I’ve seen these romance scams happen in real time while I was a relay operator. The people falling for them are just… Sad. Imagine being so sad and lonely, you’d literally do anything for anyone who says anything kind to you. That’s who falls for these. The scammer doesn’t even work at it. They just be like “I love you baby, can you send me $15,000?” And the victim is like “Yeah baby, I can do that.”

I knew a guy who was recently divorced. Talking to some girl on Facebook. He sent her nudes when she asked. She threatened to send them to all of his Facebook friends unless he paid. He said he didn’t give a fuck. Then nothing else happened.

I know a guy who got one of those Russian “mail order” brides. They had a kid together and then she divorced him as soon as she became a citizen, leaving the kid with him. She married some other guy eventually and still sees the kid, but she doesn’t pay child support. My friend comes from a traditional Asian culture and is significantly older than her. The sad thing is that he was shocked when she left, since they got along fine. I don’t think it was a scam exactly. More of a transactional relationship and she no doubt felt that she held up her end of the bargain for a reasonable enough amount of time (about 5 years, if I recall) and gave my friend a child on top of the marriage.

I engaged with one I matched on Tinder. We chatted for a few days. Once they started talking about helping me with cryptocurrency investments, I connected the dots and ended it there.

What made me take longer to realize is that we had a brief video call, where I could clearly see it was the same girl as the photos. But apparently this is a part of the scam.

So you’re not safe even after video chats anymore.

My aunt did.

She got suspicious when her online companion kept asking her to buy stuff and ship it. She didn’t catch on immediately, and the family had to explain to her she was doing something illegal and that it was a scam (even though he was reimbursing her).

(She later did remarry a non-scammer, so happy ending I guess).

I don’t have personal history with romance scams but this video is a good example of other sites being used. In this instance it was Instagram but I’ve heard of Facebook stories in the past. I’d say it can happen on any website that is designed to have some personal level of interaction, so not the standard screaming match that is Twitter but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn of them happening there too.

For avoiding it, it’s as simple and harsh as “don’t accept invites from people you don’t know” and “don’t send money to people you don’t know”. Going beyond romance scams, such as hacked accounts from friends who are “suddenly in trouble”, do everything possible to be sure it’s them before even looking at a payment link. Consider if this is a person who would ask you for money (some people are too proud to do so and a scammer wouldn’t know that), get them in a call and have a full conversation with them so you can be 100% sure it’s them.

Back on romance scams specifically, particularly good scammers can wait months or even a couple of years before they pull on the money thread. It’s more likely they’ll start off with actually paying the person back (they do this by having multiple victims on the hook at once and just shuffling money around between them to look legit). Slowly but surely, the figures will increase before there’s a sizeable honey pot before they dip.

Golden rule I can say for anyone is only send money to someone you are presently physically looking at, otherwise only send money you’re comfortable with never getting back. This also applies to buying stuff for them with a “I’ll pay you back”. If you’re the sort of person who would feel bad about not helping out a friend in need, you are the target. It’s harsh to say “don’t help the people you think are friends” as a blanket statement but it’s having absolute rules such as “don’t add people” and “don’t send money. EVER” that will keep you out of danger.

My sister in law fell for one, it was a passport scam where they claim to get detained and need to pay a fee or they will be deported.

They took their time setting it up over several weeks and it worked. She realised when she was explaining to my missus and asking for more money and I raised the alarm.

It was too late and the money was gone.

Poor woman isn’t lucky in the romance department, or in looks. Im not surprised that she was so thrilled to get attention that she ignored all the red flags.