Romance scams

[NextDoorToAlice]

How can someone fall for a foreign love who they never met who wants money and more money and more money while making excuses not to meet while wanting more money.

There was something on TV this morning about a man who fell for a romance scam and lost 85000 pounds and his home and made himself homeless in the process.

My mother was watching this having the utmost of sympathy for him and I just kept thinking - he's a fool.

Surely if someone was to fall for something like that, what is the cut off point. Surely someone should have stopped after 50/100/250/500/1000 pounds. He stopped at 85000 pounds. It's too much. I can't believe he went on TV because what it looked like to me was that he found someone interested in him and he was trying to buy her love.

I remember getting a call from my phone company who wanted me to confirm my name which I did. Then he asked me to confirm my address and all hell broke loose over the phone with me shouting at him - 'How do I know that you are legitimate and that this isn't a scam....go f*ck you' and I hung up.

Well that was rude and unnecessary

They prey on vulnerable or lonely people but I think even if their family and friends warned them
off they wouldn’t listen.

A friend of mine fell for one. Her husband had died, she was lonely, went on holiday to Kenya & fell for the barman 40 years her junior. She believed that he really loved her & fell out with a lot of her friends over it. She tried to remortgage her home to raise money for him (fortunately the bank weren't having any of it). Turned out he had a wife & family & was trying to get money to build a restaurant.
You honestly wouldn't believe an intelligent person could fall.for it.

People might be in the early stage of dementia and not be thinking straight and not have family members they can trust with their finances.

They might initially think, I'm not going to spend this cash and this is the only person that's giving me any attention so I might as well spend it on them? And not realise the extent of the scam at first. Because once you handover cash and the scammers know you are hooked they up their game.

There are many ways a fool and their money are easily parted.

You can be judgemental when you have people who love you around you, are in clear of mind, aren't looking for love or attention anywhere you can get it.

I hope your friend didn't loose too much money.

I have a lot more sympathy for someone who would be in this position losing a low-ish sum of money like 5000/10000/15000 pounds because that can still be a lot of money but after that, surely there should be a cut off point where someone should start to question their position.

I am someone who would even part with a pound for a neighbour.

I think she lost a bit of money but fortunately a family member stepped in & managed to stop it.

Thank goodness she had family to help her and stop it.

"Then he asked me to confirm my address and all hell broke loose over the phone with me shouting at him - 'How do I know that you are legitimate and that this isn't a scam....go f*ck you' and I hung up."

Another option would be to say - I'll ring you back. Hang up and ring your phone company. That way you're not being abusive to someone doing their job.

Someone could be vulnerable, they could be grieving, loneliness is a very powerful thing - people literally live longer and are healthier when they're connected to others - scammers prey on what's a very basic human need to be loved and connected.

An acquaintance of mine fell for one. Educated woman, high up in the NHS and she got rinsed for over 100k which I think she managed to claw most of it back from her bank.

Beforehand, i'd have thought she was the most stern, level-headed, suffer no fools middle aged woman but it seems there was a lot going on in her life that no-one knew about that made her vulnerable.

They're groomed.

100k is a lot of money. What goes through someone's head when they keep giving away money like that. Surely you would stop and question things after a 50 followed by another 100 more followed by 500 more. Why keep giving more and more money.

I think there was always a reason why more money was needed and always a promise that it would be paid back. And the scammer from what I heard was doing that thing where they were saying they were in absolute desperate need, their life was at stake and they couldn;t get help from the authorities for whatever reason so my acquaintance thought they literally had someones life in their hands.

But this was after months of grooming. I think it's easy to look at it from the outside and think 'how could you fall for that?' but when you're living in a false reality constructed by someone else, it all seems very real.

It was a similar situation I think as that famous scammer who had convinced people he was an MI5 spy and at one point had women crawling around on the floor in their own homes or in flats he'd made them rent because he'd convinced them they were going to be killed by foreign agents.

It's like being in a cult I think. Easy to say how could they be so stupid? but when you're living in someone elses constructed reality, someone who is abusing you, it's much more difficult to see it for what it is.

I think I might know the same woman.

I understand the psychology behind why it happens, especially with the very convincing scammers, as they build up trust and the victim genuinely believes they 'know' the person they've been talking to for weeks or months. But with all the publicity around these scams- tv documentaries, podcasts, news articles, people talking on social media etc- I find it more odd that these people still haven't heard of these scams so they don't recognise it when it happens to them!

The bank contacted him numerous times to advise that in all probability this was a scam. He ignored there advice each time. A fool and his money are soon parted.

My mother had sympathy for him this morning watching him on TV. I had 0 sympathy for him. All he was doing was trying to buy another person's love from abroad. That's all.

Surely you would question something after 500 pounds. Why keep giving more and more hundreds totalling thousands and thousands.

Sunk cost fallacy. They believe they’ve lent this money to ‘the love of their life’ and they’ll get it back. When they’re asked for more, I think they force themselves to believe it’s legitimate because the alternative is to face up to the fact that they’ve lost their money along with the addiction of their ‘love’. It’s too much to acknowledge so they’ll keep up the fantasy.

Because a lot of people aren;t consuming that media. And don;t want to.

I think the 24/7 news and social media toxicity is so prevalent that people assume everyone is consuming the same things. And they're not.

They’re groomed and sometimes even threatened. Where I work, I come across these individuals all the time. I try not to sell them the item they’re asking for (to forward on to scammer), but they show me messages from them to try and persuade me. It’s horrendous the tactics these people use while they have your attention. Some will say they will die as they need medical treatment, some will say ‘do you know who I am and what I will do to you’ - they think they’re talking to celebrities / gov officials. Please don’t think these people are stupid - they are very very vulnerable and unless you’ve had to ever sit down and explain what is happening and see the level in which these people are manipulated and coerced, you have no right to call them stupid.

If someone has developed a lovely interest that is located abroad and they are being threatened for money they need to go to the cops and not hand over money.

Imagine being lonely nobody else to say good morning, good night, how are you lovely? You've not been called babe in 40 years. They are calling you attractive and have found your weaknesses.

Although as a normal person it's hard to imagine it's not impossible to imagine.

Some people just see money as a ticket to getting what they really want a beautiful/handsome partner.

It’s clearly not that easy if thousands of people fall for it?

The victim may be too scared to go to the cops because of the nature of the threat.

There's a lot of greed and delusion in these stories. I find them quite fascinating sometimes. The old and ugly people suddenly getting interest from people much younger and attractive than them, don't seem to see the disparity. Sometimes they see themselves as deserving of a much hotter partner; for whatever reason.

Other stories are based on greed. People get told they will make money if they 'invest'. If they see a small return they go all in and never get it back. The tinder swindler women were all lured in easily by the promise of a lavish lifestyle.

Anyone watch sixteenleo on YouTube's videos on catfishes? So funny.