To find it hard to feel sympathy for certain scam “victims”?

[MayThe4th]

I’m not talking about those who are taken in by bogus calls from HMRC, or their bank, or PayPal or Royal Mail and the list goes on. In Theory we should all know the signs and be aware, but it’s easy to see how some people can be taken in.

But I’m talking about those people who give hundreds of thousands to 419 scammers, or to scammers for winnings of a lottery they never entered. There was an article the other day about someone who fell for a bitcoin scam and within half an hour he had been scammed out of £400k.

I watched the tinder swindler on netflix and all I could think was wtf! I mean it would be one thing giving this man money, but these women went into debt for him.

And I can’t help but think that so many people fall for these kinds of scams purely out of greed.

They believe they will make the millions, they hope the bitcoin will pay off, the women in the tinder swindler were dazzled by the lifestyle.

If my husband spent the cost of my house transferring money to a Nigerian bank account it would be grounds for divorce.

IMO these kinds of “victims” aren’t the same as real victims of scams, the people who are prayed on by lowlife who rely on someone’s fear they will be arrested for not paying their taxes, or fearing their bank account has been hacked.

The 419 and tinder swindler scam victims aren’t really victims, they’re led by greed, and are prepared to lose whatever they have to to get what they want.

@CapMarvel

It's an offensive and inaccurate comparison

Do you think victims of crimes in general have 0 blame in anything

The person who left their back door unlocked and posted on Facebook they're on holiday for the week for being burgled? No responsibility at all, a pure victim?

The women who actively seek out and date known abusers, criminals and even serial killers?

You've been scammed more than once?

Goodness me

Yes! 4 times. The first three were for less than £50 so not that important. I knew I was being scammed but kept thinking 'they must need the money more than me', which was stupid of me, but I don't think much of myself and always think others are more deserving. Even crooks. The last time the scammer was very clever and got close to £20k from me. I felt (and still feel) sick and stupid.

Even if it is greed, so what? They still don't deserve to have their bank accounts emptied because they fancy a holiday

Quite right - though equally, others don't deserve to be penalised for their mistakes either, via the kind of increased bank charges which come from them paying compensation for people's own stupidity

As we've seen just on here, the banks will warn some folk and still they'll insist on their own way; very nice to avoid responsibility no doubt, but I've yet to see a rational explanation as to why others should make up the losses

No sympathy. I've been watching 'For Love or Money' and I read TAB. The majority are deluded and also greedy, even though it's themselves that gets ripped off. They always fall for a far better looking man/lady who has a good job/lots of money (that's usually being held up for various reasons).
I pity them of course. So many keep it a secret from their family and friends, so on some level, they must know that it's wrong. As long as these gullible people are out there, the scammers will continue.

@ILoveDrivingRandom What was the 20 grand scam if you don't mind me asking?

This explains the FB friend requests from American men - I’ve lost count of the number I’ve received. I have never accepted any of them - I didn’t know they were a scam, but I’ve got enough caution not to accept friend requests from total strangers.

A family member of mine got scammed.

She told me that she was in communication with a man who worked stints abroad (via a dating site); that didnt raise huge alarm bells for me because quite a few people work abroad. She told me he was flying home on x date and they were going to meet at the airport and he said had a gift for her etc. That was a bit weirder to me; but my relative (in fact all my siblings) have always been prone to very intense, full on, rather codependent relationships; so I thought it was just following that pattern and that's why they were meeting up straight away and had little gifts picked out for each other etc.

After that point, she didn't speak to me again about the fledging relationship, we weren't in steady communication (different parts of the UK and much closer to other siblings) ..... I found out months down the line from another family member that she'd ended up being scammed out of significant sums of money by him (probably several hims). I don't know the details but I think they pulled the "need help for ABC urgent thing, will pay back" line.

If she'd spoken to me even once about it, I'd have tried my utmost to stop her sending anything. I think making people feel they can't/shouldn't tell their relatives is a big part of the scam.

She was very recently separated after a 20 plus yrs marriage, in that relationship for 25 yes and not single since 15. No experience of online dating, no experience of foreign travel or work (just package holidays). They apparently zero in on recent divorcees and widows/widowers as they are vulnerable in several ways.

I remember her specifically saying (early on) that he was "so far above me" in looks etc that she felt a bit overwhelmed and insecure that he was corresponding with her ..... Another adcuect that's part naivety, part "greed", part "hope springs eternal..".

*Another aspect that's part naivety, part "greed", part "hope springs eternal..".

The thing is, the airport meeting presumably never happened, but it was planned/set quite early on, when she was soaking to me about it, so she must have gone ahead with communicating and eventually "lending" money even after things like that happened. I presume excuses - work etc. were used to explain away why he wouldn't be flying in on x date and had to cancel meeting up. You'd wonder why they even bother mentioning these meetings they then have to "cancel" .... Probably because experience tells them people are much easier to scam with the expectation of a meeting in real life in the near future.

As an aside, there was a program about the real people whose photos are the most used by scanmers.

One is an ex US military man - slightly above average looks but relatively ordinary looking, v masculine looking, smiley maybe early 40s so a good age for scamming divorcees; presenter asked him why he thought his photo was used so much and he said its perhaps because he's smiling and looking friendly/happy in every photo; his mother was really worried about him being in Afghanistan with the military so he tried to look happy, relaxed and upbeat in every pic.

No, people who leave their doors unlocked are not responsible for being burgled. People who are scammed are not responsible for the actions of the scammer - regardless of how many labels of "greedy" or "stupid" you may waft smugly about.

It still requires someone to commit the crime - you know, the actual criminal. All a locked door does is make that a bit harder for anyone determined to rob someone.

If you were desperate for money, you wouldn’t have ££££ to give to scammers, so I don’t see that as a common reason for falling for scams.

Desperate for love is another thing. I saw one woman on TV who passed thousands to the ‘lover’ she’d never met, and then borrowed £10k from her bank to send him on top - even though the bank warned her that it was almost certainly a scam. She came across as reasonably intelligent, too - so I do find that hard to understand.

Sheer naïveté and not keeping up with news/current affairs at all, may be another reason. An elderly neighbour of ours was scammed out of about £100k via a ‘lottery’ scam. She was naive enough to believe the ‘very nice’ woman who phoned to say she was an employee of NatWest Bank, and who went on to say neighbour had been specially ‘selected’ to win £1m (in a lottery she hadn’t entered). Only there would be some payments for ‘tax’ first.

When we found out by sheer chance that this was going on, absolutely nothing would convince her that these people (they were so nice and friendly!) weren’t on the level. She was expecting someone at the door with her £1m any day!

Her adult dcs eventually had to step in to restrict mail/phone calls.

I might add that I’m convinced that they ‘selected’ her because of her addiction to wordsearch ‘competitions’, where you oh so conveniently phone in all your details at £7 a minute. After all this I found out that there are actually ‘suckers’ lists’ that are compiled and sold on to would-be scammers. And our neighbour was certainly very ripe for sucker-picking.

Anyone with a friend/relative who’s fond of or addicted to Wordsearch ‘competitions’ please be aware!

I would just add, I found out later that such scammers are very careful to warn their victims not to tell family or friends about their ‘amazing luck’, since they’ll only be jealous and try to stop you getting the money.

What a load of bollocks. Do you think you are being kind to people by pretending they have no responsibility for themselves and their actions? You're not. You're just helping them stay scammable by absolving them of all responsibilty for themeselves.
Everything is always someone elses fault, is that how you see it? Wrong. If you give all your money to someone despite being told they are scamming you in a completely obvious manner, you are at fault, if you don't have a disability that renders you incapabable.
It's ludicrous to pretend otherwise.

I agree with you OP, except for the Tinder Swindler one. These women were all Scandinavian and Scandinavians can be very innocent/niaive, and the Tinder Swindler was an expert conman. And people in certain wealthy/highly attractive circles do do stuff like that - free holidays, moving stuff around accounts.

Its such a problem though I think it should be taught as a life skill in schools. Instead, we teach women to be trustworthy and to always think the best of men, rather than to question their motives and look out for red flags. And so many men take advantage of this!

Theres the high profile, stranger type scammers and theres the local not-quite-scammers but as I like to refer to them as men on the make. They want to move into your house because they don't have one, or such a nice one as yours.

As for men who exploit women they barely know from the third world for marriage because they think they will be more complicit than European women...they deserve everything they get if they choose to play that particular game of chance. I have an ex who did that and ended up losing the house that his mother had left him in her will. He was an outrageous cheat so perhaps its karma. The woman is still living in his former house!

Just last night I was contacted by a chap from Morocco who started chatting. Very quickly he asked "How old are you?" to which I replied "Why do you know that?" This was off his script so he ignored and progressed straight onto the "developed a serious illness and couldn't afford a doctor script. Interestingly, I've noticed that when I change my profile pic on social media to something like a flower or a bit of scenery, I get way more of these type of messages than when its one of my modelling shots. They clearly pick on what they see is vulnerable women. Some of them work in call centres...

I agree with this. It’s like narcissism. A woman with low self-esteem is unlikely to believe a man several decades her junior has fallen madly in love with her. I have healthy self-esteem and there is no way I would believe it either. And that’s not being down on myself- that’s just having a normal level of scepticism. But a woman who has always over-valued her ability to attract male attention. Well, she might not have the red light flash up to remind her that no young man is going to be romantically interested in a 60 old woman.

I have to answer several security questions and prompts such as "Do you know this person" or "Stop! This could be a scam" etc before I can even make an online payment to a tradesman so have zero sympathy with people who have ignore their bank's advice to make payments to their online lover that they've never met. Some of them have also ignored advice from family and friends so zero sympathy. They're deluded at best.

Yes, the scammers are criminals but if people weren't so gullible they wouldn't have anybody to target.

There is definitely a “suckers list” unfortunately my grandma found herself on one. We had no idea until I was house sitting one week and she got no fewer than 5 calls a day from these people plus people coming to the house about gutters/gardening etc. As a family we managed to get on top of it but it was a struggle as she was such a proud woman and my grandparents moved themselves some distance away in their 60s. In the end her dementia got to a stage the POA could be activated which made it easier to protect her. One thing we did was have business cards printed with her son’s name and number on it to hand out to cold callers, they never bothered ringing my uncle funnily.

I think the problem is that by the time the requests from money arrive from Clint, the US widowed marine stuck in Afghanistan trying to get his salary released, that the victim is in SO deep that she thinks "Of course I know this person! We've been WhatsApping for months!" and "Scam? As if. Clint just needs £10k to pay the duty on his father's gold bullion and then we'll live happily ever after".

99% of people never get that far. They never accept the friend request in the first place, or suss out as soon as conversation starts that it's a bit iffy.

It's not bollocks at all. What it is, is a bunch of smug posters going "oh, I'm far too clever to ever fall for something like this".

If that makes you lot feel better about your lives, knock yourselves out.

But we ARE too clever, or aware, or whatever word you want to use, to fall for things like this.
If you;re not, I'm sorry for you, but thats no reason to pretend we could all fall for these exceedingly obvious scams. It's simpy not true that we are all equally susceptible, even if that make you feel better.

Well, theres nothing to stop you setting up a Go Fund Me to support the victims, is there?

What do you suggest people do? Not raise awareness of this growing issue or something?

I think its obvious that some people are prone to ignoring advice, even that of their own family, and its also obvious that some scammers are very talented in the art of targetted manipulation. That goes for many criminals.

I'm not bad looking for 52....there's zero chance that I would believe, that a man half my age would want to marry me, unless it was for money or a visa. Totally ridiculous. As for sending money to people you've never even met, the mind boggles.

My father met someone on holiday. She used him for a visa. They were married long enough for her to bring her children to the UK and then she manufactured a row and vanished. I was highly suspicious from the start, but she seemed to genuinely care for him, and lived with him in the UK for a couple of years. It was very painful for him, but he was lonely and believed that she loved him, even if partly for the lifestyle he could offer her. She got in touch with him years later, which soothed him a bit (she didn't want anything from him, they just talked and it was a one off). I think she was desperate to come to the UK and sold herself to do so.

@CapMarvel Not the case with me. It's more a case of I'm too tight with my hard earned money to part with it for anyone.
Christ, it pains me enough to give it to legal scammers, e.g utility companies!