When the Good Guys Get Attacked: Navigating Suspicion in Victim Support Groups

“In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell

The Challenge of Helping

When you’ve devoted your life to helping victims of financial crime, you expect resistance from institutions—the banks, the regulators, the legal walls that protect the powerful. You don’t expect resistance from the victims themselves.

But that’s the paradox of this work. Sometimes the most difficult place to stand is inside the very community you’re trying to serve.

Understanding Group Dynamics

Victim support groups are emotionally charged spaces. Members are traumatised. They’ve been ignored, dismissed, and gaslit—often for years. In those conditions, trust becomes fragile. Suspicion grows like mould.

When someone new enters the space—especially someone with a different approach or a visible platform—it can trigger fear or defensiveness. Add AI to the mix, and it can feel to some like the cold hand of the institutions they once begged for help.

But that’s not what this is.

Why I Use AI

I don’t use AI to replace empathy. I use it because without it, I can’t help more than one victim at a time. The cases I work on are complex. They span jurisdictions, regulators, intermediaries, and years of silence and obstruction.

Victims often come to me with thousands of disorganised documents and no idea where to start. They’re emotionally overwhelmed. The professionals they face are procedural, cold, and ruthless.

AI helps me bring order to chaos. It helps structure a case, identify missing evidence, summarise timelines, calculate losses, and draft communications that get taken seriously. It lets me scale support where human energy alone would fail.

This is not artificial intelligence replacing human care. It’s augmented integrity enabling human justice.

A Deplatforming Attempt Dressed As Moral Concern

Recently, a support group member wrote to accuse me of hiding behind AI, of lacking empathy, and of being dishonest. He didn’t raise a concern—he launched a character assassination. He demanded I “put pen to paper” and “show the cut of my jib.” He positioned himself as a “seasoned b/s hunter,” as though moral authority were a uniform.

What he didn’t do was address any evidence, collaborate on any solution, or demonstrate a genuine desire to help victims.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve faced that kind of attack. It won’t be the last.

But it raises a critical point: if victim groups push away the helpers, who’s left to help?

When Good Actors Are Pushed Out

Not every critic is a bad actor—but not every loud voice is a good one either. Some are simply stuck in old ways. Others may be compromised, even unknowingly. A few, I fear, are defending the very systems we seek to dismantle.

What matters is that we protect the space for genuine helpers—those offering tools, energy, and insight in good faith.

Because when we let cynicism and in-fighting dominate, the criminals don’t need to lift a finger. We destroy ourselves from within.

A Call for Integrity

This work is too important to be derailed by ego, suspicion, or gatekeeping.

If you have doubts—ask questions. If you have concerns—seek clarity. But don’t make enemies of those on your side.

Justice is not won by the loudest voice or the oldest method. It’s won by those who persevere, who innovate, and who hold the line when others give up.

And I, for one, will not give up.

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Steve Conley
Founder, Get SAFE | The Justice & Recovery Hub
Ambassador, Transparency Task Force
www.aolp.info | steve.conley@aolp.co.uk

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” — Buckminster Fuller

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Why I Use ChatGPT in Citizen-Led Financial Investigations

A Humanitarian Need, A Technological Solution

At Get SAFE, our mission is to support victims of financial crime who have been failed by the system—repeatedly and profoundly. These cases are not just about money; they are about dignity, mental health, justice, and survival. Many victims are emotionally shattered, facing years—even decades—of neglect, obfuscation, and institutional stonewalling.

The Problem Without AI

• Case complexity: These are multi-jurisdictional fraud cases involving a web of market participants—IFAs, trustees, introducers, SIPP/QROPS providers, banks, insurers, ombudsmen, regulators, MPs, HMRC, SFO, police, and offshore entities. Each deflects responsibility. The result? A fragmented trail of accountability.
• Overwhelmed victims: Many are emotionally drained, not technically skilled, and drowning in disorganised evidence—thousands of documents across emails, scans, PDFs, and file folders with no structure or strategic narrative.
• Inefficient communication: Victims often send long, emotionally-charged emails—multiple per day—with attachments and no clear call to action, often copying in dozens of parties. This alienates allies, overloads inboxes, and leads to being ignored.
• Time and capacity limits: I can’t dedicate a full day to a single case. Without AI, even one complex case is unsustainable. Yet I feel a moral obligation to continue. AI makes that possible.

The Solution With AI

Using ChatGPT, I can:

• 🔍 Extract clarity from chaos: Upload vast email chains and document bundles to quickly summarise what’s relevant, identify inconsistencies, and construct clear timelines.
• 🧠 Maintain context across time: AI retains case history, helping me recall past correspondence and avoid duplication or error.
• 🧾 Generate professional documentation: AI drafts precise, fact-focused complaints, MP letters, regulator submissions, and legal templates—all aligned to the correct tone, legal framing, and procedural next steps.
• 📂 Build structured, shareable dossiers: With tools like Notion and Google Drive, AI helps me create living case files. Evidence is categorised, summarised, and accessible by a single shareable link—ensuring clarity, transparency, and efficiency.
• 📣 Support victims with emotional neutrality: AI helps replace rambling with reason. It supports victims in expressing themselves powerfully and persuasively.
• 💼 Scale impact responsibly: With AI, I can help 3–4 victims in parallel. Without it, I would barely manage one. I must also sustain my own income and health—AI makes that balance possible.

Example: The Citizen Investigator’s Playbook

We’ve built a robust, AI-assisted format for citizen investigators to:

1. Summarise their case in clear terms.
2. Log a factual timeline.
3. Quantify and evidence their loss.
4. Compile all supporting documents.
5. Record failures by regulators and firms.
6. Track political advocacy.
7. Centralise legal files and correspondence.
8. Archive media and FOIA documents.
9. Store witness statements and logs.
10. Track all communication generated by or through AI.

This transforms an incoherent archive into a compelling case for redress.

The Human Impact

Victims come to us broken. Many contemplate suicide. Their hope is gone, not just from their finances—but from life itself. The AI tools I use are not cold technology; they are life-saving, dignity-restoring interventions.

AI allows me to give people their story back, in a format that others will read, respect, and act upon.

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Conclusion: A Moral and Strategic Imperative

I use AI not because it’s trendy, but because it’s necessary.

When institutions fail to listen, AI helps us speak louder—and clearer.

When victims lose faith, AI helps us rebuild it—strategically and compassionately.

This is justice. This is recovery. This is Get SAFE.

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Steve Conley
Founder, Academy of Life Planning
Leader, Get SAFE Initiative
Advocate for Financial Justice | Peer Mentor | Former Industry Insider

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About Get SAFE

Get SAFE (Support After Financial Exploitation) was born from a simple truth: too many victims of financial abuse are left to suffer in silence.

We exist in memory of Ian Davis—for the ones who did everything right, only to be failed by the systems they trusted. We know that behind every vanished pension, every ignored complaint, and every stonewalled letter is a person—frightened, exhausted, and too often alone.

Get SAFE offers more than sympathy. We offer structure, support, and solidarity.
We provide a voice where there’s been silence, and clarity where there’s been confusion.
We stand beside those who have been exploited, not just to help them recover—but to help them reclaim their story and rebuild their future.

Because financial justice is not a luxury.
It’s a human right.

If you or someone you know has been affected by financial exploitation, we are here.
You are not alone.

 Learn more at: Get SAFE (Support After Financial Exploitation).