It didn’t end with a bang. It ended in silence.

After 4 months of endless video calls, staged interrogations, fear, and fright, the people who claimed to be judge, prosecutor and policeman vanished. No more threats. No more surveillance. Just peace.

That’s when real life came back: I had been scammed. A 50,000 AUD loss, including my parents’ fund for my education, was in the criminals’ pocket.

But in that moment, I was not panicking. I felt relief. Relief, I was not the criminal as they claimed. Relief, I am free again. Relief, I survive the ongoing psychological battle. Then came the emotional flood: guilt, terror, shame.

How can I explain everything to my parents? How can I find an excuse for the massive loss? What would they think of me if they knew I was scammed?

I decided to ask AI for advice. The faint light from the screen displayed a silent prompt: Report the scam to the police, and chat with other scam victims.

I followed its advice and talked to some victims.

Their existence reminds me:

I am not the only one who faces similar shame and blame.

Nobody around her knows she was scammed.

Douyu, a PhD student in clinical psychology, still remembers being scammed over ten years ago.

She was a freshman at the university. When a well-dressed woman approached her and asked for help finding an ATM, she helped her. After several failed withdrawal attempts, the woman borrowed money from Douyu to book a hotel. She left her contacts and promised to repay her the next morning.

She never showed up again.

“It was a large number to me at that time — two months of my living expenses,” Douyu said.

She was afraid of reporting to the police. “I was a minor, and they would tell my university and parents, who might think I was troublesome. I didn’t want to live with this tag.”

She didn’t tell her parents or friends. “They would think, ‘Only fools get scammed.’ But I wasn’t a fool, and I don’t want to hear this word come out of their mouths. That might hurt me again.”

It wasn’t the money that hurt the most.

It was the shame.

She’s not alone.

It’s systematic blame.

Shirley, an international student in Sydney, got a call from someone claiming to be from Vodafone. Just like the typical Chinese international student scam case, her SIM card was allegedly involved in scams; her phone call was transferred to an alleged police officer.

For three days, she believed she was helping an investigation.

A friend noticed her distress and helped her out. But when she told her father, her father said, “How could you be so silly and naive, my girl?” She believes that if her parents had faced similar situations, they might have made the same decision as she did.

I was unfortunate for the massive loss, and my friends and parents treated it seriously, but the police woke me up.

When I asked for help after a sleepless night, I decided to report to the police, but the response from a policeman was “I am sorry to hear that, but I could do nothing. Why don’t you check their identity first?”

I felt judged. Desperate. Helpless.

We are criticised for poor anti-scam awareness. We are laughed at for our mistrust. Just like the victims in the scam ads, they believe that we trusted some ridiculous theories, so it’s our fault.

And they believe smart people will never fall into scams.

Only fools get scammed.

They are smart enough.

Doubts from other people hover around our heads, combined with endless self-doubt. Just like the policeman doubted, why didn’t I make the right decision at that moment? Why do I notice unusualness in the scam, but do not stop trusting them? Why did I trust them?

Douyu regrets not stopping when she felt something was wrong and not reporting it to the police. Shirley said,

I knew nothing about the scam.

I was too naïve.

We repeat what people believe about who we were—we were naïve, perhaps stupid, at least not smart.

Thousands of self-doubts and self-blames make a silent victim, related to a silent crime, and let the real criminal go unpunished.

Hardly ever do people blame the criminal.

They blame the scam victims.

Why?

It is based on the belief that the world is good. Anyone who suffers misfortune, not themselves, is receiving the consequence of their badness.

It could be an alcoholic drink in Clock Turner’s case, or private sexual life in Edison Chen’s scandal, or the easy trust in our cases.

Lerner and Simmons’ research tells the truth. If people can’t help restore justice, they tend to derogate the victims. Scam is ongoing and rising. The whole world has no practical solution to it. Blaming the scam victims became the perfect scapegoat for the crime.

But,

We are not the gods.

We are human.

Imagine a story about a student helping a stranger book a hotel. A girl lending her phone to someone in distress. A citizen reports ID theft to the police.

You’d call it kindness. Integrity. Responsibility.

Once you learn they were scammed, that same kindness becomes stupidity in the viewers’ eyes.

This is the cruel twist: scammers exploit the virtues we were taught to be, and are inherent in our human nature. They rely on empathy, trust, and honesty.

However, when criminals exploit those human natures, the victims are blamed.

We are not the gods. And we can’t foresee what could happen next.

We used our human nature or virtue to make the decision we believe is right.

We are not stupid.

We are imperfect humans.

We are scam victims, not criminals.

We are not the ones to blame.

Life goes on.

Shirley hardly ever recalls her scam memories.

Douyu is currently conducting research in clinical psychology. She said it’s the first time she described the detailed scam experience to other people. The scam is an unfilled hole in her heart.

I received financial and mental health support from the university, and my parents and friends were trying hard to drag me out of the shadows. I had fraud trauma syndrome, which is similar to PTSD(Post-traumatic stress disorder).

We are trying hard to walk out.

Thanks to the people who understand us.

That supports our life goes on.

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