To think some romance scam victims are simply stupid?

[TheAverageJoanne]

At home today and have the TV on with For Love or Money about romance fraud. One victim is an international business development manager but gave £113000 to scammers, persuading her mother and sister to part with their savings

How far the love of Christ would you trust someone with a responsible job when they do this sort of thing and judgement flies out of the window?

I get there are people who are lonely and vulnerable but this one took me by total surprise. How could she have been so stupid? She received an email while waiting for him at the airport, showed it to airport staff who confirmed it was fake but still sent another £30000 to prevent airport staff at the other side from killing him. Jesus Christ.

Just watching this now and I totally agree. Also the elderly man who actually thinks a 30 year old nurse is falling for him, he just said he hoped she was going to be there in the studio to see him. I understand he is lonely but seriously 🤯

Yes. Same goes for elderly women who come back from their holiday with some 20 something lad, claiming he's the love of her life!

Whilst I agree, having joined a countryside dating website as a not bad woman in their 30s I left pretty quickly after the amount of approaches I got from really quite unattractive men in their 50s and 60s. Absolutely delusional, but I could quite easily see how they could get suckered in.

Loneliness does strange things to people. Mainly chips away at their self esteem to such an extent they will do anything to keep someone who shows them any level of interest in their lives.

Unfortunately, the scammers know exactly who to pick!!!! It's sad really :(

Glad it’s not just me! And these ones who give their life savings to a courier because someone “from the bank” has called and told them they need to move their money to another account 🙄

I think some people are just very lonely, lost and sad so they’re desperate for attention and love. That and the fact intellect doesn’t always mean a person has emotional intelligence. I’m an academic so work with intellects, a few of them have no common sense.

Being successful professionally doesn't translate to having no weaknesses. In fact, very successful people often are romantically weak because their job takes so much out of them. We've all been stupid over something.

You only have to look at the number of women on here in completely shit awful relationships but insisting he's lovely really and a great dad and they've made it sound worse than it is to see how hard it can be to take your heart back when you realise you've been a fool. These women are going to sacrifice their lives and their children on the altar of the fantasy that sustains their sense of self...makes a few grand look quite piddling, really.

It's very frustrating though, for sure. If only more people would realise that it's never too late to cut your losses.

I have some involvement with cases like this at work, and I'd say most romance scams are shockingly unsophisticated and should be obvious to anyone with a modicum of life experience. Ego is a strong driving force in lots of people's decisions.

People want to believe they are gorgeous and loveable. It’s narcissism really.

Totally agree. I remember one where it was a woman in her 50s - morbidly obese, practically housebound and she “found love” with a young good looking man in his 20s who just happened to be “in danger” and needing thousands of pounds sent to him on a regular basis which she was willingly doing. She’d never even met this bloke, just had a photo and a shit ton of messages saying how much he loved her and couldn’t wait to marry her etc. I actually felt sorry for her kids who were desperately trying to make her see sense whilst watching their inheritance being thrown away to some random scammer.

I’ll never understand the absolute stupidity of some people.

Someone half your age, stunning looking, declaring love after 2 weeks of sending online messages, should have anyone's alarm bells ringing.

I do feel so sorry for lonely people, but they seem to become so bloody minded in the belief that these scammers love them, that they ignore friends and family.

My husband thinks I'm gorgeous and lovable and I think the same of him. If it's narcissistic then it's working for us.

I know. I read about one woman who believed she was in an online relationship with Jason Statham and ended up giving him tens of thousands of pounds.

For a start why would Jason Statham need your money? And also not to be mean but what does Jason Statham need with a middle aged woman from Stoke when he has his supermodel girlfriend 🤔

You mention her obesity and housebound status so you clearly think they are relevant, but you can't understand why she might have been susceptible to something like this?

I think it's very sad. It's not just romance scams - many people in DH's family have been conned by (much smaller) scams or have these weird irrational fears that make no sense when you consider these are also well educated, perfectly successful adults. It's weird.

As DH says, considering his father is the least trusting, most cynical person he's ever met it's completely bizarre how many times he has been conned out of money/burgled etc.

Scammers deliberately target vulnerable people who are less able to see through the scam for whatever reason- could be intelligence, age, emotional vulnerability etc.

I don’t understand it but I don’t think the people are stupid or narcissists. I think they’re vulnerable to this approach. Scammers are good at finding the most receptive audience for their particular con.

Completely agree. I always feel like such a bitch when I watch stuff like this. Everyone always sounds so sympathetic, and i'm thinking how can they be so thick.

Yes, I do. I know that sound callous, and I know there's a sort of spectrum of foolishness - some are more culpable than others, but I generally agree.

My reasons are:

I understand it's horrible to be lonely, but I wish women would raise their standards and realise they can enjoy life without a man.

If someone asks for money - just walk away. After all the publicity about this kind of scam surely, surely women understand that this is a huge red flag?

Some people are deluded about their attractiveness to the opposite sex. Harsh, but if you're realistic, it's much healthier and protects you from highly unlikely propositions from younger, very attractive men.

It happened to my dsis. She has learning difficulties. These bastards know what they are doing and actively target people like my sister. So I wouldn't call them stupid, just vulnerable and too trusting

Very very gullible and probably a bit desperate. Doesn't speak volumes as their ability as an "international business development manager" that they send £130k to some bloke they've never met who is supposedly in the Ukraine building something or other.

The presenters always say things like "it could happen to anyone" but it really couldn't. I have a business Instagram account and regularly get messages from attractive looking men who are always American, Canadian or Australian but working in Syria/Iraq for the UN or as a medic. So clearly fake. Delete and block. Scammers like this are not sophisticated and if these women even took one second to google the story they would hit upon thousands of other widowed American UN medics stuck in Iraq who just need $2000 for a passport or medical bills...

YABU, people can be very vulnerable and that’s who these scammers target.

Scammers are very clever. We had a family member "invest" in a company which turned out to be some sort of scam and then the scammers also sent emails offering to recover money paid out to the scammers.

They mocked up documents from HMRC and various solicitors to make it look convincing. The relative was desperate to believe it was all above board when it was fairly obvious (to us!) it was a scam. Sad.

I think like a previous poster said loneliness can make someone quite desperate and open to believing anything. A friend of mine is married to a man who was in the UK on a student visa. They were engaged 2 weeks after meeting, joint bank account and married 5 months later just before his student visa ran out. He is taking the absolute biscuit and clearly playing the long game but she won’t remotely acknowledge it because she is so desperate to be loved. It’s really sad.