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.

We also mustn’t discount the fact that before the banks became tough and refused to refund the ‘scammed’ money, some of the ‘scammed’ were not the victims they made themselves out to be. So they ended up with two sets of money, the original amount sent by the bank, and the refund, which they could share with the destination account holder.

I seem to remember that one of the reasons for introducing PIN was that people couldn’t claim their cards had been stolen, and that false withdrawals had been made from their accounts. If the withdrawal used the PIN, it proved otherwise ( of course, the criminals have devised ways round this, I sometimes think that if we could persuade them to turn their talents to legitimate business, the world would be a good deal more prosperous).

Shirley Valentine has a lot to answer for...

All the Hollywood ideal romance shit does, surely? I watched The Tinder Swindler last night and Cecilie, one of his victims said she watched Beauty and the Beast over and over. The romantic ideal that is presented to us by popular media is totally unrealistic, but we all know people who would describe themselves as 'romantics' and what it means is that they'll overlook any number of red flags if there is a chance that they'll get their happy ending, their romantic dream, their prince charming (rich, handsome, charming, attentive, bla bla bla).

If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

@cheezncrackers I mentioned Shirley Valentine in particular, because of that specific storyline. Maybe some people have this fantasy that they could do the same. Then when they go on holiday and meet a handsome young waiter who is all over them... they think their dreams have come true.

I've now watched several of the Catfished episodes. I'm amazed at the tall tales they fall for. The swindlers are always getting payment of millions in gold or something, if they can just get x amount of money to do y first.
Always being in terrible car accidents so they can't get in touch. Or been held hostage by pirates on their ship full of valuable cargo.
Bad earthquakes in London, and terrible internet. I mean London is a major global city, surely people will have some sort of notion that it's not in an earthquake region and that they probably have decent internet?

And yes again, the accents. If your paramour is allegedly from the midwest and the picture you have seen is of a lily-white bloke in a polo shirt, would it not ring alarm bells if he has an Indian or Nigerian accent?

I veer between pity for these obviously vulnerable, lonely, often widowed women, and total frustration at them.

Even the much younger woman that thought she was going out with Dacre Montgomery had apparently never heard of reverse image search.

I suppose the Tinder Swindler was slightly different in that he did actually appear in person to his victims, and some of them actually spent substantial amounts of time with him.

Never mind. I cannot do an in-depth treatise on narcissism. Take thinking that about yourself to a pathological degree, and being unable to care for another person, except for what they can give you. The others in your life are simply "suppliers." Replaceable. So long as you are getting what YOU need, it doesn't matter from whom. I've lived with this in the past. It's horrific, and utterly tears down your self-worth.

Actually, two narcissists would never marry, or wouldn't be married for long. Neither of them would supply the other with anything.

By that token, the scam victims aren't narcissistic at all because they kept giving. The narcissist is the scammer.

And contrary to what PPs claim, the victims were not scammed because they thought there'd be a mega quids in payback. It was because the scammer was playing on their feelings and sense of obligation; when pressuring them, he wasn't telling them to think of the yachts. Yes, I know he pretended to be filthy rich but that's a form of dazzlement that makes it easier to fall in love; there's a reason Mills and Boom heroes are all loaded. Wealth and beauty make it easier to become infatuated, bears defecate in woods and sources close to the Pope believe he is still Catholic.

The reason some people are so keen to believe that victims aren't just stupid but also greedy, narcissistic and morally defunct isn't because that's true, it's because they want to believe that they themselves couldn't possibly ever fall for something like this because they're too clever and too good.

Ironically, given they are such anti-narcissists, it is actually all about them.

The reason some people are so keen to believe that victims aren't just stupid but also greedy, narcissistic and morally defunct isn't because that's true, it's because they want to believe that they themselves couldn't possibly ever fall for something like this because they're too clever and too good

Surely believing that you are too clever to fall for it is enough. I think people wouldn’t like to think of themselves as stupid but are more likely to admit at least they’ve been tempted by greed. I think when people have brought up greed as a factor in these scams they genuinely believe it. The wealth factor is more than just to bedazzle but gives assurance they’ll be paid back and also gives them a vision of a dream future.

Surely believing that you are too clever to fall for it is enough.

You would think...

So what motives other than greed would you ascribe to someone who's happy to lend their bank account to a Nigerian Prince to allow him to illegally smuggle money out of his country in exchange for a hundred thousand pounds @NonPlayerCharacter ? Are they being kind? Very, very stupid?

Leaving aside the fact you've deliberately picked the silliest scam of all to try to discredit what I've said about romance scams in general - where most of the successful ones are just a bit more sophisticated than that one, which isn't actually a romance scam...

I've spent the whole thread explaining why people might fall for a romance scam without being innately thick or morally bankrupt. It's so frustrating when someone comes in after days of explanation with a "where's your explanation then?" as if I never actually gave one.

Look back in the thread if you really want to know. I know you won't accept it but you can't tell me I never said it!

I watched catfish back to back when I had a newborn. People will cling to the smallest chance something is real, because having hope is better than admitting your foolishness has cost you money. They'd prefer it cost them more money and they kept the hope.

On the other side my widowed father, late 70s, v wealthy, has had a 40 year old actively pursue him, have a relationship with him and then, when he has tried to end things, she won't. She texrs him constantly all day so that if you are visiting, that is all he is doing. She is real, unfortunately. It would be better if she wasn't because at least then there wouldn't be the fear she was going to manipulate him when he is even older (she can't move in with him now as her husband won't divorce her). I'd love to believe she really loved him, but she doesn't have a single genuine quality about her.

Why is he responding to her texts? Why hasn't he blocked her?

The Tindler Swindler scam worked because he convinced the women that somehow the super rich were different. He created this illusion that 10s of thousands of €€ was not a lot of money. They didn't want to appear gauche or petty in front of him and his 'friends'.

It is surprisingly easy to look super rich to someone who has never been wealthy. Look the part and you can test drive a high end car for the weekend. Go into a high end hotel, hide your coat and order a coffee and you look like you are staying there.

To someone who doesn't know the difference, fake brands will add set dressing.

If you are persuaded that the rich are different that first payment isn't a loan it's just chump change. You are totally happy you will get the money back.

It's only when you find yourself in debt for 10s of thousands and your calls dont get answered that the penny starts to drop.

Dont be silly, of course he doesn’t want to end it! He’s loving it.

Otherwise he would stop replying and block her number. Then he would use his wealth to have his lawyer send her a letter telling him to stop contacting him.

GOOD LORD, those last two paragraphs certainly hit the nail on the head. I've found that no one wants to believe that they, too, could fall for a scammer, but...given the right triggers, and lacking the right defenses, almost anyone can. Just as almost everyone, at some point in their lives, will be vulnerable (to one degree or another) to just exactly the right cult. Scammers of all sorts (and lumping cult leaders into this) are very good at finding someone's vulnerability and playing on that. And they are EVERYWHERE! They seem to thrive on Facebook.

Quite.

I wonder why Ashley and Kim don't ask the obvious questions i.e.

Why they think an American doctor in scrubs who looks like George Clooney or Mark Sloan would tell a 60+ British woman that he is falling for her;
Why they think said doctor has no friends or family he can call on for financial support;
Why they think said doctor is in need of money in the first place. The average heart surgeon salary in New York is $600,000;
Why they think said doctor does not have a social life, or has never met another doctor or professional in their own city

They're not being forensic enough with their investigations. They can do this in a sensitive way, surely?

I get what you're saying @ValerieVomit but the scammer and the victim could have any manner of outlandish stories to explain all that. The show concentrates on finding more concrete proof such as photoshopped images, faked passports, proof that the same photographs are being used on dozens of profiles, or that a US mobile phone number is actually one in Nigeria. That sort of evidence can't be explained away nearly as easily.

There's a woman who said she had been married for 42 years and her husband died. She didn't want to be on her own so after 18 months (that she considered long enough - this is a crazy decision on its own even without factoring in scammers).

She gave her dead husband's savings away to a scammer.

In fairness (to Shirley Valentine), she went back and found him chatting up some other woman. She made a joke of it and said she should work for him as he spent so much time entertaining on his brother’s boat.

So many of the men claim to be Secret Service/spies/MI5/whatever and it’s clearly nonsense but the women believe them.

I do find some of the incredulity annoying.

I think they want to believe. As possibly unkind as it might sound, I do think they collude on some level with the scammer. There seem to be any cases where they have some doubts, they actually contact the Catfish people and are told not to send any more money, then by the time they are interviewed they confess that they have sent more.
They need to keep buying those hugely expensive dopamine hits. The dynamics of those particular situations seem to me more similar to gambling additions, than to a situation where an elderly person is robbed by scammers pretending to be from a financial institution or similar.

I’m in my 50’s and been single several years after a long term relationship so I’m probably a prime target for romance scammers - despite the fact they’d be lucky to get a tenner out of me!
But it’s about being realistic. I’m reasonably attractive and well presented but I’m living in the real world and I don’t think a multi millionaire 20 years my junior looks like the love child of Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp in their prime is really looking to date a middle aged working mum from Essex. So even in my OLD days I wouldn't dream of swiping for anyone half my age who looked like a Gucci model. Its about being realistic and not deluded.
And if by some chance one of these specimens did message me out the blue, the minute they claimed to work abroad/offshore would trigger more red flags than a Moscow May Day parade.

Although it’s sad these people are scammed and lose money, it’s hard to feel total sympathy with those who just keep throwing good money despite being told by friends family their bank and even the police that they’re being catfished. At some point personal responsibility comes into play

I find it sad, rather than anything else. Sad that people feel the need (or are forced) to work as scammers, all this emotional talk to people just for money has got to make an impact on you, surely? And sad for the people being scammed - even if they are being stupidly naive, isn't it desperately sad that there are people out there who are so lonely and so self-deluding that they fall for these scams?