The Absence of Safeguards in Online Scams
In victimology, the risk of becoming a victim does not depend solely on individual characteristics, but also on the context in which people live and act.
One of the most widely used frameworks to understand victimization is the Routine Activity Theory (RAT), developed by Cohen and Felson (1979)1. According to this model, a crime occurs when three elements converge at the same time: a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the absence of effective guardianship.
In the offline world, this absence of guardianship may refer to the lack of witnesses or protective presence in a physical environment. In the digital world, however, its meaning changes. It becomes less visible — and often more structural.
The Absence of Safeguards in the Digital Environment
Today, a significant portion of our daily activities takes place online: communication, payments, relationships, work, investments.
Yet there is a structural feature of these activities that often goes unnoticed: they are individual activities.
Even when we are physically surrounded by others, digital interaction takes place in a private micro-environment. The screen creates a separate cognitive space. Decisions are made alone.
From a Routine Activity Theory perspective, safeguards are often already reduced by default. Not because other people are absent, but because they are not involved in the decision-making process.
Short-Term Scams: Urgency as a Tool of Isolation
In short-term scams — such as phishing or impersonation scams — the absence of safeguards is reinforced through urgency.
Time pressure serves to prevent verification, reduce reflection, and discourage victims from seeking advice. The implicit message is simple: “You must act now.”
If there is no time, there is no consultation.
If there is no consultation, the decision remains individual.
In these cases, isolation is temporal: a narrow window is created in which action is taken without activating any external safeguard.
Long-Term Scams: Isolation as a Process
In long-term scams — such as investment fraud or relationship-based scams — the dynamic is different.
Time is not limited. On the contrary, interaction unfolds gradually.
Precisely for this reason, the absence of safeguards must be maintained in more subtle ways. Strategies may include:
• requests for secrecy
• the construction of an exclusive relationship
• progressive distancing from friends or family
• reframing the scammer as the only reliable source of guidance
Here, isolation is no longer merely situational. It becomes relational and psychological.
External safeguards are not simply ignored; they are gradually weakened or neutralized.
Digital Routines and the Normalization of Vulnerability
Digitalization has profoundly transformed our daily routines. Increasingly, financial and relational decisions are made through personal devices, often in private settings.
Research has shown that victims of cybercrime are not necessarily members of particularly vulnerable or marginalized groups. They are often average citizens, integrated into social and professional life.
Vulnerability emerges from the convergence of everyday digital routines, individualized device use, the possibility for offenders to intervene without being observed, and the difficulty of activating immediate external consultation.
In the online environment, the absence of safeguards is therefore often structural before it is psychological.
It Is Not Weakness, It Is Context
Routine Activity Theory shifts attention away from individual blame and toward the configuration of situations.
It is not merely a matter of naivety or lack of competence. It is the organization of our digital routines that makes the absence of safeguards more likely.
In the physical world, many decisions are made in the presence of others.
In the digital world, many decisions are made alone.
And it is within this structural isolation that online scams find space.
Further Reading
Routine Activity Theory
Cohen & Felson (1979) explain how crime occurs when a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the absence of safeguards converge — a useful lens for understanding online scams.
L. E. Cohen & M. Felson, Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach, 1979.
Lifestyle and Victimization Risk
Hindelang, Gottfredson & Garofalo (1978) show how everyday activities influence exposure to victimization risk.
Victims of Personal Crime: An Empirical Foundation for a Theory of Personal Victimization, 1978.
Digitalization and Everyday Online Routines
The Digital 2025 report by We Are Social provides updated data on internet use in Italy and worldwide, helping to contextualize how digital routines shape opportunity and exposure.
https://wearesocial.com/it/blog/2025/02/digital-2025
The Normalization of Cybercrime Victimization
Junger et al. (2017) argue that cybercrime victims increasingly resemble the “average citizen,” suggesting that digitalization has broadened and normalized victimization risk.
https://doi.org/10.1109/CyberSA.2017.8073391
- L. E. Cohen e M. Felson, Social change and crime rate trends: A routine activity approach, in American Sociological Review, vol. 44, 1979, pp. 588–608.
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