Psychology of Fraud Victimization was founded by Cathy Wilson, a Licensed Professional Counselor in Littleton, Colorado, in the United States. For over ten years, she has been supporting victims of fraud and scams in many ways. She began with one page on her website when she noticed that there were absolutely NO emotional resources for victims of scams. Over time, she wrote a book on this topic, developed a YouTube channel to support victims, created online trainings for professionals who support victims, and facilitated webinars and other speaking engagements to raise awareness about the emotional impact of scams and fraud.
Cathy Wilson’s knowledge in this area stands out. This is a result of many years of working with scam/fraud victims and growing to understand their unique psychological needs for healing. Some of the victims who have shared their story with Cathy never reported the crime, told their family or friends, or shared anything at all publicly. She’s grateful for their trust in her and feels honored to have had the privilege of witnessing the pain and struggle they have had. The knowledge she has gained from these conversations sets her resources and this organization above others in our deeper understanding of victims’ needs.
The time has come to expand this support! The number of fraud victims continues to increase, the effects can be devastating, and there are not enough mental health professionals, support groups, or emotional support resources that victims need.
In addition to this acute need for support, many people blame fraud victims because they are not aware of how scams and fraud can easily happen to anyone. The criminals that perpetrate these kind of crimes have a wide range of psychological weapons, or tactics, that they use to disarm people and steal from them. We aim to continue Cathy’s work in the area of educating the public, victims, and professionals: Each of us needs to be aware of how systematic, structured, and skilled these criminals are. The more people who understand how extremely skilled scammers are, we hope to reduce victim-blaming in our society.
Victim-blaming is a significant problem when a person is the victim of fraud or a scam. It is sometimes overt and even cruel, and sometimes subtle so that the person speaking doesn’t realize they are doing it. It leads to stigma, secrecy, and shame. Our society needs victims to feel that they can come forward to report this crime and get the help they need. There is a large percentage of people who never report or tell a soul what has happened to them! They need help, and we need data, too. It is much harder to solve a problem when we don’t know the full scope of that problem.
To fulfill our mission to make mental health support more accessible to victims, our current programs include:
Creating and maintaining standards of mental health support and care for victims, developed in collaboration with fraud victims, advocates, and other non-profit organizations;
certifying professionals at three levels of knowledge;
and providing a searchable directory for anyone to search for a professional with these credentials.
Our mission supports victims of all types of fraud and scams. The collective efforts of our founder, advocates, and other non-profits continues to bring an understanding that additional resources and information must be added to the existing support available, and promoting victims’ needs in these areas will be built into our programs.
Psychology of Fraud Victimization is a trade name and trademark operating under Psychology of Fraud, Inc., EIN 33-1442424; we are a Colorado non-profit organization and registered with the State of Colorado as a charity, and have applied for IRS 501(c)(3) status.