Internet Romance Scams, Beware!

I had read about romance scams and the stories of those exploited,  but until recently had never talked directly  to a victim.    Apparently the scams have become more sophisticated and prolific in targeting victims.  The amount of money lost is staggering and the emotional damage is vast and scaring.

Traditional  internet meeting sites can still be a wonderful way to find someone special, preferably in your own locale that you can meet in person.  But when it extends to foreign or long distant encounters, there can be much more room for deception.

These romance scammers are no longer waiting and twiddling their thumbs for the next available hit, but are actually being quite aggressive in profiling and targeting prospective catches on traditional dating websites.

Social media networks, especially Facebook is a fertile field for them to ply their ruthless trade.    Letters may suddenly appear out of the blue , usually with a stolen photo indicating a desire to connect with you, because of an admirable trait attributed to your own photo.

Skype too is often employed by these cons to reach multitudes prospective takers. These romance scammers work in shifts in internet cafes, and the majority are said to be based in Nigeria, Malaysia,Russia and the Philippines.

Both straight and gay internet communities have been infiltrated by romance scammers preying mostly on people older than 40 or 50.  The Philippines scammers seems to be more predominately gay oriented, seconded by Russia.

Either way the approach is the same regardless and is always scripted in advance and then tailored to be more specific when the scammers finds out more personal details.  Words of endearments are employed early on with practically instant confessions of having fallen in love, often with the belief that God had brought them together.

There is always a grooming period where trust and affectionate feelings are elicited until the scammers proceed to the next phase of entrenchment.   Besides words of endearments, they may even send gifts, or flowers, bought with stolen credit cards, to their targets.

Once a sense of affection and trust has been firmly established, the scammers will then relay that they have fallen upon a multitude of unfortunate circumstances, that require help.  It could be having a family member hospitalised, or experiencing a loss job, being in an accident, tax problems, and you name it, in that usually large sums of money are needed.

By this time, most of the victims are firmly convinced that their “beloved” is in love with them and naturally most will offer to help.  Most scammers will initially refuse, saying they only want love from the victim, and then later come back with an apologetic desperation for immediate money however bad they feel for asking.

Once again this initial reluctance to accept help is taken as proof of love, yet that quickly gives away to pleas of forgiveness for having, in the end asked for money. The scripts are carefully crafted to pull the victim in deeper emotionally.

If money is sent, then the scammers intensify their devotion with multiple text messages or instant messaging and telephone calls.   This bombardment is overwhelming in appreciation and “reciprocal” undying love, which serves to only intensity the victims emotional involvement.

There can be plans to meet each other, preferably with the scammer wanting to come to the local of his target.  This seems more prevalent with Russian women. Invariably this results in the scammer being unable to afford  airline tickets.  Therefore again, money is solicited and when sent, the scammer always has obstacles to why he/she can’t travel, or  had to use the money for another unfortunate happening in their lives.

Even if the victim flies to meet his “beloved”, he or she may often find themselves stranded at the airport alone without any site of whomever they came to visit, always followed with a very believable excuse.  Any visits to a foreign country to meet someone, unless you have valid proof of their identity and intentions, which is hard to do, is extremely risky and could be life threatening.

This proved to be very dangerous for a professor in North Carolina, who was used as a mule to transport drugs back to the US, given in a suitcase supposedly belonged to this woman he had come to meet, who never showed up in the first place. He is now sitting in an Argentinian jail and with a  conviction of drug smuggling.

Male scammers targeting females have a predilection of posing as US military  personal. A lot of them have stolen photos of real military personnel, with accompanying letters saying that they are either on an another mission  or in the mid east.  Most male scammers seem to want to establish immediate sympathy by posing as  a widower having recently lost their wife.

The letters are usually detailed with accounts of their loneliness and need of finding a companion who is as honest and God-fearing as themselves.  By upfront declarations revolving around the need for honesty, and being religious, they hope to hook you with initial trust.

Another favourite  occupation for male scammers is that of a civil engineer, who are based or sent to  Africa, but either live or have familial connections in the UK .  The majority of male scammers are working out of Nigeria or Malaysia

Female scammers seem to be primarily Russian based,  again with a very attractive photos.  Their targets are invariably American and Western European men. Not surprising the majority of “female” scammers are not women, but men who have stolen glamorous photos that they use to entice unsuspecting men. They arrange for females to go to Western union with  fake ID’s or passports in order to pick up money.

The bottom line is you never know who is really behind that text, email, or phone.  If any internet correspondence at any times asks for money for whatever reasons, then you are being scammed.

Unfortunately most victims are not aware of this until they have lost huge sums of money.    Some have lost their entire savings, by being strung out for a long period of time. Even when they find out they have been scammed, the disbelief  and shock can be hard for them to assimilate as truth.

They may rationalise that their scammer really did love them and that maybe he/she was really in need of the money.  Most have a hard time believing that their scammer is scamming several people a day along with them.

Some developed obsessive fantasies, related to the scammers that can still resonate, even when the betrayal and  fake identity is blown.  They find it hard to believe that anyone could do that to them, who sacrificed so much money to help them out.

An individual’s intelligence  and reasoning may be overclouded by loneliness and neediness, which is the primary trait in all victims.  Someone who feels they have finally found the woman/man of their dreams; who they believe is constantly professing undying love will have their reasoning and guard down.

This may be due to a release of the “trust” hormone oxytocin, which is the hormone released during nursing an infant and also during orgasm.  According to a British researcher Paul Zakon, this hormone is also released in social exchanges too.

When someone whom you are attracted to is telling you how much they love and desire you, your brain is also releasing dopamine in addition to oxytocin. Your brain is not filtering out that this love or desire from this person is false, as  it definitely is from the scammer.

So even if the scammer is lying and betraying his victim, the obsessional attachment and trust is being established in the victim.   This can lead to an addiction to the scammer.

Finding out the truth is heart breaking and broken hearts are hard to heal, as there is never any real closure and there will not be with a scammer. The only way to survive is to break off all contact with the scammer.

Despite knowing that they are being scammed, there is always that obessional attachment and nagging doubt that maybe the  scammer really did have feelings for them, making it very difficult to completely cut off contact.

These victims will have to go through a grief process, and will be extremely depressed for a while and should seek support and help during this time.  They will all feel very ashamed, stupid and embarrassed to admit that they were victims.

Rather than isolating themselves, they need to talk to understanding others about what they are going through.  Online forums are out there, that will provide a chance to meet others caught in the same betrayal and agony.

Prevention, through awareness of the dangers that exists with these scams are needed for all singles who might be looking to meet others through the net.  If you know of a single friend, gay or straight on dating websites, send him/her this link.  If you are involved on dating sites, know the above warning signs as discussed previously.

Having your heart-broken by someone you really had a relationship with is painful enough, but to live through a broken heart by a phantom that involved large sums of money lost can be worse.