Crime · Two-part direct question · Band 7
Who Is Responsible for Online Fraud?
The question, a model answer written to the band 7 descriptors, why it scores that band against the 4 official criteria, topic vocabulary, and a common mistake to avoid.
Two-part direct question
Online fraud and scams have increased significantly in recent years. Who do you think is most responsible for protecting people from this (individuals, technology companies, or the government), and what can realistically be done to reduce it? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words.
Model answer (band 7)
Written to the band 7 descriptors, not by a real examiner. Read it for structure and language, then write your own in your own words. Examiners can tell a memorised essay from an original one.
Online fraud has grown dramatically as more of daily life moves online, and while individuals bear some responsibility for staying alert, I believe technology companies carry the greater share of responsibility, since the platforms they build and profit from are where most fraud actually takes place.
Individuals can certainly reduce their own risk by learning to recognise common scam patterns, verifying unfamiliar requests for money or information, and using stronger account security such as two-factor authentication. However, placing the primary burden on individuals ignores how sophisticated and convincing modern scams have become, often closely imitating legitimate communications from banks or well-known companies in ways that even cautious, technically literate users can struggle to detect reliably. Technology companies, by contrast, control the platforms, messaging systems, and payment infrastructure that fraudsters exploit, and they possess far greater technical capacity to detect suspicious patterns at scale than any individual user realistically could.
Realistic measures should therefore focus primarily on platform-level responsibility. Companies could be required to verify advertiser and account identities more rigorously before allowing financial transactions, and to deploy automated detection systems that flag suspicious patterns before victims lose money rather than only after complaints accumulate. Government also has a meaningful role in setting binding minimum security standards for financial platforms and in funding specialised units capable of pursuing fraud across international borders, where many scams currently operate largely beyond the reach of individual national police forces.
In conclusion, while individual caution helps, technology companies hold the greatest practical responsibility for reducing online fraud, and government regulation is needed to ensure they actually meet it.
Why this answer scores band 7
Mapped to the 4 official IELTS Writing criteria.
- Task Response: both parts of the question (who is responsible, what can be done) are answered explicitly with a clear, defended hierarchy of responsibility.
- Coherence and Cohesion: logical progression from individual responsibility, to platform responsibility, to government's supporting role, clearly connected throughout.
- Lexical Resource: precise vocabulary ('two-factor authentication', 'platform-level responsibility', 'binding minimum standard') used accurately and naturally.
- Grammatical Range and Accuracy: sustained complex sentence structures, including comparative and causal clauses, with very few errors throughout.
Useful vocabulary & collocations
Phrases used in the model answer that lift Lexical Resource naturally.
Common mistake on this type of question
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