THERAPEUTIC SUPPORT
Supporting Victims of Fraud
At Victim Support Service, we are often adapting our responses
to new and emerging crimes that impact on the South Australian
community. Whilst fraud itself may not be an entirely new
phenomenon, the increasingly common experience of online fraud
presents new challenges to victims and police, as well as support
services like VSS. During 2014-15 VSS and SAPOL worked together
to engage with victims of online fraud through support groups.
At these sessions, victims were supported to share their experiences
including shock, fear, confusion and anger. Many people talked of the
difficulty in reconginising these scams as being fraud until after they
had happened, of their initial disbelief when it had been drawn to
their attention, and their anger and sense of powerlessness in trying
to recover their money. For many people who attended these groups,
education was key in understanding how and why these crimes had
happened, the strategies and techniques employed by scammers,
and how not to fall prey to this type of crime in the future.
Supporting Victims of Crime
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