I Am a Scam Victim. I Am Not Stupid.

Genre:

Feature story

 

Story topic and angle:

I am a victim of a classic scam targeting Chinese students.

In November 2023, I received a call from “Vodafone customer service.” What followed was a four-month psychological battle orchestrated by professional international scammers posing as Chinese authorities. When I woke up from the nightmare, it was 4 months later, and I’d lost my parents’ life savings. But the financial loss paled next to the shame, guilt, and emotional devastation that followed.

I’m not alone.

In 2024, the Australian National Anti-Scam Centre reported $318,762,688.02 lost to scams across 449,448 cases.

 

 

Yet victims like me face blame: labelled greedy, gullible, or deserving of their fate (Cross, 2018). Fewer victims report crimes than others due to stigma, fear, or hopelessness (Parti & Tahir, 2023). More than half of the victims in the Bernard Madoff Scandal suffered from more than one of the symptoms of Fraud Trauma Syndrome, which is used to describe after-scam feelings of:

• anger, rage and pain;
• hopelessness; depression;
• anxiety;
• fear;
• nightmares;
• shock;
• numbing;
• emotional despair and devastation.

 

Most coverage focused on the scam mechanics, not the human toll. Sydney Morning Herald’s report It’s not your fault: how to overcome shame after being scammed” is a nice observation to describe the feelings after being scammed by a family member of victims. My story traces the scam’s timeline, revealing its psychological impact on ordinary people and depicting the painful journey it creates.

 

Structure & Key Themes:

 

They are a professional crime team. I was manipulated by them.

• Summary of my scam story.
• The psychological tactics the crime team used.

The Police said they could do nothing. I felt invisible.

• Systemic gaps: under-resourced cybercrime units, jurisdictional complexities.
• Growing scam industry: how scams thrive in the legal grey zone

My parents’ money was gone. How could I face them?

• The double trauma of financial loss and self-doubt
• Support from social networks and mental wellbeing counsellors

I am not stupid. That wasn’t my fault. But it needs to change.

• Rejecting victim-blaming
• Calls attention to anti-scam actions: quick response to crime and wellbeing support to victims

 

Story style:

First-person non-fiction storytelling feature with data and expert insights

 

Target Publication & Audience:

 

• SBS Voice: first-person narrative to communities unaware of scam sophistication
• SBS Chinese: community-specific angle

 

Multimedia Integration:

• Audio clips: Recording of scam calls + voice notes of interviewees.
• Embed hyperlinks: Links to reference, support resources like the Australian National Anti-Scam Centre, Scamwatch, etc.
• Sidebar readings: related scam reports
• Photos: documents about my scam and data infographics from sources

 

Suggestions for interviewees:

I have talked to

• the Police
• mental wellbeing counsellor
• lawyer
• bank officer
• victim of a similar scam

I am going to talk to

• 2-3 victims from different types of scams
• police cybercrime officer
• psychologist

 

Final Message:

Scams aren’t crimes of individual failure—they’re industrialised exploitation. By sharing my story, I want to turn shame into solidarity, silence into advocacy, and isolation into a roadmap for systemic change.

 

Word count: 502

 

Reference

[1]Cross, C. (2018). “Thirteen: Denying victim status to online fraud victims: the challenges of being a ‘non-ideal victim’”. In Revisiting the ‘Ideal Victim’. Bristol, UK: Policy Press. Retrieved Apr 17, 2025, from https://doi.org/10.51952/9781447339151.ch013

 

[2]Parti, K., & Tahir, F. (2023). “If We Don’t Listen to Them, We Make Them Lose More than Money:” Exploring Reasons for Underreporting and the Needs of Older Scam Victims. Social Sciences, 12(5), 264. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12050264

 

[3]Glodstein, D., Glodstein, S. L., & Fornaro, J. (2010). Fraud Trauma Syndrome: The Victims of the Bernard Madoff Scandal. Journal of Forensic Studies in Accounting & Business, 2(1), 1–9.

AI Acknowledgement

As an international student, I am grateful for Grammarly support in refining my grammar and language. I read and checked after I used it, and I am fully responsible for it.