up in several high-end fashion brands like Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, Hackett London, Louis Vuitton, and eventually Hermes, and started to work in fraud. So you were at the top of your game, busy, spending a lot of time in your career, probably sent seemed like a great idea to try online dating to meet people. Yes, because basically I had everything. I already bought my house. I already had a car. I went on holidays like three, four times a year, having lovely dinners with friends, going out, doing everything you want in your lifetime to do. But there was just one thing missing, and it was a nice boyfriend. Where were you? And what do you remember about that first initial interaction with Simon? I was standing on Amsterdam Central Station, and I had a match, and he immediately started talking to me, and I was like, oh wow. And he was the I remember he only had one picture on his profile. And he was dressed very well. He was wearing a very nice blazer with a nice shirt and uh a nice glasses. We started talking and it went a bit tough in the beginning, but after a few weeks, just yeah, after a few weeks of chatting, I think we went on to WhatsApp. And then I was in London and I saw in his Instagram that he was there too. And um, I texted him, like, hey, would you like to meet? For how long you're here? And he said, Well, you can join us for for dreams tonight. But I was like, No, I have a meeting tomorrow and I'm here for work. And so he said, Let's have a coffee in the morning. And that was the first time we met. And I think we already chatted for a few weeks then. Do you think that he meant for that to happen, being where you were? Yes, because when we met on Tinder, I found out like maybe a few weeks later, that the day before we met, he visited the store where I worked in. And he bought a lot of clothes because I was working at a gentleman's fashion store and he bought a lot of clothes, and it was my day off. But the day after, my colleague did just like a recap, and he said, Well, we had a really good customer from Israel. I was like, Oh, that's nice, you know. I hope you had a good day. I found out that the guy I was talking to on Tinder, it was him. And back then I didn't look for anything weird or suspicious, but now I truly believe that this was staged because he could see on my Facebook um that I was working at the the store, and I absolutely truly believe that it was his first step to convince me on who he was. Wow. I mean, so here we are in London. We've all been on good dates and bad dates meeting people. At what point did this start to feel real to you? When did it shift from this guy I met online to something more meaningful? Well, it in our first conversation, it started out like really casual, and I felt really comfortable with him. And it was something I had never felt on a date before because normally the first dates are very uncomfortable. You need to start to get to know each other, and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. Most of the time it doesn't. And with him, I immediately felt like some match or like a very, yeah, just like very relaxed. And I could, I felt that I could be myself. And that's what people want, right? You're looking for that feeling, that consistency, that attention, the way that people communicate, that's building credibility. Yes, absolutely. And he started to share something about his private life. And I was like, oh wow, so you feel very comfortable with me as well. Which also felt, yeah, it I think it was even more convincing that this could be something. Were there any moments at that point that could have been red flags but didn't feel that way at the time? No, absolutely not. No. No, because we spend I went to work and then later on we spent the evening in London. We went for dinner, we went for drinks, and everything seems fine and felt fine. What did you tell yourself in the moment to rationalize it? Like how did you how did you move past even little bumps in the road that might have triggered something? Well, during the relationship, and of course, uh especially in the part where the money and the problem started, you don't want that to happen in a relationship, but you accept it because you really like this person. And you start talking to yourself, like, hey, but this is his life. He has enemies, he lives in a different, yeah, he has a different life than I have. You've you've met him, you've spent time with him. What did that relationship represent to you at that point? Because I felt so comfortable, and I think a few days when I was already back in Amsterdam, he immediately came to he came to Amsterdam and he immediately came to visit me. And we went out for dinner. So it felt like he was really trying to get to know me and to get to know him. So he was really making an effort. He didn't ask anything from me because the money part started after seven and a half months, almost eight months into the relationship. So emotionally, how did it make you feel on a day-to-day basis? Um, he really puts me on a pedestal. Uh like I said, like I was traveling a lot for work, and every single time he came to visit me, it really felt like he was making a lot of effort because he always told me that he was super busy. Um, he is taking the time to come to fly to see me. We had so much fun together. We spoke every single day. And now, of course, I understand and know that it was a strategy. You've said nothing to make me think that this isn't a real relationship. And I think this is a point where we need to shift a bit from the story itself to what's happening underneath it because there are patterns here that I think a lot of people misunderstand. You know, a lot of people assume that romance scams only happen if somebody's naive or not paying attention. And from your experience and what you just described, fundamentally wrong. Like what are they getting, what are they getting wrong? What's the misunderstanding here? I think uh the biggest misunderstanding is that so many people think that I started dating with a guy on Tinder and after four weeks I transfer him 150k. And I'm like, wow, oh, how how can you do that? And uh even like the other day I was training uh the police academy in the Netherlands, and he asked me, like, hey, how can you transfer 180,000 euros in a date? And I was like, uh the first seven months, he was like the perfect boyfriend. He flew to me, he came to my house, he we visit friends, we we went for dinners, we had weekends away, and after seven months, the the money part started, but it wasn't in one time 180,000, but it was divided in five to six months. And as much as this is very strategic and organized scamming, looking back and and seeing it for what it was, at the time, everything that you described, if you had you had heard about this from a friend who was going through this at this stage of the story, I would be super happy for them. Exactly. Like there's nothing to see here other than, wow, this is great. Congratulations on your new relationship. There's no red flags like that would trigger anybody to think that you're doing anything but falling in love in a relationship. Yeah, because the guys I dated before, sometimes they ghosted me, or sometimes like after three months, they just like were a bit sketchy, or they just like, yeah, just bled the relationship to death, you know? And this guy really paid attention and he really made effort. So yeah, it felt like, oh my God, this is how it's supposed to be. And there is below the surface, like sort of cognitive emotional mechanics happening with you. And looking back now with distance, what do you think was happening psychologically for you? What was he doing to you to prepare you for what was to come? I did a lot of research and I analyzed my own fraud really well because I wanted to understand what actually happened to me. And I think maybe four months into the relationship, I was at work and he called me up. He was like, hey, my credit card is getting denied at a hotel. Can you just send me over your credit card details? And I was like, What? You have friends with you, you have co-workers with you, just use their card. Why do you need mine? But now I understand that he just wanted to test me how far I was already in. But at that point, I wasn't ready yet, so he needed to do more. Now I see a pattern because after that, he started to focus more on he has enemies. His enemies are after him, they're coming for him, that he needed to go to Southeast Asia. And I think it was halfway of April, he sent me a message like, hey, oh my god, my bodyguard card attacked and it was an attack on me. And I was immediately like, oh my god, are you okay? If I look at them now, I'm like, I would never behave like that if someone would actually uh attack my life. So now you see the red flags, but this was his tactic, and it was really crazy because I was so worried this is another red flag, because he said that he was going to somewhere secret, but then the day after I saw him walking on the street in Amsterdam, and he was walking with a girl, and of course he had like an amazing excuse because I said to him, I was like, Hey, were you just walking down the street of my work? Why didn't you come in? And he was like, Okay, but I need to be very undetected. And I was like, Why are you walking on the street? No, I mean, I wouldn't. I didn't saw it at that moment. Of course, I see it now. Some things didn't make sense, but he always had an excuse for everything. Now I know it's just bullshit, but so at those moments of sort of heightened drama, what would have happened? What how would you have reacted if when you went to transfer money or you told somebody what was happening, they were like, Yeah, you're being scammed. How would you have reacted to that? I I have been thinking about that question a lot. And I really don't know. Because with me, it never happened, unfortunately. Because I was also hiding the money part for my friends and family. I really don't know what would happen if someone said to me, like, hey, Eileen, we really need to sit down. This is a scam. He's asking you for money. This is not okay. Um, but unfortunately, it it never happened. It didn't happen. So I is it a red flag that you didn't tell people about the money. Yes, absolutely. Because this is what fraudsters want. They want, they use secrecy. First, it starts with trust, then it starts with dependency, then comes the fear and the secrecy. Because nine out of ten times, fraudster always will tell you that it's only just for a week or for a small period of time. So it's super easy to say, like, oh hey, it's just a week, let me just you know, not tell anyone. And that's how you create your own wall around the story. So during this uh whole experience, there's a lot of money moving through a lot of different channels. And I think our our listeners, primarily financial institutions, are very interested in helping. And in this case, like imagine a bank trying to help you in the moment, like seeing the signals, large transfers, competitive transfers, maybe you're being guided on account numbers as you enter them into your phone or your computer. Just all of the stacked signals that are coming through a financial institution to say, hey, this might not be, this might not be a good transaction. How would you have reacted with an intervention like that in the moment? It really depends on what their action plan is right now. Because what a lot of banks do is they show the evidence to their customer and they think that they are going to start to think logic and rationally again. Unfortunately, it's not gonna happen. Because, first of all, if the bank is going to ring up a victim, potential victim, because they don't know it yet. So a potential victim, they need to understand that potential victim is already prepared for this phone call. So the moment you are going to pick up the phone, you need to realize that you're minus five, because the victim is already uh informed that you are going to make this phone call. If we talk about long-term fraud, especially about long-term frauds, like romance fraud, investment fraud, they are going to tell you, like, hey, the bank is going to call you, but they only wanna uh want to protect their own assets, for example. So if you are going to call the potential victim, the first thing the potential victim thinks, like, oh my god, this is what he or she told me would happen. So the trust between the potential victim and the fraudster only gets stronger with that one phone call. And so what you need to do, you need to use the same manipulation techniques as the fraudster does. But you need to also understand that the fraudster is already like months or maybe years ahead of you. So this is where it's so important to have victims into this discussion. What banks need to understand are those different states of the manipulation of the victim. And if you don't understand them, if you don't know these steps, if you don't know that with your phone call, you're only going to put the potential victim deeper into the arms of the fraudster, you really need to change something into your action plan on uh waking up victims. Um, and I did so much research on this because I know that banks, and don't get me wrong, I know that banks are trying to do a lot, but they still haven't found out the great technique to break the spell. And uh I did uh because I really think that with breaking the spell, if you have the tools to understand how to break the spell in the right way, you can really save a lot of fraud. And and this is what you do now. This is this is your business, the Safe Academy. You're a scam victim advocate, you're a public speaker, you're an educator. How how should banks be leveraging your language, tone, naming, channel to be able to make an impact here? Well, what I I just read a report about this. 60% of all consumers want to have trained fraud specialists who know how to have victim-centered conversations. If the numbers of fraud are rising, then also the amount of victims are rising. And this is what I think banks really need to do, and they need to include victims into this discussion. My first module is called the impact and understanding of fraud and the manipulation techniques. Because without that, if you have actual knowledge on how these manipulation techniques work, you cannot support what you don't know and what you don't understand. And starting from there, you can just um get, of course, a lot of other techniques, but you need to understand that 67% of the victims are already having PTSD symptoms. So what you need to do is a trauma-informed approach because you cannot just show them evidence and say, like, hey, you did 13 transactions and they are like, Yeah, I know, it's my boyfriend. You know, you just cannot believe yourself that they are going to or convince yourself that they are going to get out of that spell. You need to have several techniques, you need to have trauma-affects uh trauma-informed communication, you need to have a victim-centered approach to these customers. The reason why I started to do this is because I got a lot of questions from uh the financial institutions when I started to share my story. Like, hey, Eileen, how do we communicate with victims of fraud? And how do we understand them? And how do we break the spell? And how do we support them beyond the fraud? But on the other side, I also heard that the victims are still feel left alone, not taken serious, um, that financial institutions can be very confronting. So this is not very helping, and it only re-victimized the victim, or it re-traumatized the victim. So therefore, I think this is one of the most important approaches you should have inside your organization. Well, it's it's packaging the whole solution. Here at Outsir, we have the ability to do adoptive intervention where we can see through signals across the attack surface the fact that this does look like a scam. But the delivery of that news can't be really scam. That that doesn't solve the problem. So you have to partner technology with psychology to solve the whole problem. It's not just the technology. And by linking the two together, you have a much higher percentage of delivering news that can be actioned on. Yes, because like banks are investing, and I know that banks are doing a lot. I mean, compared to 10 years ago, we we see that banks are really taking action, but they take action on the awareness part or on the technology part. But there is so much more in between, but is sometimes even more important because, like you said, you have the best technology ever, and you they can pick out the transact, the fraudulent transactions. But from then on, it's a human being who's interactive with the potential. Customer, and if he doesn't do it correctly, then it's still the scam is got continuing. So let's let's close this out with practical takeaways. I want to make this concrete for listeners. What's one thing professionals consistently misunderstand about victims? The trauma, the trauma it has on a victim. I I always share the story about the impact of fraud. There was this unfortunate I I really don't like to share this story, but there's an elderly lady who lost 1,800 euros, I think it's like 4,500 on um a bank help desk fraud. But because it was so impactful for this lady, she unfortunately committed suicide. I, on the other hand, lost 180,000 euros and I'm still here. People are asking me why. And the reason why they are asking me why is because they have absolutely no idea how impactful this can be. Maybe that 3,800 euros was everything for this lady, and she didn't saw any outcomes anymore. So that's why maybe she committed suicide. For me, I was, it was just something I just need to move on from because there's also a difference in types of traumas. Um I just, like I just said in the beginning, I had an amazing youth. Nothing happened. So the trauma of the fraud was just a singular trauma. And that's why a trauma-affirmed approach is so important. What's one sign that someone might be under the influence of a scammer, even if it's not super obvious? As an insider, what could somebody have seen that maybe they didn't? Um a lot of people inside the scam spell can be very defensive when it comes to the relationship, but also they keep a lot of things hidden so they don't share everything. And if you look for that, because this is a part of my training as well. I work with linguistic experts and we have developed a module how you can understand and hear the deception in someone's story, which is super, super important because this is something you can train yourself to listen to. And I think it's very important because I know, like I just said, we are all in such a heavy emotional state where you can be very defensive of um uh every question you get. You can train yourself to listen to this, to hear this, but also to notice this with your loved one or with someone on the phone. Finally, what's one piece of advice for banks trying to help customers in this situation? Get a more victim-centered approach within your organization and get training on how to communicate with victims of fraud. If they want to learn more, what's a great place to go? You can go to Save by Eileen Charlotte. It's the first victim-centered, trauma-informed training for financial institutions. If you want to learn more, you can go to the website www.eileenscharlot.com. Here you can find all the five pillars and the whole framework I have developed, which also help you better understand victims of fraud, but also supporting your customers. And very important, there is a module called How to Break the Spell. So I'm going to teach you in a trauma-informed approach how to break the spell with your customers, which is very important for you, but also for them. And in Q4, I'm going to launch the Safe Academy because I think it's very necessary to have this as an addition onto the physical trainings because I'm going to create a plan for what they actually need and what is actually missing in their organization. So it's very tailor-made and it can be just extended with the online trainings. And there also be some extra sidetracks with linguistic experts, but also about AI and um more sex torsion or how you can protect yourself. And the only question I'm going to ask is what does a victim or a potential victim need? Because I was missing a lot during the aftermath of the fraud. And I don't think you want your loved ones to be treated how I was treated, unfortunately. So I think this is very important, especially in the world we are living right now. You've been listening to Trust Issues, hosted by Chris Willis. For more on fraud, scams, and the future of financial defense, visit outsea.com.