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

[YourAmplePlumPoster]

Are women who fall for romance scammers idiots?

Exactly this. I have had a couple of instances in my life where I had thought “I’d never do that” and then I have done it. So while my gut reaction is to judge (that Brad Pit scam!!!!) I do have a little voice telling me not to, and thinking there but for the grace of God…

They are not very bright, but as another poster has said, it's more arrogance ,vanity and being conceited that's the problem.

I don't think I've ever read about one and felt any sympathy for them, just sadness for their husbands or families.

I watched that video and the accent, oh my God!!!

No, I don’t.

I think people who scam other people (often someone who is vulnerable in some way) are cunts.

I think it’s scammers who should be slagged off in a public forum, not victims.

The Tinder swindler was a bit more sophisticated though, more like Ponzi scheme. He would use the money swindled from the last one to spend on the new one - flights, hotels, fancy restaurants and designer gifts. After several weeks of the high life he would have cash flow issues and insist they max out cards and take out loans for him.

He also had a good background story, with fake photos of him with a multi millionaire businessman who he claimed was his Father.

Although blinded by the good life when scammed, the young women were not sending cash to a guy who calls them his queen after a two days, cannot FaceTime because of a broken camera or security issues. The women the OP is talking about are sending money to men they have never met.

No. The scammers are just really skillful.

They really aren't. "Hello my queen. Have you eaten?"
Total reliance on buy-in from the deluded.

Yes, the messages! It’s all, “I love u, hun” etc etc and Love Island/The Bachelor-type conversations, no real chat at all about this and that.

And I’m utterly sick of this “don’t judge!” mantra. If we can’t judge then as human beings we might as well give up. For a start we can do away with the whole legal system!

I don’t know that they’re idiots as it can be easy to get sucked into things I suppose. But, people really need to stop and ask themselves how likely it is that some drop dead gorgeous, rich young stud would really suddenly be in love with an older woman, many of whom aren’t particularly glamorous. . 🤷‍♀️

Same with men.

A neighbour of mine got scammed - I looked at the blokes photo, and profile, looked at her and kindly suggested that she didn’t send him any money. He was an “ Italian Stallion” of about 30, so good looking, she was a downtrodden, ill kempt, lonely much older woman. 🙄

Then he said he was coming over, from Italy, to marry her - she was wildly excited, but then she got a call from the airport, with the usual cobblers about how they wouldn’t let him leave unless he paid them £3000 - which she sent. Then there was another tale of woe - so she sent another £5000 🙄

Of course, no one arrived and she realised, But, she lost the £8000 - because she didn’t listen to her bank warning her.🤷‍♀️

A bitter lesson learned.

He was, without question, a conning bastard - but she lost all common sense.😒

Reform have got new councils up and down the country. It's not just vulnerable women who fall for scammers.

I watched a few of the scammer documentaries and I'm always struck how extremely naive these ladies are - sometimes to the point of coming across like they have a serious disconnect from reality. 50 year old woman believing a 20 year old Turkish waiter genuinely loves her? Someone who believes a wealthy millionaire would be on Tinder looking for dates? Someone believing their new "boyfriend" are a spy or on a victim protection programme and giving them large sums of money? Come one.

But I would not call them "idiots", its offensive.

I was scammed by a man who promised to marry me when he had no intention. I was a single mother and desperate for love which he sensed and exploited. He got all the benefits of being in a relationship with me for 18 months. Eventually I had enough of the treatment he was subjecting me too, both mentally and sexually, realising he was never genuine I decieded to end it. It was at that point he showed me an engagement ring, but never gave it to me. The ring wasn't for me. This was very traumatic! I had a full mental break down. It was all smoke and mirrors with him and he was ruthless with it.

I'm no idiot, although he would beg to differ. I was younger, naive, and desperate for acceptance and love.
Please don't be so judgemental as you don't know someone's circumstances.
I am still living with the trauma 5 years later.

By the way, there are a lot of guys being scammed, too - often by much younger females (or someone pretending to be one). But they less likely to go on record.

Lonely people are desperate for that fairy tale, and would willingly put blinders on to keep the delusion going. Its very sad, but even though they are also at fault, I mainly blame the scammers - you have to be a real scum to do this sort of thing.

I dont think you were "scammed" as such, it sounds like you were in a shit relationship with an awful person. You have to be happy its ended when it did, and stop blaming yourself! It was not your fault.

Thank you

I’ve been single for many years. I lead a full life and am not unhappy but a romantic partner would be great. I don’t consider myself stupid or naive: I have travelled widely, speak several languages, and am financially OK. I work very closely with a young man at work and we work really well together, he’s good fun and we laugh a lot. We have joked about marriage multiple times. the age gap is such that I could be his mum. In other words, I know it’s banter and means nothing at all to him romantically and that he sees me as nothing other than a work colleague he can have a laugh with..

But, I can see that if he was inclined to do so, conning me probably wouldn’t be difficult. The right flattery, taking an interest in my life, picking up on my wants and needs and feeding it back to me…,it wouldn’t be hard. I don’t think that would make me stupid. It would just make me human. Because years of being single does make you vulnerable, or just feeling a need for support, kindness, mutual respect in your life. I can see how it happens.

Maybe rather than calling these women names, OP, save your annoyance at the people seeking to exploit vulnerability and loneliness and if you have any single friends and family, check in with them regularly, be a good friend, be supportive. It may be just what they need to help avoid this kind of scammer,

I had this also on a Scrabble type game. Like you say it was always the same format. If I was bored I'd play along for a bit, but one day I was feeling particularly b!techy and told my would be suitor to f off. A few days later I had a " hi there beautiful" from a completely different username and I responded: "Oh god, not YOU again limp d!ck!" He wasn't so charming after that 🤣 I stoped playing and got bored with the game and the ridiculous pilots/ army Majors/ off shore oil rig engineers/ opal hunters

The Sweet Bobby one was particularly ridiculous.

Ditto Tinder Swindler. That guy saw them coming.

What horrible experience for you. It doesn’t matter that it’s not quite the type of scam the OP is talking about. It shows how vulnerable any of us can be at a particular stage in our lives, due to trauma or loneliness or grief or any other number of experiences and emotions. There are vultures out there whose sole intention is to swoop down on those who need what they are purporting to offer. They have made it their full time job and they are good at it.

Thank you

I'm on a bit of a mission to stop people calling anyone who falls for a scam 'stupid'. Attitudes like this are what stop a lot of people reporting when they ARE scammed - I'm not just talking about romance scams here, I'm talking about any financial scam. If someone gets scammed, for whatever reason, perhaps they weren't paying attention, perhaps they were suffering poor mental health - they are less likely to report it if they think everyone will call them 'stupid'.

They need sympathy and those doing the scamming need taking down. Making people feel stupid or desperate will stop the level of reporting that needs to be done to make any kind of dent in these enterprises. And yes, anyone can be scammed - not all romance scammers do the 'sexy older male needing to be sent money to leave the country' schtick, there are other and more subtle scams. Anyone who thinks they've been a victim needs to know they can report what happened to them without the risk of everyone shouting 'you should have known better!'

Many women in this situation are recently widowed or divorced after a long marriage. They are out of touch with the dating scene and simply don't realise that, to put it bluntly, their market value has plummeted since the last time they were single, as a hot young twenty-something. They don't think it's incongruous that an apparently wealthy and attractive man should fall head-over-heels in love with them because the last time they were single they were attracting that kind of attention.

There are some very true, general comments about vulnerability, stage of life and so on. I don’t think anyone’s disputing that some people are easier prey for shitbag scammers than others.

But what online romance scams all have in common is that someone unknown to the victim has got in touch on the internet that has billions of users all over the world. We all know this. We all use the internet. We all get spam email. We all use Google, watch YouTube or whatever. We all shop and bank online. We all know why passwords and PINs are used online.

Being widowed, divorced, lonely etc doesn’t erase the knowledge that the internet is open and global. Being unhappy doesn’t make people suddenly think that the internet has only a few users one of whom might be Brad Pitt who’s got in touch to declare love.

It’s because of these simple facts that women or men who send money to ‘lovers’ on the internet must be wilfully disregarding common sense. They haven’t really been duped: they’ve duped themselves. They’ve brought the scam on themselves. Quite often consciously against pleadings by family and friends.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t feel sorry for them. But it’s sympathy for their loneliness or grief, not for their decisions to send money to unknown people who tell ludicrous stories.

I think there is a big difference between being in a relationship with a human in front of you, (we have all been conned by men in some shape or form) and sending money to someone you have never met.

These should be put into different categories of scams.

Yes and its interesting that some people here are putting them into the same category. Which would make me wonder if they are more likely to fall victim to those internet romance scams as they dont see a difference. Me personally I would never believe a man who has never met me would love me.

Well, after being widowed, I was at my most vulnerable, ever, and had the joy of Widows Brain Fog as well. 🙄

But, none of that detracted from my understanding of what a nest of vipers the net can be.

Scammers are evil, but we do have a self responsibility to use our own common sense in life.

As I said, I’ve met 2 lovely men, over 25 years, through the net - and both relationships have been great.

But, you never know anyone until you’ve met them in person, and had enough time to really get to know them - so it’s daft to send money to an online fantasy figure, who could be anyone. 🤷‍♀️