PSA: never give a guy you're not married to or the mother of a massive sum of money

[CurdinHenry]

Double not if you've only "met" him online

Scared by how many smart and brilliant women fall for this and even end up in debt to give money to some random guy on the back of a sob story

Never ever ever, ok?

How were you ripped off though? Did you make the decision to pay for him, support him, lend him money? That's on you. Yes it's different if you are in an actual relationship but 20k? That must have been him coming back for more over and over again. At some point you must have realised you were giving money away.

I've watched a fair number of TV shows about romance scams, including the one fronted by Kym Marsh, in which they investigated the online "partner" and then showed the proof to the scammed person.

More than one refused to believe it, including a bloke who'd already been left standing at airport arrivals when hus scammer failed to fly in - he said "I still think she'll come", despite being shown absolute proof that "she" didn't exist.

Wholeheartedly agree with this. And I include in this the men who genuinely thinks the waitress, stripper, sex worker is really interested in them.

I think a man should have a plethora of options to get money from before he gets to me. Hence me refusing point blank to ever lend a man money. And I also would side-eye why a man would have so little shame he would ask me.

So that would get an immediate block too.

It's rarely "Very cleverly done" though, the majority of these scams are carried out by unsophisticated young men from Lagos or Bangkok. They are not criminal masterminds.

Lacking in critical thinking then. Lacking in ability to google. Lacking in ability to look at evidence and draw conclusions. Gullible. Whatever you want to call it.

The story is always the same - either Brad Pitt or another celeb needs cash, or it's an American medic / oil engineer / humanitarian worker in Syria / Iran / Central America who just needs your cash for customs fees / his sick mother / to pay off local corrupt police.

People who swallow those sorts of stories are incredibly stupid or naive - or both.

I know a woman who got totally scammed by one of these. Not a romance scam, she's happily married. I think it was a sob story. They got her talking to them, online I think, and tugged her heartstrings for ages and ages. It's left her so traumatised she can barely leave the house now. The financial loss is bad but it's the shame and feeling of stupidity.

She's not a stupid woman at all. She is older and not very internet savvy (I know plenty of older people are but she's not) and honestly, just kind of tries too hard to be nice. She's not insincere or fake but if you can convince her that doing this is what nice people do, she'll do it. She's tried to befriend younger people who turned out to be total trouble and she gets behind various socio-political movements without really thinking them through because she wants to be a good person and thinks this is what good people do. When she's confronted with some realities, she doesn't get angry or aggressive...Just very very distressed.

The road to hell...

The "victim" who is unable to google the story, reverse image search the photos, fact check the story....

Scammers are good at it though. I had a pm from a celebrity I followed on Twitter, a few years ago. The scammer had set up a fake account. The strange thing was that I had actually met the celebrity, we aren’t friends but I had worked on a project he was doing. So I sent a very confused reply and was promptly blocked.

😮me too.

Equally you can lend money to your dh or a loan is in your name and then he doesn’t pay it and muggins here has to

Thank goodness for the "nannying banks" you don't need be in a romance scam for some fucker to want to steal your hard earned cash. Keep it up RBS, I appreciate you watching my money for me

The banks are also protecting themselves too; it isn't entirely altruistic and trying to protect "stupid" people.

I am ashamed to admit I used to mock women (and men) who would hand over their money to strangers or men they hardly know.

But then I watched a show with a top police police detective and she said women get shamed over this all of the time but we would never shame the victims of any other crime, so why do we do it with these women.

Yes they are silly and are mugs but their biggest crimes are having big hearts and falling for a sob story.

Fortunately banks have started asking questions when you try and transfer money to people now.

Nontheless

There's a balance to be struck. Every time I transfer money to one of my kids, or a friend, or pay a bill I have to read the declaration saying that you must know who you are transferring to, fraud warnings, check the name on the account matches etc etc etc. People who read all that, click ok and then still transfer the money to their dodgy online boyfriend should not be refunded at the expense of everyone else who banks with that bank.

Mine thought she was with George Ezra. It's crazy.

Same. Over four years although in my case it wasn't as much. He has his teeth well into the ow now.

It's not so much intelligence, it's how cynical you are, how tight money has been for you.

I don't think I'd hand cash over.
Not because I'm better than anyone or more smart but because I would be amazed that a man a lot younger or rich would be interested in me.

I don't pour scorn on anybody who's fallen for it, I feel sad for them.

Money has not always been easy to come by, I really do see it as a safety net and a buffer against life's problems.
That's more important to me than romance.

Hundreds of social media users mocked Anne, who the programme said had lost her life's savings and tried to take her own life three times since the scam came to light.

People really are scum. Even Netflix and Toulouse FC's social media mocked the poor woman.

Technoclogy is moving at a faster rate now. Gen Z are better at spotting AI things like like deepfakes than Boomers. Younger people have grown up as digital natives, giving them the edge in spotting digital manipulation.

We should be teaching everyone about fakes rather than shaming people.

We should be teaching everyone about fakes rather than shaming people.

We do. The banks say don't send money. Friends and family say don't send money. But they still choose to send money. It's their choice. But then they should own it.

They cast the net wide and only need to catch a few

Why should anyone have to "own" being a victim of a horrible manipulative crime?

I don't think UK banks have got as far as warning people about AI deep fake videos.

I rented a room in my house to one of these delusional scam artists, thankfully all worked out well for me in the end and he got no money out of me as I was fairly wise to him after a while and spotted a pattern but on checking his sm recently he definitely has been on the scam again as he is travelling far flung places and he sure as shit is not paying for it out of his own money.