What’s the scam?

[Whatdoyouthink01]

If you get a Facebook friend request from a good looking man from the US who you have no links with and has only one or two friends, what is going on?

Do they set up lots of different accounts using fake photos and try to lure you into a relationship for money? Why don’t they have more Facebook friends?

I had one request last night from a silver fox type from the US and one today from a male model from Rome.

I have blocked them but I am wondering what happens if you actually engage with them. Has anyone done this and what happened?!

Just a romance scam. They work on a lot of lonely women who end up losing everything to send them money.

Why are you getting them now though I'd be asking. Did you sign up for some sort of SM dating? Something needs blocking.

Yes, that’s exactly what they do. They’re usually Nigerian scammers who pay you lots of attention and then start feeding you sob stories and asking for money for their mother’s hip operation, to save their dog, to post bail for them, etc. There have been numerous TV programmes about them. You can read more here:

www.digitalforensics.com/blog/extortion/how-does-a-nigerian-romance-scam-work/?srsltid=AU7gw4Us_FO7NpMBv73iZ2UiI1aIcRdtq0vQ-LlVuBMBhFY0UB2_XYdm

Listen to Scam Secrets on Radio 4 Podcasts

Do they have one Facebook account per person or something? It’s so unlike a normal profile with photos of events and family and friends.

I never understand why ANYONE would fall for this????????
why do people start talking to randome men begging for money and think they love them so they’ll send them money????
absolutely ridiculous

Probably Nigerian yes
Anytime I comment on a joke page or comment on others i get them.
Wait for the american military men who are widowed.
The good lokking silver fox types with a dog
1-2 friends.
All scammers and I wonder who much time they soend wasting time...Im no rich sucker.
Pathetic.

I’ve watched a few of those love rat scams/ holiday romance type programmes and the sheer naivety of these women is astounding. Some of them were genuinely traumatised from past relationships and it was easy to see how they would fall for it, but the rest just came across as incredibly stupid.

I can’t work out how they would set up one Facebook account just to contact one person on the other side of the world on the off chance that person might one day give them money. How many accounts and contacts would they need to make it worth their while?

I mean if I’d been traumatised by a past relationship I’d be ultra careful but I agree I watched a programme a while back and a lot of them just seemed really stupid! And desperate!

I saw a local news report recently about one woman who had sent a similar person nearly £150k, so it’s definitely worth their while. They have masses of profiles and it only takes a few minutes a day to keep in touch with each woman, so working at it full time could be very lucrative for whoever employs the individuals who actually type the messages.

Edited for typo

Oh, it can be fun to do a reverse image search on the photo - you’ll find they’re either a catalogue model or someone’s genuine fb photo has been used, and there are dozens of profiles using the same image.

I used to get a lot of these because I had ‘widowed’ visible on my public profile.
check what info you are sharing publically.

BOTs can make thousands of accounts in one go.

Oh I see. That makes sense.

they do it in bulk

I had a spate of them a few years ago with lots of AI generated images of them sitting by the fire or by the pool. We used to call them Sexy Captain Birdseyes!

They prey on people's vulnerabilities. They set up fake profiles with photos of people they've scraped from elsewhere online or use AI. They don't only message one person at a time. They work on a numbers basis that for every so many messages sent, a handful of people will respond then they go from there. They also use software to find photos of people they think will be easy prey. I never had a profile photo for ages. None of these scammers ever contacted me. Put a photo on there and that changed. Also it's obvious to me that they, or their software, makes assumptions based on profile photos. The supposedly good looking older men who are retired pilots and surgeons and who contact me are my dad's age and not my cup of tea!

I think a random message from a new profile with a couple of photos and, often, a photo of a pet but no friends, with no connection to me is a sure fire scammer. Others won't necessarily think that.

We also tend to think that everyone is of similar intelligence and education level as we are. We also know that even a high level of attainment doesn't mean a person has common sense or is street smart.

The people who are taken in and start a dialogue think they are in a relationship. This is why you should never get attached to someone you haven't met in real life.

I get facebook friend requests from nice looking ladies. I tried accepting one and she sent a message and I replied, she then asked me if I knew that I was entitled to some huge amount of money as a tax refund. It was a tax refund from the USA but I live in the UK
I have no idea what she would have said next as I blocked her

I know someone who did, perfectly normal intelligent woman looking for a relationship

Luckily someone else realised it was a con and told her before it got to the stage of sending any money

But why would you send some randome stranger money without even meeting them??? That’s beyond stupid

I assume you know about romance scams

Lonely or vulnerable people fall for them every day and sometimes even regular people because they can be very convincing

I wouldnt do and you obviously wouldn't either but its not hard to understand how it happens is it?

Yes I do know all about them and they are widely discussed so I just don’t understand how and why anyone would send a randome stranger money without meeting them.

The women interviewed on these things are hard to feel sorry for as they’re the ones who’ve made the bank transferred it’s not like they’ve been scammed they’ve chosen to make the transaction!

Start small. Ask for £20. A week later send back £30
Congratulations you are now trustworthy.
Ask for £500 now. Send back £300. I'll get the other £200 shortly.
They believe him, if he was just after money why was he returning it.
Now they can start playing for bigger money.

They’re not sole operators, they work as a team and take shifts. They have spreadsheets so that the person taking over the conversation knows personal information about you to keep it seeming real. They used to be called Yahoo Boys.

There’s a documentary series on iPlayer on this. They found the real person whose photos they stole as well as victims of the scan, he was a model and make up artist who relied on SM for work, and his work had been pretty much decimated. One woman lost over 1.5 million (it wasn’t clear if that was dollars or euros). They only need one person to bite to get serious money.