Brad Pitt romance scam

[TwistedWonder]

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/french-woman-faces-online-mockery-after-being-conned-out-of-700-000-by-fake-brad-pitt-13289657

First of all I want you to say that no one deserves to be scammed and I’m sorry this woman lost money but come on, how naive does someone have to be to fall for this?

The photos are so poor that surely anyone with eyes can see they’re fake. And since when did a A+ celebs mum contact randoms on SM?

To seriously think Brad Pitt can’t afford medical treatment and needs money sent to his American doctors Turkish bank account - words fail me.

How spiteful you are.

There is a really good book on romance scams called “Keanu reeves is not in love with you”. It is funny and compassionate.

So true ...

For anyone interested, I recommend this youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@CatfishedOnline

It's a wide variety of people who fall for the scams, men as well as women. Generally older but not always.

It's actually quite fascinating. These aren't scams in the same sense as someone phoning/texting pretending to be from the bank and bamboozling a vulnerable elderly person.
They play on emotions, and ego. At points, many of the victims are so wilfully blind they can be described as almost colluding with the scammers. They are emotionally invested and desperately want it all to be true, and humans have an endless capacity for self-delusion.
In cases where they have already sent large sums of money with the promise of getting it back, there's also sunk costs.

They clearly get massive dopamine supply from their situations, and behave similarly to gambling addicts.

I say none of this with any judgement, I just find it an interesting phenomenon.

Nothing like as serious as this but I have recently had a number of friend requests from Jim Kerr of Simple Minds on Facebook. I know it wasn't him but when I received the first one it did cross my mind for a second to wonder. I do follow Simple Minds official site so that is obviously why this person did this. Others following the site have also had similar requests.

I think it is easy to say that you would never fall victim to something like this but, as other PPs have said the online world is a perilous one and if someone lacks critical thinking or is merely in a bad place at the time then I can sort of see how this could happen.

My sister thought that Jamie Oliver was following her on Instagram until her kids put her right and she is an educated professional person.

Apparently this woman is in hospital for depression. It’s a tragic, tragic circumstance and I feel horribly for her.

I really disagree with this, it’s easy to feel smug & smart when we read of others failings but we should be careful. The world has a funny way of taking us down a peg in our own lives.

I am very astute and switched on, cynical to the point of a bit paranoid sometimes. Last year I fell in love with a Scandinavian pen pal I’d never met. When you’re lonely and vulnerable you want to believe that love is possible and you see what you want to see.

Shes not the only one that’s been scammed by the Brad Pitt poser, only the most publicised one. This article says that several women have fallen for the Brad Pitt scam and handed thousands over so she is by no means the only one who got duped!

https://popculture.com/celebrity/news/brad-pitt-catfish-scams-women-out-of-hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars/

I feel very sad and sorry for her. Looking at those pictures, it seems incredible that anyone could be fooled but some people are vulnerable and desperate to believe it’s true. I’m not sure why alarm bells didn’t ring as soon as someone who’s often labelled as the most handsome man in the world started pursuing her for romance. I wouldn’t even believe it if Brad Pitt was hitting on me to my face in real life!

** he wasn’t a scammer but he had like 20 different women on language apps and other platforms he was also chatting to and was just in it for the ego boost.

Yes I wonder that too, was there anyone in her life that could have helped her think "hang on a minute".....

Over ten years ago, before these scams were widely known, I was watching the Danish drama Beck and tweeted about it a bit. Then I suddenly got a private message from one of the male actors I had followed. He started by thanking me for being a fan. Then went on to ask me questions about myself. I started to feel something was off. Why would a gorgeous Danish actor be interested in me? The more he messaged the more suspicious I got so I blocked him. It was sheer common sense. I watch a YouTube channel called Catfished where people who are being scammed or their families ask the team for help. I despair at every story and I want to scream ‘Look in the mirror!’ There are lots of men that are scammed too, by absolutely beautiful younger women who would never be interested in him if they were real. People’s identities are stolen and used by the scammers who often work in offices for a company that actually trades in this, in places like Nigeria and India. It’s an industry. For the life of me I can’t understand how it’s still happening when it’s so well known now. Even if the initial red flags are missed asking for money is such a red flag it should jump off the screen and splat you in the face!!!!

There used to be a programme on called “`For Love or Money”. It was astonishing how many intelligent, professional people were scammed. 🤷‍♀️

It really beggars belief that people can be so daft.

As a widow, I know how many scammers there are out there targeting those they think may be lonely/vulnerable.😡

Relationships can start online, and be successful - but the golden rule is never to discuss money. There is no need to tell anyone what you have in the bank.

And to always assume that film stars etc are extremely unlikely to beg for love/money from random people. 🙄

Funny was it, broccoli? I've reported your original post because it's obvious who you were sniping at.

Such 'fun'. <- carbs for you

Yes I watched that. even when some of the victims were presented with hard evidence of a scam they STILL refused to believe it! It was so frustrating at times

I feel sorry for anyone who is scammed in this way and don't think adding to her misery by mocking her is right, but I honestly cannot understand why someone would think a multi millionaire film star who they'd never met would suddenly become romantically interested in them, or need their money.

In some cases there are probably MH issues or learning disabilities but I don't think this accounts for all such situations. It's very different to a person of 90, perhaps a bit uncertain with tech and with some hearing and memory loss falling for one of the aggressive bank scams.

It doesn't say she has learning difficulties or learning disabilities ,and she's an interior designer, so must have the capacity to function
That doesn't mean she isn't vulnerable in some way but taking it at face value there is no suggestion she' is.

Brad and I have been chatting since he saw my photo on Instagram. I’ve even invested in his new film and sent him money to fly over here so we can finally meet in person. This other woman is delulu.

It happens all the time, we don’t know what the woman was felling at the time, was she ill? Does she have learning difficulties? We have no idea what was going on in her life which might make her feel this is true

some people fall for these scams, no need for you to be so rude as to why this has happened to someone

The pictures are hilarious I don’t care what anyone says. The one where he’s having surgery is just taking the piss.

The woman left her husband thinking she was going to be with Brad so no I don’t feel sorry for her at all actually

From experience in both a personal and professional context - if the victims are too sucked in, they don't listen. You can get actual uniformed police in front of them telling them in the most blunt terms they are the ongoing victims of crime and they will not hear it. It's almost as if the scammers have cast a spell on them - of course, they haven't but it's frightening what levels of delusion the human brain can be capable of if the circumstances are right (or wrong).

My husband is a surgeon, I can't tell you how many scams he's almost fallen for! The only reason he doesn't now is he knows not to give any financial information at all on line, and he doesn't do anything without showing me first!

From meeting him on a work capacity nobody would believe me if I told them, he's amazing at his job. But if 'Amazon' calls telling him someone bought an iPhone on his account and he needs to just install this app to stop it going through....etc 🤦🏻‍♀️

Dr. Phil used to have women who had been scammed on his show. Often from an ex American (but never being able to speak proper English) soldier stuck in Africa somewhere. And even after an hour of so of Dr. Phil presenting evidence, even having had his staff going there to look for the scammer, the women refused to believe him. It’s interesting how the mind works.

People’s identities are stolen and used by the scammers who often work in offices for a company that actually trades in this, in places like Nigeria and India. It’s an industry

Honestly I don't think I've seen a Catfished episode when the IP tracker hasn't been in Nigeria, or occassionally a neighbouring country. Every. Single. Time.

What amazes me is that some of them have phone calls with these scammers, and are so determined for them to be real that they'll tell themself a Nigerian accent is German or something.

I have a family member who is incredibly naive. Plus has mental illness, and when in the grips of psychosis believes all sorts of illogical things. I could imagine him being scammed. In fact I suspect he already has, as when we were helping him with his finances we noticed he had a bank loan of a few thousand, and there’s no reason he should have needed one. He hasn’t got £700k to squander though!

There are lots of vulnerable people out there for all sorts of reasons, it doesn’t need to be learning difficulties. She was unusual only in having so much money.

We should keep our derision for the scumbags who prey on people.

The scammers specifically prey on people who are vulnerable. She was going thru a very aggressive and hostile divorce. She is an intelligent woman who did something unbelievably stupid. I feel for her.

We are all more vulnerable than we think. The more we destroy our "real" communities, the more we rely on a constructed "reality" which is only ever what others choose to present to us.

We work from Home, or stay in on benefits and do everything online, go NC with Mil, cut off extended family. We date randoms online about whom we know nothing - not their family, their colleagues, their school friends.. nothing. We ghost a friend because she said something we didn't agree with or didn't text back within twenty minutes. Netflix and Celebrities are more real than Mrs Smith down the Road.

We spend hours online and don't engage with anything that challenges what we want to believe. Context is meaningless - it's all about the instant message and Our Opinion. Do they agree with ME or are are they a Tory Bot a Labour Lefty, a Far Right Racist or Wokerati? We feel good if we can label THEM and further reinforce how right we are. So anyone who constantly "understands" us can easily persuade us of anything.

We don't get paid in cash and count out the notes as we spend it... we see numbers...in an account. We don't go into the branch and ask Pauline who's known us for fifteen years if we can take out £1000. Or make an appointment with Mr Mainwaring the Manager who'll ask us why we need to send £200,000 to Turkey? And both would likely see immediately what was going on.

So really it is very easy indeed. And whilst we can all sneer and say we'd not be caught out it's just a question of the right scam - and I can almost guarantee we all could be.