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.

@Christmascountdownpanic I'm not sure about greedy, more dazzled. They had seemingly stepped into a world very different from their normal everyday. Someone extremely wealthy gives you a diamond necklace, it would be rude to get a jeweller to check that the metal is gold and the diamonds are real.

Then you get asked to pay for something. It's only a $1000. After the necklace, you pay because it would be churlish not to. You get paid back very quickly perhaps with a little bit extra for your trouble.

This happens several times with the sums getting bigger each time. You keep being told that this is normal for the super rich and anyway the sums involved are quite 'small'. You don't want to seem petty and a bit coarse by doubting it.

Then you get hit with a request for a larger sum which you pay as you know he will pay you back. Except he doesn't, reasons, instead he asks for more money. You have to pay this as not doing so will jeopardise ever getting your money back (sunk cost fallacy).

And then he ghosts you.

Maybe. Although seriously a billionaire or millionaire that needs a £1000 loan. Umm

They do say the easiest person to scammoney out of is a greedy person these women know full well what they r doing and if they daft enough to hand over every penny to some person they never met so be it their life their choice i dont buy the victim line it all to easy to play a victim card these days

They do say the easiest person to scammoney out of is a greedy person

Who says that? I've not heard it.

Strange, since these women keep handing money over - not good gold-digging practice. They're often pressured into it to prove they're not greedy.

I just don't understand how there seems to be so many people in the world who are of such low intelligence yet have so much wealth. How do they accumulate this much money in the first place??

These are the same people who appear on 'Homes Under the Hammer'

"Mark works as a glass collector at the local pub and Sarah sells painted shells on ebay, they have £700,000 to spend and are looking for a 3 bed detached period house in the Cotswolds"

Me "Oh do fuck off, HOW?"

Quite a few on the BBC show remortgage their houses out take out bank loans to send money back o people they’ve never met.

One woman lost 2 houses to 2 different scammers sending £150k to one and £100k to the other and now lives in a caravan. And yet she still told Kym Marsh she couldn’t promise not to send anymore money despite now not having a pot to piss in

Quite often the scammer sends bank statements or fake legal documents saying they’ve got an inheritance of millions or a vault full of gold bars and they need the fee to release it. So although they’re asking for month upfront it’s with the promise of millions to come

I have been approached in the street a few times by women playing the 'Damsel in Distress' card. Each time they have been very well dressed, well spoken and asking for money for a taxi home as their car has broken down. It is an obvious scam but they are preying on peoples sense empathy and good will and are hoping that they will be given the benefit of the doubt despite all the red flags. Ask enough people through the course of a day I guess and you will make a few quid.

I was always fond of the Nigerian stuck in space scam email.

Subject: Nigerian Astronaut Wants To Come Home Dr. Bakare Tunde Astronautics Project Manager National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) Plot 555 Misau Street PMB 437 Garki, Abuja, FCT NIGERIA
Dear Mr. Sir,

REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE-STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

I am Dr. Bakare Tunde, the cousin of Nigerian Astronaut, Air Force Major Abacha Tunde. He was the first African in space when he made a secret flight to the Salyut 6 space station in 1979. He was on a later Soviet spaceflight, Soyuz T-16Z to the secret Soviet military space station Salyut 8T in 1989. He was stranded there in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. His other Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo. There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time. He is in good humor, but wants to come home.

In the 14-years since he has been on the station, he has accumulated flight pay and interest amounting to almost $ 15,000,000 American Dollars. This is held in a trust at the Lagos National Savings and Trust Association. If we can obtain access to this money, we can place a down payment with the Russian Space Authorities for a Soyuz return flight to bring him back to Earth. I am told this will cost $ 3,000,000 American Dollars. In order to access the his trust fund we need your assistance.

Consequently, my colleagues and I are willing to transfer the total amount to your account or subsequent disbursement, since we as civil servants are prohibited by the Code of Conduct Bureau (Civil Service Laws) from opening and/ or operating foreign accounts in our names.

Needless to say, the trust reposed on you at this juncture is enormous. In return, we have agreed to offer you 20 percent of the transferred sum, while 10 percent shall be set aside for incidental expenses (internal and external) between the parties in the course of the transaction. You will be mandated to remit the balance 70 percent to other accounts in due course.

Kindly expedite action as we are behind schedule to enable us include downpayment in this financial quarter.

Please acknowledge the receipt of this message via my direct number 234 (0) 9-234-2220 only.

Yours Sincerely, Dr. Bakare Tunde Astronautics Project Manager [email protected] https://www.nasrda.gov.ng/

Outstanding!

That's an investment scam. OP was talking about romance scams.

I have some (genuine) investments. Yes, I'm doing it to make money. I don't think this makes me evil and terrible (I know you're not saying that, just responding to the overall tone of some posters).

It’s a common tactic used in romance scams. They convince the victims that there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and they’ll be living happily ever after in luxury.

The scammer isn’t asking them to invest, they’re asking for cash to release their inheritance and promising big houses, holidays etc when they get together.

they’ll be living happily ever after

That's the kicker in a romance scam. And it's often how they get the mark to cough up. "You'd do it if you loved me and wanted a life together, you're not a shallow, greedy gold digger..."

No gold digger worthy of the name gives money to a putative sugar daddy.

One of the Tinder Swindler victims was in love with some sort of Disney romance too. I can't remember the details as it was s as while ago, but who would seriously go off with a comparative stranger in a private plane on first, or early, dates.

I remember people explaining how they select targets. Apparently one thing some of these people do (where the romance/money element is involved) is to target someone who is below average in looks - one said that he never targets good looking people as it won't work.

The Tinder Swindler women were all quite nice looking though?

Not above the average I don't think.

You don't think Pernilla Sjöholm and Cecilie Fjellhøy are above average attractiveness?

Well, I guess it's in the eye of the beholder...but I do think if you stuck them in among a representative cross section of women their age, you'd find a lot of people who would be considered less conventionally attractive than they are.

I was going to say you were being catty, but I just had a look , and agree with you, both relatively attractive women, who have made the most of themselves, but I’d also say average, meaning lots more attractive, lots less.

People are scammed all the time.
The amount of people on Instagram claiming to be fitness or health coaches are in their thousands, all selling their crap classes or nutrition advice and the gullible are buying it.

Speaking as someone way below average, around average is probably the 'sweet spot' for a scammer. I was always sceptical of the few real-life advances that came my way, even when I was in my 20s, as I was used to males pretending to 'ask me out' as a huge 'joke' with their mates. I have always known instantly when someone is 'out of my league'.

Very .. how can old people think that the young people really want to be with them for any other reason than money 🤦‍♀️..

There was a lady in her late 60/70's on uk 90 day fiancé and it was so awful to watch her being so deluded

There was the 88yo with a 44yo oilman.

I once (before they collapsed) worked for a large package tour company. One of my most memorable ‘complaint’ customers was a 50 year old female who had holidayed in The Gambia. Met up with a 19 year old waiter and started dating him. 2 years down the line (with various return visits to ‘catch up’), he’d had 18K gifted to him…..and disappeared off the face of the earth. This was ‘our fault’, we’d sold her the holiday and should have warned her. She would phone me every week without fail, email after email, wanted me to contact him, was he still working at the hotel etc etc.
It was exhausting.
After a while I ran out of sympathy.

I have been to The Gambia a few times and it is astonishing watching the middle aged European women being chaperoned around the place by young 20 something (and in fairness handsome) men. Obviously the golden ticket would be marriage and an EU passport but they all seemed to be sporting designer gear, latest phones etc