"If he sees people posing on Instagram with yachts, say, or cars that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, while also trying to raise money, he says, bells immediately go off.“ ... It’s rare, Overum says, that you’ll go long without hearing from a target that turns out to be running a scam. “They always need money,” he says. “They’re always running short on cash.”
Ah. That's a good method of target selection.