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

[YourAmplePlumPoster]

Are women who fall for romance scammers idiots?

I have to admit I'd run a mile if I had youngster 'pilots' etc try to woo me.

I don't do OLD though. Once had a handsome male model type contact me on Facebook and thought 'fuck off' and didn't respond. I got scammed by a member of my own family though over money. Everyone was pretty horrified but it'll go to court.

This thread is to draw attention to scammers as I hate them. Sorry if I have upset anyone who has actually been scammed. I have had many attempts at scamming on Instagram. I simply want to alert everyone to this crime.

A wealthy, middle-aged American bloke contacted me on Instagram a few years back after being catfished with my image.

He’d been led to believe I was an impoverished single mother who desperately needed money, and he’d thrown thousands of dollars at ‘me’ before realising it was a scam.

He wouldn’t have ‘helped’ if he hadn’t have been after something in return, so I don’t class him as a victim of anything other than his own willingness to leverage his money to try and attract what he thought was a much younger, vulnerable woman.

Love janessa is a podcast about men getting romance scammed
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct4ppc

I understand them liking being wooed but I don't understand giving them money

I always think this! Like the Brad Pitt one! She actually left her husband for “Brad”. I mean, are you joking?!

I agree, there is no way I'm handing over money

I listened to the Love, Janessa podcast.

Heard an interview with one woman recently who did realise she was being scammed. She carried on regardless. She had been widowed after many decades and she said it brought back memories of her youth when she'd first met her husband. I felt very sorry for her, but presumably she was getting something from it that she just wasn't getting from real life, and believed it was worth paying thousands for. People spend vast fortunes on drugs of course, I wonder if this is maybe a similar thing. There are also those men who have relationships with realistic dolls, and robot-lovers are predicted to be huge business in the future, for both sexes. The women may be less likely to hump them (or maybe not?), but I think the craving for attention and companionship is very, very real - and worth a great deal of money if you can exploit it.

Don't be so quick to judge OP.

Every woman whose husband or partner ever shagged away from home, is the victim of a romance scammer.

I have several degrees, a home of my own, a career with 40 years experience. I am competent, independent and yet, I had an ex who played away for months and I had no clue.

It can happen to the best of us given the right circumstances.

You can easily highlight the dangers of romantic scams without insulting vulnerable women.

Try it, it really isn't difficult.

I can't believe it either it's been on TV that this happens despite warnings how can people fall for it

No you don’t, you want to shame vulnerable people.

Women also get drawn into abusive relationships, but thankfully we no longer ask stupid questions about why they stay.

Same goes here.

I had a message on Instagram from a so called Spanish pilot telling me I was "extremely beautiful." 🙃

Why give them money?

I have sympathy for anyone caught up in this but I can’t deny that part of me thinks, how did you fall for this? The Brad Pitt one was ludicrous.

They must be extremely vulnerable. I worked with a man who had been in jail for romance scamming. He was odd looking with no redeeming features at all. I was absolutely baffled how anyone was ever fooled by him.

I'm assuming you give money away every day to random strangers on the Internet. How much did you give away today? Would like a reply.

It's very easy to see these scammers are phoney. Ridiculously easy.

But there's none so blind as those that wish not to see.

They delude themselves. Because they're in the middle of a fantasy, a dream, a storybook - that they're not ready to prick with a bubble. So they choose to believe it. I don't actually believe they really don't know. They just really don't want to.

They purposefully prey and the vulnerable who they know will be easily flattered.

Imagine you're an older woman, obese, conventionally unattractive. You've been invisible all your life to men at best, bullied and mocked by them at worst. You have depression, agoraphobia, poor social skills and don't go out much (if at all).

Ahmed from Marrakech with his boyish good looks sends you a message "hey beautiful. I hope you don't mind me saying, but you look really pretty in your profile picture 😉'

It's the equivalent of a socially awkward boy playing video games and escaping into the alternate reality. Knowing it's not real but kind of pretending and playing it as if it is , because it feeds the need for escapism into a parallel world.

That's not the sort of romance scam the OP is meaning

How much money have you given to a scammer? I'd really like to know.

No, I don't think they are idiots.
I don't think anyone who falls for scams is an idiot. Some scams are very clever, and I have known a few people fall for them.

Why not share the name calling for the people doing the scamming.

Sadly some men are on the look out for desperate women and that is probably how it all happens.

The Brad Pitt one was hilarious to be fair. Those photos 😂😂

I work in adult safeguarding and have come across a few of these cases.

In my experience, they are vulnerable women. Often have been in abusive relationships. Sometimes have undiagnosed learning difficulties or are experiencing low level cognitive decline.

It's incredibly reductive to refer to them as idiots. They are victims, sought out because they are vulnerable.