Opinion: How do scammers know who has money?

Columnist Siiri Laidla reflects on financial fraud and scammers who target vulnerable people. Drawing on the Estonian TV show 'Õnne 13', she explores how fraudsters identify and exploit their victims. The piece raises questions about trust, verification, and personal financial security.

Years ago, as a devoted fan of the beloved Estonian TV series Õnne 13, I never quite understood what the scheming character Anneli was actually up to. She was cheating gullible men out of their money, spinning sweet talk from different mobile phones — saying exactly what her targets wanted to hear. Scooping up cash from lovestruck men. I thought: well, some pathological fraudster surely exists out there. Perhaps the scriptwriter just went a little overboard.

But then reality caught up.

The scammer's playbook

The question that haunts victims and bystanders alike is deceptively simple: how do scammers know who has money? They do not pick their targets at random. Fraudsters are methodical. They mine publicly available data, exploit social media oversharing, monitor obituary columns and property registries, and increasingly use leaked databases that circulate on the dark web. In Estonia, as across Europe, the sophistication of these operations has grown dramatically.

The old saying — death itself cannot take from where there is nothing — might seem a comfort. But modern fraud does not wait for vulnerability to announce itself. Scammers manufacture urgency, manufacture intimacy, and manufacture trust, often before a victim even realises a conversation has begun.

Trust must be earned, then verified

The lesson is uncomfortable but necessary: trust, but verify. Whether it is a phone call from someone claiming to be your bank, a romantic interest who appears from nowhere online, or an investment opportunity that seems almost too good to pass up — the burden of verification falls on all of us. Healthy scepticism is not rudeness. It is self-defence.

Estonia's digital society offers real tools to help: official registries, digital identity checks, and the ability to confirm almost any claim with a few clicks. The infrastructure for verification exists. What is needed is the habit of using it — before signing anything, before transferring anything, before trusting anyone who has not yet earned that trust.