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

[YourAmplePlumPoster]

Are women who fall for romance scammers idiots?

And fat middle aged men who 25 year old eastern European women fall in love with just know it's because of their charming personality.

True story: on Instagram I followed an account purporting to be the online manager of one of my favourite bands. He then invited me to "Go and chat with him" on Signal which I did. I soon realised he was a scammer. Yes its easy to be drawn in but why would you give money to them?

They must be very naive or lonely. Obviously it would be lovely to date a handsome, rich retired American airforce pilot but DH won't let me.

I've been targeted by these scammers several times. They're not even clever about it! It's SO obviously a scam. A quick reverse image search will almost always bring up the individual who is clearly not the scammer. And they write from a script. AND declare love within days of starting the contact.

I've played along with a couple, one of whom got very annoyed with me when I told him who his photograph was really of and told me I wasn't worth his time because I was a poor church mouse! 😂😂😂

Really though, I agree that anyone with an ounce of common sense should be able to see through the scam. It isn't a sophisticated approach.

These people doing it look for vulnerability in both men and women, sometimes I do think people are idiot's my daughter in law sister sent 2k so Brad Pitt could fuel his plane to come and visit her

I don't think they are idiots, I think they are vulnerable or even at a low point in their life, we've all had scammers try it on FB etc, we block and move on, so not idiots

The problem is the scammers are so bloody convincing!!! Yes it happened to me. I realised before I sent any money. And I went to the police who said they had a lot of complaints about the same scam.....

I find it unbelievable that people give money to complete strangers who contacted them online and have never even met in person. I dont get it. I can understand how an elderly confused person might fall for a scam where they get a call or email pretending to be from their bank. But I dont get the romance scamming. Surely you would have to be a very very vulnerable person.

I voted YANU because they are vulnerable or desperate.

Vulnerable, yes. Immature or emotionally damaged, also yes. Idiot implies mentally sub normal, so a bit harsh.

Mind you, we just watched ‘Fake’ and wanted to shake the female character and did think she was a complete twit.

You could draw attention to it by asking ‘are romance scammers scumbags’ rather than victim blaming.

People are vulnerable, lonely, naive - calling them idiots is just plain nasty.

Are people who blame victims of crime arseholes?

They are extremely vulnerable and lonely desperate for someone to care for them. These scammers prey on that and they are very clever
The only people to blame are the scammers , not the victims.

And me. I'm cultivating the attitude of a wolverine with a hangover and hope to scare the ever-living whatnot out of all scammers, cocklodgers, CFs and anyone else who has the effrontery to mistake me for a sweet old dear. The problem is with these criminals, not those they bamboozle, but they won't stop until they encounter consequences and a nasty, unforgiving attitude.

I play a game called dice world which is rife with scammers. They start out with “hi, how’s it going?” Play along for a bit and they’ll tell you that they’re widowed, always work in some kind of engineering off-shore or on secondment too another country, have a child in boarding school as they’re away working, then they start to ask you if you’re married and if not do you not believe in true love.

At the point they ask to go off the game on to some messaging app I lose interest In fact I’ve turned off the chat function on the game now, funnily enough I don’t get nearly as many game invites now either.

It’s so scripted it’s unreal.

No they’re really not.

Most scams are simplistic, and there are actually articles out there showing that the way they’re designed is to draw in people of limited or lesser inteligence.

I posted this YouTube video so a lot of the scamming is not just online but women who have met men overseas and been scammed by them. I just wonder why a woman in her sixties would think a young African man in his thirties would fancy her for anything else than a visa?

Yeah I got romance scammed. Not for long, but yes I did hand over some money. It was 18 months after dh died, a month after my dad died and I think I was a bit mad. But yes, I knew really it was a scam even as I was doing it. I have a gambling streak and a saviour streak. All very silly.

I just love scamming the scammers now on Instagram. They've pissed me off so much.

I agree OP. I had an absolutely unhinged period in my life with BPD and suicidal depression and even then I could spot a scammer or catfish a mile off. I genuinely don’t think there are any circumstances in which I’d be susceptible to this.

Not just women. I have a male friend who has been basically doing the woman's job for 2 years, to the detriment of his, they both work from home and she got the job at the same company on his recommendation. Drives her every where, she doesn't drive but hasn't used public transport unless it's a taxi he pays for for that time. Decorated her house. Gives her money

And isn't sleeping with her but really, clearly, wants to.

There are women who want to be loved and want to believe in romance. Maybe they are switching off the part of their brain that is waving red flags. But you know what, I’m bright and cynical, but could possibly be tricked and deceived. If that happened it wouldn’t be that I was naive or stupid, the fault would be with the bastards who would exploit that. I feel sorry for those women. They will probably never get over being swindled and then mocked for fools.

By "idiots" I assume you mean people with fairly poor capacity for reasoning, combined with poor general knowledge, who are easily fooled.

This is not a terribly rare combination, as we know from the many people who fall for conspiracy nonsense these days. You'd expect such people to be particularly vulnerable to scammers of all kinds.

There's plenty of men who fall for romance scammers too.

The only people that should be blamed for this are the scammers. They are the ones at fault. I don't feel the need to blame the victims.

I have no sympathy with the vast majority of romance scam ‘victims’ — there’s often a seedy, financially exploitative, racial aspect to the whole thing.

You’re willing to kid yourself that some young girl/lad from a developing country has fallen head over heels for you, and is just desperate to marry you? Give over.