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

[YourAmplePlumPoster]

Are women who fall for romance scammers idiots?

I used to work with a woman who believed she was in an online relationship with Gordon Ramsay. And yes, I'd say that was very idiotic.

If she was sending him money, I hope he was at least sending her dinner!

It always surprises me that these people have access to the huge sums of money they often send to these scammers!

Yeah, @DrFoxtrot, they'd be doing well if they found me on a week when I had £50 to give 😳 I might even pay that if the chat was good

You will probably be derided as "evil" but you're probably right.

There's a programme on the Discovery Channel called 90 Day Fiancée about bringing over overseas lovers to the US or the UK. It appears the majority of them just want the UK visa or the green card.

I can't believe the sums of money they send to these people. A complete stranger you have never met. The only people I have given money to are my immediate family.

How can a single parent borrow money from friends and pay 5 grand to a complete stranger on the Internet?

@YourAmplePlumPoster I felt sorry for the African drum woman in your link, when she explained how the Home Office said she must marry him within six months or his visa would lapse. You could see she felt trapped by the rule: she could bring him over to see if it'd work, but she couldn't give it a reasonable amount of time. There obviously has to be a rule, it's just a bit harsh unless you're in a position to keep the relationship going with tons of flights.

I know, that's awful. And loads of them have done it 😥 I think the PP must have nailed it when she compared it to gambling, with a similar dopamine/compulsion cycle.

Yes I can understand the dopamine hit of getting attention when you are in a bad situation alright. That makes sense.

I almost got scammed once about 10 years ago, I would never have sent a penny but I almost fell for a fake email. I was on holidays and one of my friends children was very ill, getting treatment, and I got an email from her saying that her son had gotten worse and could I help her out. I was abroad and in the middle of a theme park, and because she was a friend and her son actually was sick, for a second I thought it was real.
The information all sounded real.

Anyway I called her and she was laughing saying someone had hacked her account and sent everyone these emails, and she had been getting loads of calls. I can’t explain this, but I was so angry with her for thinking this was funny! I didn’t say this obviously but I was furious that I had almost been tricked and she didn’t seem to care!

Anyway I thought I was not scammable, but in that moment I was away from home and it was someone I knew very well and the information all sounded credible.

I dread to think how much more sophisticated the scammers are now, using voices and photos, they really are evil.

I agree - I mean not at the same scale but they can get lucky if you are actually expecting a package to be delivered and you get the we were unable to deliver due to insufficient postage or if you're expecting a tax refund and get a phishing text/email from the HMRC etc.
I must admit to almost clicking on the link, then I catch myself on and promptly delete .
I don't trust anything, anymore to the point that I don't even want to enter free competitions in case I receive an email saying I have won something 😭.

Calling you 'dear' is a dead giveaway.

Not to mention the rest!

Scammers are going to get a lot more sophisticated with the help of ai it's actually quite scary i don't like ai. We are all going to have to be more on guard as time goes by

A couple of years ago my friends partner died suddenly in her 50’s

Scammers hacked his FB and set up a fake gofundme to pay for her funeral and quite a few people donated before his best mate put up a post warning everyone what had happened

I don’t think I would either. Certainly not now with all the info out there about scammers. That and the fact that I would just be too cautious with my money. I don’t have enough to just hand it over. I want to keep my hard earned cash for myself!!

Beggars belief

Tbh I’d wonder why a world famous actor was contacting random middle aged women on FB

IIRC the story she was told was he was raising funds for an African orphanage - probably hence why the bank account was in an African name.

They often don’t and will get themselves into all sorts of financial trouble!

As I posted before my aunt lost her house as a result of a scam, and was borrowing / going into debt everywhere else in her life to continue to send sums she did not have to this supposed gorgeous looking in his 30s airline captain (she was an obese 60something who took no care of herself at all, so not exactly ideal partner material for such a man!), and I’m sure she is far from alone in being a target despite poor financial situation

Fake, the ITV series. Based on a serial liar romance scam.

The ones I can’t understand are the ones where they thought thwy were messaging with people like brad pitt and keanu reeves and that the celebrity was madly in love with middle aged them and that in the case of the brad pitt one needed to send them loads of money for medical bills!!!

@Adarajames I can see that some people would have to get into debt, but I include getting loans or borrowing from friends in having ‘access to money’. Loads of people, myself included, would have no way to raise the sums often quoted in magazine articles. Or maybe I don’t have the right contacts 😆

Also @AdarajamesI'm sorry your aunt was targeted 💐

I am sorry for anyone who is targeted as I've been targeted myself. Nobody would give hundreds or thousands of pounds to a random stranger approaching them in real life, so what is it about the Internet that changes people's behaviour? Just today, I got an aggressive man on Instagram asking why I'm ignoring him? Pretty sure he's a scammer. I have an open profile as I am an artist and sell my work. Believe it or not there are scammers targeting artists too with a particular scam. They say they've paid too much money into your account for the art work and can you refund it. The result is you give them money and lose both the art work and money! I've never been had with that one but others have!

To put it crudely, if you want that kind of attention from a handsome young man, just pay for an escort. It will probably work out cheaper and you will get sex as well.