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

[YourAmplePlumPoster]

Are women who fall for romance scammers idiots?

You’re not warning them, you’re insulting them. As you know perfectly well.

OP, you are as big an idiot as you claim the victims of scammers are. You just played right into the scammers hands by starting yet another victim blaming thread on a very public discussion forum.

Don´t you realize that part of the reasons that scams work is the shame the victims feel once they realize they've been had? It's the very reason that scammers can keep on running the exact same or similar types of scams over and over again. The shame is the reason that victims will not come forward at all or hold back some of the most embarrassing details of the scam that was run on them.

You see a few text exchanges and some bad photos and think to yourself "who would be stupid enough to fall for that?", but you don't realize that what you are seeing is only a snapshot of a scam that ran for months, if not years. Scams are far more personal than the most extreme examples that people spread on social media or that news outlets report on. We can look at the bad pictures and weird messages and think ourselves so smug, but it is not the scam someone would run on us. They would prod and probe to find our vulnerabilities and embarrassing personal secrets, we'd normally not share with anyone.

Make no mistake about it, we all have vulnerabilities that scammers could target. It's only a matter of time to find yours if a scammer really does decided to go after you.

Are you referring to my post?
If you use the quote feature, it is easier to see what you are talking about.

I can't believe you are coming from a good place, what with calling them 'idiots' and all

I am surprised women still fall for these scams since the media is always warning about them. Must be naivete I guess.

I work in fraud and see all too often, both women and men being victims of romance scams.

I can assure you, they are not idiots but are generally at a vulnerable place in their life, compassion and empathy go far when helping people/victims in this situation.

It's great to highlight romance scam but the only idiots in this situation is the scammers not the victims.

I think these women just so desperately want it to be true. You have these guys who message you frequently, call you pet names, ask how you are etc. If you are lonely, vulnerable etc the feeling that someone somewhere gives a shit can probably be quite head turning.

Bollocks to that. You aren’t doing this to be helpful. You are here to stick the boot in.

I think it’s shameful that anyone would call these women idiots or assert that they are not vulnerable in some way. A person can look as though they have everything in life - well educated, good career, busy life, plenty of money, beautiful etc. But it’s the one thing that’s missing that makes them potentially vulnerable. Maybe that thing is a relationship. What if someone’s missing thing is good health? They might fall for some snake oil scam. What if they are desperate for a child? Of course not everyone will fall for scams, but to call those who do idiots demonstrates a shocking lack of ability to understand differences in people. None of us know what is in another person’s head, or what their particular weakness or circumstances might be. Scammers are very clever. They can cope with lots and lots of failure until they find the perfect target. They are calculating and patient and play the long game. The people they scam aren’t idiots. They are victims.

It's great to highlight romance scam but the only idiots in this situation is the scammers not the victims.

Except these scammers aren’t idiots, they’re very, very skilled at what they do. They know the right buttons to press to be just credible enough, how to draw in people and prey on their vulnerabilities. They’re far from stupid - if we recognised just how good they are at what they do, we’d be less keen to shame people who fall for it.

People who scam others, who groom and abuse are very good at what they do.

The scammers fish for vulnerable, lonely people and then they give them lots of attention. A lot of people get caught up in them when they are going through a bereavement or a divorce. They get a buzz from having what they think is a relationship. It isn’t hard to see why some people become victims of these scammers.

Their guilty pleasure is fake romances. For other people it is gambling, food, clothes, drink etc. we are all capable of being idiots when it comes to spending money.

Two things always happen on these threads.

One is that some posters widen everything out so that every deception or bit of dishonesty gets dragged in. No, a cheating partner is not a romance scammer. They’re scumbags, but they’re not romance scammers.

The other is that posters attack anyone who’s critical of scam victims. Why? If someone came to me and said “I’ve sent £25k to a man online who said he was Brad Pitt” it would be normal - and helpful - to tell them to their face they’ve been very foolish. So what’s wrong with ‘idiots’ in the thread title on a mass forum?

That's why a lot of people don't tell their loved ones what's going on, or don't listen when they're told. It's the shame, guilt and embarrassment that you've fallen for something not true.

@SkylarkKitten I don't understand why my grandmother was still carrying on with the Dermot Murnaghan charade. Feeling stupid and embarrassed for having fallen for it I can understand but not carrying it on. Is it the sunk costs fallacy? Or genuinely hoping that they're actually real?

@Jellycatspyjamas I think naive is the best description rather than idiot as the OP wrote. Naivety can make people do idiotic things. My grandmother isn't stupid or an idiot but she was utterly convinced a TV presenter was talking to her. He wanted to talk on Telegram so that the BBC didn't read his private messages ...

Maybe “idiots” is unkind, but absolving people with terms like “victim” and “vulnerable” (unless they genuinely have a very low IQ) is just excusing wilfully poor judgement.

Were the Tinder Swindler “victims” vulnerable? No. They were averagely-attractive women in their 30s who believed they’d hooked billionaire and that giving this bloke money was a sprat to catch a mackerel.

Mature women accepting overtures from young men in poorer countries - no, not vulnerable, but in an equal opportunities transactional relationship.

I still maintain that there is a level of conceit with the scammed. Never in a million years would I think I’d turn the head of a rich, successful man twenty years my junior. (Or even the same age 😭 )

I think it definitely can feel like a real relationship. A friend of mine met someone on a dating site. They met for one date but he apparently lived about 90 mins away and regularly worked away. For weeks he was messaging and face timing her and she really thought this was a real relationship. He gave her the "logins" for his bank account, as he needed her to do him a favour while he was abroad. As a result she was confident he had money to pay her back when he suddenly and urgently needed to "borrow" thousands of pounds from her as he couldn't access his own bank account from abroad. She didn't have the money so tried to get a loan from Facebook, which itself turned out to be a scam. This led to her being contacted by authorities and it was only then the whole story unravelled. She lost hundreds to the FB scammers rather than thousands to the romance scammer, but it still took a lot of persuading for her to believe the relationship was not real. She had met him, she had seen his bank account. It had never occurred to her that people could fake bank account websites etc. She was really invested and didn't want to believe it wasn't real

I think for most people a man giving you access to his bank account after only meeting once would be a massive red flag. And then of course asking her to send him thousands of pounds.

I think the psychology of scams is really interesting. After a while the victim is virtually scamming themselves as they get to a place where it would be too painful to admit it's all a lie, so their brain will be closed off to any evidence of bs.
That's why we can look at the AI generated pics of Brad pitt in hospital and wonder how anyone can fall for it, but the victim can't.

Very sad thd brad pitt victim was hospitalized after trying to kill herself 3 times and now lives in a tiny room in a friend's house having given away £700k all the money she had.

If you are a kind and decent woman who has built a life for herself why would you not think yourself desirable and worthy of love? It's pure misfortune if you are targeted by a man who wants to scam you rather than have a relationship with you. Its often a very long game with the requests for money coming at a point when trust has been won, with sprats to catch a mackerel in the form of token generosity from the scammer. You can see why a woman would think she was just reciprocating in accordance with her greater means.

Your grandmother would carry on in the hope it was true. To not carry on would mean having to face reality, and at that point it's something you just don't want to face.

Face reality or continue to live in convinced ignorance. That's the choice.

That's often why, when the victim finally realises, they still send that one last amount. It's a bit like gambling. Maybe that last amount will turn everything into reality

I find it very sad and it's a crime that is probably hugely under-reported

I agree. All the people saying ‘anyone could fall for these scams’ - surely just if us can see the huge red flags? If a man I only met once gave me access to his bank accounts, the alarm bells would be ringing so loud!
The minute a man asks for money is the time to walk away.

I work for a wealth management firm and the stories I’ve heard from our fraud team are breathtaking. They’ve blocked peoples accounts, got the police involved and still the victims beg to have their access back so they can continue throwing money at the scammers against legal advice.

I think for most people a man giving you access to his bank account after only meeting once would be a massive red flag. And then of course asking her to send him thousands of pounds.

And yet the friend I talked about upthread was, after meeting him in person once, talking about him using her home as a UK base while doing some project work here and setting up a joint account for their joint expenses. He was a very good confidence trickster who drew her in, preying on her vulnerability.

It’s the same mentality that has a woman move a man into her home (with her kids) after knowing him for a month. It’s tied up in attraction and infatuation and the desire for a relationship. And a complete lack of seeing obvious red flags - while waving a few of your own that tells him exactly where you are vulnerable.

What you describe in relation to your friend is not normal for most people. For most people the red flags would be too strong. Thankfully the majority of women would not have a man move into their home after meeting him once! That's a very vulnerable person.

The ones who fall for it are vulnerable to it. Sometimes they're otherwise accomplished women who are absolutely not idiots.

Exactly this. 👆 It's estimated that only a third of people who are scammed actually report it and this is largely due to the shame they feel - shame from hearing the ignorant, thoughtless, smug opinions like those from OP.
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. It took this client FIVE MONTHS to come into our office to ask for help because they were SO ashamed of being scammed - they had told absolutely no-one about the scam, not even their family members. Having listened to their story, I wrote a 7-page submission to the FCA arguing their case (their bank, who they'd been with for over 40 years, behaved appallingly and made the situation worse) and 6 months later the FCA ruled in their favour and their bank repaid them every penny, which was a huge relief, but I often wonder where they'd be now if their deep sense of shame had kept them from ever asking for help.
According to CA, an estimated 9 million people in the UK were caught out in financial scams alone in the last year - that's one in five people across the UK. They're not all "idiots" - in fact, none of them are.

@angelickaty I agree that many people could fall fowl of financial scams. Completely unaware of what's happened at first. But I do think there is something else going on when it comes to romance scams. I think that's a different type of vulnerability. But absolutely no one should be called an idiot if they fall victim.

What you describe in relation to your friend is not normal for most people. For most people the red flags would be too strong. Thankfully the majority of women would not have a man move into their home after meeting him once! That's a very vulnerable person.

Absolutely. yet if you looked at any other areas of her life you wouldn’t have described her as vulnerable at all. Even knowing her well I was shocked at what she considered normal or acceptable in terms of a relationship and she absolutely wouldn’t listen to concerns raised by the people around her. Instead she shared the things that made it all sound legitimate if you weren’t looking too closely.

I also think relationships built predominantly online and at a distance create a false sense of knowing someone and intimacy so by the time you meet, you’re already hooked. You don’t consider that you only know what they’ve shared with you. What I knew of this person and how he presented to her where miles apart but in her mind it was me that had the wrong end of the stick because she “knew” him. She didn’t.

I believe that's a true story but I think you were an idiot for going onto Signal. The second they said that it was obvious.