Would you fall for a romance scam artist?

[Mojitowithelfreako]

They just seem so ridiculous (the men).
The Tinder Swindler, Dirty John, Bad Surgeon, the guy from Bad Vegan... why do they succeed?
I feel like I would see through it, especially when they bring up the 'CIA' stuff. These women don't seem stupid. Do they never sit back and think 'that doesn't add up' or speak to their friends who say 'that's bullshit'. I just don't get it.
Maybe they are super charming but I think they go too far with their lies. As soon as anyone said 'it's top secret' then I would immediately think what a dick head.
Do you think they try several women before they succeed or can they tell which women want to believe, or are vulnerable?
Or could any of us get drawn in?

@Piffle11 ok but change the Facebook request for someone in a bar. You chat to them, they know one of your friends who 'vouched' for them and then a few days later they send you a friend request. They send you messages, mostly normal sort of conversational messages. Meanwhile they hack into your personal messages, find information about you that they use to connect and manipulate you. You feel that no one has ever understood you in this way. This goes on for ages and they might send you some gifts or pay for something for you. You meet up with them and start a relationship. Then things start getting weird. But by that point you're 6 months to a year in. You've sent them money. It's painful to imagine they've deceived you and you're ashamed to tell people.
THATS how fraudsters work.
It's not a random DM asking for money. It's a long con involving hacking, paying for information, stalking. It's about inventing a network of people so that you feel everything is legitimate.

I had that with "Richard Armitage" on Insta.

@Mojitowithelfreako but that what I’m saying. The people sending money probably felt that they knew this man - they’d seen him walking his dog, at work, renovating his house: they were already heavily invested before the scammer came along. The ‘long game’ wasn’t needed.

I think anyone can potential fall victim to a scam but a romance scam....for a start anyone professing undying love after 3 days , no. Anyone asking for ANY level of money, no, those massive age differences, no.

No, because if I found myself unexpectedly single for some reason (after 20 years of marriage) I would definitely stay single. In the extremely unlikely event that I did decide to date, I wouldn't touch OLD with a bargepole or be open to meeting anyone online via social media. I was always extremely picky irl anyway and would always rather have stayed single than dating anyone with the tiniest of red flags.

ok but change the Facebook request for someone in a bar. You chat to them, they know one of your friends who 'vouched' for them and then a few days later they send you a friend request. They send you messages, mostly normal sort of conversational messages. Meanwhile they hack into your personal messages, find information about you that they use to connect and manipulate you. You feel that no one has ever understood you in this way. This goes on for ages and they might send you some gifts or pay for something for you. You meet up with them and start a relationship. Then things start getting weird. But by that point you're 6 months to a year in. You've sent them money. It's painful to imagine they've deceived you and you're ashamed to tell people

Asking for money 6 months in to a relationship would be a huge red flag to me. It would immediately turn me right off them. I would suggest a bank loan and if they cant get it from the bank due to poor credit history then why on earth should I give it to them?- they are unreliable, clearly.

the stories on Netflix etc are the more dramatic and also are made knowing audiences will get a feel good factor from watching and then feeling quite smug knowing it will never happen to them

in reality many of these scams are far more mundane not worthy of a story on Netflix

I think we have probably all been taken in by someone in our lives not necessarily been in a relationship with them but though of them as being a good, nice, honest person when it turns out they are not at all

and for some it is really about fooling everyone around them that is what they enjoy

The obvious scammer who sent me a friend request yesterday commented on a review I'd done on a B and B nearly 8 years ago!
What's that all about - are people really trawling through boring stuff from years ago?

That’s not a scam so much as a typical affair that didn’t pan out the way the OW always thinks it will.

Yep and I am not trying to be unkind but the whole "I haven't had sex with my wife for 2 years-she has mental problems" is straight out of the cheater's handbook- it couldn't be more of a cliche. You also say he was altruistic but would a truly "altruistic" person cheat on their wife?

Not having a go but come on, a bit of logic here would have seen through this instantly. When someone's actions dont match their words it is an immediate sign that they arent being genuine.

I used to respond to those 'Nigerian Prince' email scams, where they had 30 million pounds that they needed to move out of the country, as an entertaining way of passing the time.

I did wonder why they chose such a huge sum and believe they did that so the sensible person would just delete the email whilst the more gullible would be drawn in. They're the people they want to engage with!

I suspect it may be a similar thing with the romance scams, some will see through the 'working abroad / secret agent / on an oil rig / protecting the Royal Family / aren't allowed to disclose it / etc. etc.' whilst the ones that don't, are they ones they are going to scam.

Spot on, yes, but that's where the happy medium comes in - as in keeping an open mind initially unless it's a really obvious scam, but the purse firmly shut

Time enough to be generous when we've found out a bit more and a rounded picture appears

No, I wouldn't. But I'm not in a vulnerable position and I'm also not looking for a relationship.

No. I'm very self assured, have no time whatsoever for drama and would be turned off by the mere suggestion of it, and I'm risk adverse.

Not now but as a young woman I was so lonely and desperate to be loved and would have given anything to be loved and I think yes my desperation to believe that someone loved me would have overridden my common sense.

Yes and people ‘override their own common sense’ all the time.
There are women, and men, on here who have had children with absolute dicks. Yet these men already had children they barley took an interest in.
There are also posters who have been taken in by cheaters many are still with them.
Women who live with men who treat them like dirt. Why didn’t they leave the first time the man swore at them, or used a derogatory term towards them?
Why didn't they leave the first time the man left the house to persue his hobby, leaving them to care for their joint dcs alone?
Why did they end up living with a man who already had children? Now they are moaning that they are the default parent.
I’d say all of the above are glaringly obvious signs that you are being used and taken advantage of.
No need to be smug if you fall into any of the above categories.
Also age gap relationships.
From the ones I know there is always, always a trade off. Usually that involves money.
So no different really.

People who think they could never be scammed make quite good targets for a certain type of scammer. They are vulnerable to going along with the scam because they can't admit to themselves that they're being scammed. They're too smart for that.

Feel like I was sort of scammed once. Not in a romantic way but a person I helped out. They managed to decieve me into thinking they were a really nice person who had had a bit of bad luck. The reality was that they were a horrific, nasty, manipulative person who constantly told lies. They made use of my desire to be helpful, flattered my children and my parenting (would have been less likely to have believed flattery about me personally) and pretended to have cancer (my mother died of cancer). In retrospect some of the things this person told me were less than plausible. However I believed they were a decent person and to realise they were lying I would have has to completely reverse my opinion.

In the end they started to behave in a strange and aggressive way towards me and that was what triggered me to perform a 360 reevaluation. Their behaviour then spiralled into abusive messages and false allegations about me but after several years of totally ignoring them they seem to have finally gone away.

Has made me very wary though as I am usually quite skeptical. I guess they pressed the right buttons with me and charmed my DH too. One person did try to warn me (in a roundabout way) and I thought they were being mean.

This. I think 'Bad Surgeon' is different to the others mentioned. He wasn't lying about being a Dr or having money. He seemed like a pathological liar.

It didn't look like he was scamming Benita for money. It was actually unclear the purpose of his lies. He didn't ask for money or anything and did take her around the world etc. I just couldn't get my head around why he had to push for marriage and getting the Pope to marry them. It was clearly a lie which would come to light. I just assumed some sort of personality disorder.

But otherwise no I couldn't fall for a scammer. I came off dating sites after spending a happy afternoon reporting all the fake profiles to the site. I'm also really tight with money so no way would I give a penny to some random 😂😂😂😂

I used to know the subject of the Lovebombed podcast.
I can totally see why women fall for it, because they’re groomed. The whole point of grooming is that they are taught to trust the person.
Lovebombed bloke was a really down to earth friendly man, I can see why there were no alarm bells ringing. In every single successful relationship there is a level of trusting the process. You trust that the person you’re falling in love with isn’t a big fat liar, and sometimes people are lucky and it works out, sometimes they’re not.

I also consider all those women who have invested time and energy into a relationship with a man only for him to change once children are on the scene to have been scammed. They’ve been cleverly lulled into a false sense of security.

My parents met in their early twenties in Fiji. After meeting they were engaged within 5 days, my father then disappeared on exercise for 5 weeks with minimal contact, and they were married 6 weeks after meeting. This involved my mother resigning her job to marry a foreigner and live in Brunei (marriage was the only way they could continue to see each other).
They are still married and apparently happy 48 yrs later….

I am very happily single, with not a lot of money hanging around available to be scammed out of, and am very secure in my singularity and my intelligence. However, I have read and seen enough about scams to know that I could be scammed. I like to THINK I couldn't, that I'd be savvy enough and sharp enough to see through any approaches, but I know my own weaknesses. I think if anyone is approached the right way (after all, even romance scams don't always start out as someone being approached with a view to romance. What if someone asks for help in an area you are proficient in?) and gradually 'groomed' into intimacy... yes, I can see how it happens. And I try to keep aware.

Yes! The ex who slept with a family member waits for 18 months between "scams" (he actually told me when we split he would date again in this time frame, and stuck to it!) then finds another woman to lovebomb. The last one had an open profile and a friend flagged to me she was posting/tagging pictures of them together with "I have finally found someone to be with forever!" etc constantly posts about how IN LOVE she was, moved in with him after 2 months - he completely filled her world. Then boom, she's back living where she was before and changed her couple picture. He holds them for about 10 months before they see through it, presumably using them for sex and an ego boost. Completely normal man - mid 40's with a dog, own 2 bed flat by the sea, good job, car etc. She clearly would have had to give up a fair bit to move out and in and then back out again. It's depressing how regular it is for him though.

This! For all those who are so sure that something like that would never happen to them, I wonder if they have an insight into their future. I would find it quite arrogant to assume that I could never foresee any circumstances whatsoever of that happening. I just hope, and pray that I never find myself in a situation where, because of the right circumstances for a scammer, I am the right one for them, at the right time.

Not really no, in fact I think it's the opposite. I'm so wary that everything could be a possible scam that my walls are up and I'm on high alert.