To think that women who fall for romance scammers are idiots?

[YourAmplePlumPoster]

Are women who fall for romance scammers idiots?

You’ve contradicted yourself. You said:

When I volunteered for CA I helped a client recover almost £100k they were scammed out of and which their bank refused to reimburse them for. The scam was very convincing, using a well-known brand's material with that material being emailed from addresses which also looked like they were coming from the actual organisation, and I think most people would have fallen for it.

Now you say your client abandoned their common sense.

The rest of what you wrote doesn’t take things any further.

The simple, jargon-free fact is that people who send money to others online who tell them they’re Brad Pitt and that they’ve fallen in love after seeing a picture on the Nantwich local Facebook group are foolish.

How "helpful" do you think you actually are when you are just making judgemental superior comments?

I agree with the posters, you are just being nasty for the sake of it.

I haven't given any money to anyone, but unlike some people, I have enough intelligence to understand how someone vulnerable and struggling can fall for someone bringing a bit of life in their life. I doubt most victims send money the second they receive a first message from "Brad Pitt" but surely even you could imagine how it enrolls?

Just admit you are lucky not to have suffered extreme losses making you really vulnerable, and your unpleasant attitude has sheltered you so far.

@angelickaty just because I don't agree with your point doesnt mean you can say I've been calling romance fraud victims idiots. I haven't.

Do the “don’t judge” posters think it worthwhile to teach their dcs personal responsibility? Is such a notion outdated? Victimhood has been elevated above using common sense.

Btw financial phishing scams are completely different from romance scams. (Apart from the Nigerian Prince ones which, like the Tinder Swindler marks, are predicated on greed by the person eager to believe that riches are coming their way.) Getting an unsolicited plausible message from your bank is not the same at all as supposing that one could have a relationship with someone utterly out of one’s league.

Most of the "victims" on Catfished are willfully ignoring a whole parade of red flags. Some of them are very hard to feel sorry for - still married when they pursue these fantasies.

Many of them have already been romance scammed out of money at least once, but they're all like "oh I hope this one is real".

Some of them even watch Catfished!

Do the “don’t judge” posters think it worthwhile to teach their dcs personal responsibility? Is such a notion outdated? Victimhood has been elevated above using common sense.

no-one said it was outdated, no one said falling for what should be an obvious scam is anything to be proud of.

People are saying that a smug and smirking "women are idiots" thread is not helpful and too simplistic to come from someone with at least average intelligence anyway. It's just a thread to be nasty for the sake of it, from someone who must be terribly bored.

Going with the "women are" is not a good start anyway, enough men have reported falling for the same kind of scams!

One of my stepma's friends was romance scammed. She had been recently widowed and was in a mess financially, so she fell for his charm heavily, and gave him access to her bank account, as he said there were"no banking facilities in the country he was in". Her friends rallied round and tried to convince her he was a wrong 'un but she wouldn't believe them. It was only when two kindly plain clothes police officers turned up on her doorstep and told her she might well be charged with money laundering if she didn't stop that she dropped him. But she still didn't believe he could possibly be guilty of anything: it was all a misunderstanding.
(However, there is a happy ending: in a later effort at online dating, she met a lovely - if rather chubby!- solvent Welshman and settled happily with him.)

The warnings about (specifically) romance scams are loud and clear and we see them all over the place these days. Why are you so sure that nobody is capable of taking heed of them?

Why would we not be able to learn from the mistakes of others? What's the point of continuous warnings if none of us can possibly understand unless it happens to us?

I feel very sorry for the victims of these crimes, but I can't deny feeling incredulous at some of the details.

Please note that I have not called anyone an idiot.

@DuesToTheDirt totally agree - I do see some are vulnerable or lonely but seem to take complete leave of their senses with people they have never met - very different to people actually meeting and getting involved with con artists -

Some of the detail. You hit the hammer right on the head. You don´t know all of the details.

Furthermore, how are you going to learn these details if you shame the victims into staying quiet? You don´t know all of the scams out there and you will never know. The only thing you are doing by scoffing at "some of the details" is helping the scammer keep their victims quiet.

Wouldn't have much luck with me. I'm permanently skint!!!!

Yes.

I don’t understand why you would send someone you have never met, money.

how can you “be in love” with someone you have never met? Seen? Spoken to properly?

i have absolutely no sympathy for those who have been scammed this way, and lost £££s.

Well, I've seen the long stories retold on TV and Netflix, probably the same ones as anybody else who's responded either way on this thread. These stories are told by the victims themselves - the ones who didn't "stay quiet."

You didn't answer my question about why you are sure that I wouldn't be capable of taking on board the multiple warnings and case histories already out there. Unless your answer was that I don't know every detail of every scam ever perpetrated?

I was prompted to respond to you in particular as it seemed you relished the prospect of some posters here becoming a victim, as that would be the only possible way to force us to agree that every single one of us is a future victim of (specifically) romance fraud.

@Lollylucyclark101 I don’t think banks should pay back either if they willingly did this off their own free will relating to romance scams

i think desperate people lose their critical thinking skills sometimes. Look at how many are buying into the Reform scam for example.

Loneliness can do that to some people. Thank yourself lucky you're not them!

The Tinder Swindler's victims were just gold diggers though. No sympathy for them! Him talking about 'his enemies' should be enough of a red flag, but no, they wanted the lifestyle, at any cost.

No, I'm sick of being told I could be romance scammed. No, I can't, for two simple reasons: I'm not vain enough to think some gorgeous (younger?) man has fallen madly in love with me without even meeting me, and I won't part with my money, no chance.

I don´t exactly relish it. Like I said, it's small comfort, but sometimes that's the only way people learn. For your sake I hope you are not just capable for learning from the few details out there, but are also able to recognize when someone it playing on your vulnerabilities when you are already emotionally invested in the relationship, because that it typically the point where critical thinking skills go out the window.

I would also like to point out that retold stories on TV or Netflix are largely done for eyeballs and entertainment, not for realism. You won't get the full picture there either. Netflix, in particular, has a reputation for cherry picking the details they like to include in their true crime narratives. I think "Making a Murderer" was the most controversial of the bunch, but they have done many more since.

I completely agree.

Yes, you're right about the final, edited version that makes it onto our screens, and they're definitely appealing to our fascination for "car crash" entertainment.

We might have to agree to disagree on whether I'm able to learn from documented case evidence though. As you rightly surmise, I haven't delved into any peer-reviewed academic papers on this topic.

To be honest, I don´t care whether or not you are personally capable of recognizing a scam or not. You are hardly the only poster on here. But I can guarantee you that at least a percentage of the posters on this thread being all smug and superior about scam-victims, will eventually fall victim to a scam themselves.

I don’t remember anyone saying they were immune to being taken in by any sort of scam in any situation. I’d certainly never say I can’t be conned. Some frauds are very clever and well thought out.

But I’ll stick my neck out on this one…no, I would never believe for one second that Brad Pitt found my picture online, fell in love and needs my money so we can start a new life together. If that’s “smug and superior” I think you’ve got a very odd idea of what those are.

@SmoothRoads I don’t disagree at all , but the post wasn’t about scams in general, it was about romance scams.

A scam possibly, a romance scam not a chance unless I have a significant brain injury. I will never understand how people will send money to someone they have never met or how people think someone 20/30 years younger would be interested in them and don't even get me started on people who think their talking to celebrities.

Yes.

Also men who fall for golddiggers.