Victims Referral and Assistance Service

The victims of fraud can be individuals, corporations, government institutions, the society, and the international order (Tomlin, 1982). Today we will be concerned with what is called ‘personal fraud’, a type of fraud that involves some form of communication between victim and offender, and the deliberate deception of the victim with the promise of goods, services, or other benefits that are nonexistent, unnecessary, were never intended to be provided, or were grossly misrepresented. These frauds include can involve financial advice, insurance coverage, investment packages, business schemes, credit assistance or loan consolidation, ‘free ’ prizes, beauty products or home repairs, unauthorized use of bank or credit card numbers, and collections for charities that are nonexistent or misrepresented. Victim Facilitation in Personal Fraud The degree of victim cooperation or facilitation in a criminal event has clear implications for prevention strategies. A woman struck by a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting outside her home is very different from a regular patron of a biker bar who is badly beaten in a fight that he started. In raising the question of victim facilitation, the aim is to direct attention to the victim’s potential role in crime prevention, not to invoke any moral judgements about victi