Salon.com just posted an article about online romance scams, Facebook status: In a scam relationship, by Tracy Clark-Flory. The scams run like this:
- Perp finds a target online.
- They communicate via email, text and sometimes phone.
- Perp proclaims undying love.
- Maybe perp sends flowers and stuffed teddy bears.
- Perp suddenly has a dire emergency and needs money.
- Target sends money, and keeps sending money until there’s none left.
Apparently, romance scams—known as “love fraud,” according to the article—are a growth industry. The story quoted a man named Rob who lost $14,000 to a woman he never met. He is now a volunteer for RomanceScams.org, which has counseled 50,000 people who believe they were swindled.
According to Salon:
Many of the scammers are based in Nigeria, home of the infamous 419 email scam love fraud is a much savvier twist on that old formula. “Scammers search chat rooms, dating sites, and social networking sites looking for victims,” warns the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. “The principal group of victims is over 40 years old and divorced, widowed, elderly, or disabled, but all demographics are at risk.” The perpetrators investigate the target by doing a Google search on their name and scouring their online profiles. “Once they have all that information, they create a character that is specific to you and your desires,” Rob says. “In short, they create your dream mate, and they’re very good at what they do, unfortunately.”
The con artists frequently pose as soldiers serving in Afghanistan or Iraq. The problem has gotten so bad that the military has issued press releases warning people not to fall for soldiers asking for money so they can go on leave. Read:
CID warns of Internet romance scams, on Army.mil
Army stresses caution to combat scammers, on Military.com
The Salon article explains how the scammers hook the targets, and the process is familiar to all of us who have been snagged by sociopaths: “The scammers get the target to reveal their most delicate feelings and secrets; and a sense of real intimacy often develops.” And that’s the reason the scams work—people are looking for love.
Plenty of readers commented on the article. Most of the comments expressed this view: Anyone who falls for an online romance scam is a complete idiot.
Read the article and comments:
Facebook status: In a scam relationship, on Salon.com.
Why send money to Nigeria?
Lovefraud has heard from people who have fallen for these online scams. And even though I know how convincing sociopaths are, I must admit that these cases perplexed me.
Yes, I lost $227,000 to my con artist ex-husband. But he was physically with me. He looked me in the eye, made his promises, turned on the tears when necessary. He had sex with me, which released all that oxytocin, the trust hormone. He brought me around to his business friends, creating the illusion that he truly was an entrepreneur.
I know why I gave him my money. But why anyone would send money to a person they never met who lives in Nigeria?
I think the answer lies in the power of our own minds, and I’ll take you through my reasoning.
Fantasy
First of all, it is very possible to have accepting, positive thoughts about people we’ve only met over the computer—just look at all the friendships that have developed here on Lovefraud. Taking this a step further to romance isn’t difficult.
We may not really know what the person looks like or sounds like, because we’ve never met. But as I explain on the Lovefraud.com page about Online Seduction, we fill in any gaps in our knowledge about a potential romantic partner with fantasy:
When you meet people in the real world, you notice their height, weight, grooming, voice, mannerisms—and immediately form conclusions about them. All of this information is missing in e-mail correspondence. You can’t see, smell or touch the person. You don’t even really know if you’re communicating with a man or a woman.
So what do you do? You imagine the person is what you want him or her to be.
Essentially what happens is that in an online romance, we fall in love with our own fantasy. We create an image in our minds of what the person is, and how the person feels about us. And we believe it.
Oxytocin
I referred briefly to oxytocin above. This hormone is thought to be released during hugging, touching and orgasm in both men and women, and acts as a neurochemical in the brain. According to Wikipedia:
Oxytocin evokes feelings of contentment, reductions in anxiety, and feelings of calmness and security around the mate. Many studies have already shown a correlation of oxytocin with human bonding, increases in trust, and decreases in fear.
Oxytocin serves a normal and important function in the human bonding process—it makes us feel calm and trusting with our mates. Nature probably gave us oxytocin so that we want to stay with our partners to raise children, thus helping the survival of the species.
But because it fosters trust, oxytocin can also help us get conned. Paul J. Zak explains this in a post on Psychology Today called How to run a con:
Social interactions engage a powerful brain circuit that releases the neurochemical oxytocin when we are trusted and induces a desire to reciprocate the trust we have been shown—even with strangers.
The key to a con is not that you trust the conman, but that he shows he trusts you. Conmen ply their trade by appearing fragile or needing help, by seeming vulnerable. Because of oxytocin and its effect on other parts of the brain, we feel good when we help others—this is the basis for attachment to family and friends and cooperation with strangers. “I need your help” is a potent stimulus for action.
So, oxytocin doesn’t necessarily require sex in order to be released. It can be triggered by other social interactions—perhaps even those conducted via electronic media.
Oxytocin is released in the brain and causes feelings of trust. But that isn’t the only way in which love affects the brain. According to Dr. Helen Fisher, romantic love actually causes a rewiring of the brain. She also believes that romantic love is an addiction.
For more on the neurological processes involved in romantic love, read:
The drive to love: The neural mechanism for mate selection on HelenFisher.com.
Brain action
You’ve probably heard of the “placebo effect.” Physicians and researchers have long known that people in clinical trials of drugs frequently experience the benefits of the drug, even though they are taking the placebo. Because they believe they are taking the drug, they believe they will get better, and they do.
This is not just an imaginary improvement. According to an article on MSNBC, “research shows that belief in a dummy treatment leads to changes in brain chemistry.” In other words, belief can be just as strong as actual medication.
Read Placebo’s power goes beyond the mind on MSNBC.MSN.com.
And here’s another aspect of the brain: Research has found that the physical structure of the brain isn’t nearly as static as once thought. As explained in Time Magazine:
For decades, the prevailing dogma in neuroscience was that the adult human brain is essentially immutable, hardwired, fixed in form and function, so that by the time we reach adulthood we are pretty much stuck with what we have.
But research in the past few years has overthrown the dogma. In its place has come the realization that the adult brain retains impressive powers of “neuroplasticity”—the ability to change its structure and function in response to experience.
Read How the brain rewires itself on Time.com
The point, therefore, is that the brain is changeable, and it doesn’t necessarily require drugs or a physical incident in order to change. Thoughts and beliefs have the power to change the brain.
Power of imagination
So where am I going with all this? Here is what I think may be happening in romance scams:
- The perp contacts the target, gradually building the target’s love and trust.
- The target believes that the perp is real and they are in a romantic relationship.
- Because of the target’s belief, oxytocin is released in the brain, even though there is no physical touching.
- The belief in love also rewires the brain, just as it does in a real relationship.
- The target may even become addicted to the relationship.
- The target is primed to be conned.
My theory, then, is that in an online romance scam, we believe we are in a true romantic relationship. Our belief causes all the same brain changes that a real world relationship causes. Because of the power of our imaginations, we may be just as susceptible to online scams as we are to real life scams.
Come to think of it, this is probably why we fall for the real life scams. We believe the love is true, even though it isn’t.
OMG!!! Just read your post of 12:14. If she does happen to be lurking, here’s a message for her: “FRY IN HELL, YOU SOUL-SUCKING SPATH!”
Eww, just the thought of IT being here gives me the willys!!
One/Joy,
You know I saw the photos of her….OMG!!!!! She is soooooo pathetic, you don’t have to get revenge on her….SHE IS HER OWN REVENGE. How would you like to BE her???? What a MISERABLE PERSON she is, what an unhappy, bitter, hateful soul she must have inside there.
Nah, you are the WINNER in that contest, One, even though you fell for her con, I would rather be the VICTIM than be HER. HANDS DOWN, YOU ARE BETTER OFF THAN SHE IS. She has no compassion, no soul, no heart, and that is a LIFE SENTENCE for her, much worse than a death sentence. Let her STEW IN HER OWN JUICE! And hope she lives a LOOOOOONG TIME!
One,
they do like to work in pairs and groups don’t they? They fear being alone so much. They need an audience at all times.
I wonder if your spath has any “real” friends or associates. Or maybe she just makes up all these people so she won’t be feel so lonely.
Isn’t it strange though, that she does this because she doesn’t want to be alone, but as soon as she catches someone in her web, she wants to destroy them? As good as she is at ensnaring people, all she would have to do is be a decent human being and she would have friends coming out her ears. Yet, she does the opposite… this is sooooooo perplexing to me, because it’s a prime example of what all spaths do and it’s exactly 180 degrees the opposite of how to accomplish their goal of never being alone.
Sky, they don’t want to be ALONE, but they want to be in CONTROL and no matter who they pick, a victim or another co-s-path/victim, they want to be 100% in CONTROL and it never works out well for them because VICTIMS ESCAPE and co- s-path/victims SPATH THEM BACK AND TURN ON THEM, SO EITHER WAY, THEY LOSE…..it is all about CONTROL and they SELDOM ever 100% keep control of another human being.
Jaycee Dugard was 99.9% in his CONTROL as was his co-spath/victim wife. But circumstances finally rescued Jaycee. She was so under his control she couldn’t SAY her reall name, she had to WRITE IT.
She was only 11 when she was kidnapped, and in a way the interview with her made me think of a pre-teen, and I imagine there is a lot of growth that she “missed” during those years she spent with him besides just having to learn to drive and that sort of thing. She’s got her mother for support though, and the cash award which will help her and her daughters and her mom maintain their lives and above all PRIVACY for her girls. 20 million isn’t near enough, but I’m glad she did get that. I wish all victims could be compensated and all spaths go to prison, but we can at least look at her and say AT LEAST ONE VICTIM ESCAPED AND THE SPATHS WENT TO PRISON.
Oxy,
thanks for bringing me back into the correct perspective.
This confusion is what happens when I forget not to anthropomorphize the spaths. I was trying to think of them as wanting the same things that normal people want. We all like companionship, but spaths don’t. They just want control.
It’s impossible to imagine feeling how they do. We can come close, but the lack of empathy throws that out the window because that’s where the pivot point is. Lack of empathy pivots all of their perspectives 180 degrees the opposite of how normal people feel.
Sky,
Yea, even though I KNOW you KNOW psychopaths have no empathy, we STILL (all of us I think) try to “understand” how they “think” and we tend to PROJECT our own desires and motives on to them….and it does NOT work. LOL
Their thinking I don’t think is much more like ours than a snake’s. LOL The snake doesn’t have the part of the brain necessary to have emotions and empathy, and the psychopath may have that part of the brain necessary to empathy, etc., but it doesn’t work very well, or in some cases, it doesn’t work at all.
H2H and OXy – i saw your posts just before i had to run off to a meeting…and all i can say is thank you from the bottom of my heart. i smiled and thought, ‘how sweet!’
now, lets put your words and my response in context – to me, and to many others who have been duped, your responses are incredibly sweet and generous….anyone else reading them would react very differently – probably with shock and a bit of ‘let’s tiptoe out of the forum quietly attitude…’ BUT this is the reality for us and i am so thankful for the sisterhood.
Dear One,
I am glad that you feel supported, because my post was definitely meant to be supportive! In your response too, I am hearing HEALING as well as sanity….which I am so glad for you! Letting go of that bitterness and being able to look at them as what they ARE, pathetic (though toxic) creatures that live without love and connectedness.
Humans are indeed “herd” animals and we are programmed to want companionship from others of our kind. The ones who must be “despotic kings”, who abuse those they associate with long enough, though, can never be TRULY connected to those others and is very ultimately ALONE and LONELY. They lose control and they have no empathy/connectedness, so are the ULTIMATE LOSERS even if they are famous, wealthy, they are still pitiful examples of the ultimate losers. Look at Hugh Hefner for example, and John Edwards, Bill Clinton, Casey Anthony, etc. they are just as pitiful and pathetic as your sock puppet creature. Sometimes they get PUBLIC “justice” here and sometimes they don’t, but they get the ULTIMATE JUSTICE of being themselves.
Oxy and Sky – i am lucky. I have a gate. I can shut the gate (acting/ responding like they have empathy) and slowly look though the fencing to see what’s in there (my feelings of compassion for people in general, and my compassion and love for the fake boy, my connection to the whole story and the promises made and the feelings of being gutted by the manipulation and exploitation of my closest desires and values).
but the gate is very closed. of course when i first started processing all of this i was in great pain and although the gate was closed IMMEDIATELY, the shock and awe flowed out through the fencing non stop.
i know you want to know what they are sky – and you study and think and pull together your excellent hypotheses. does your investigation always lead back to your own heart (hence thinking they are what we are)? the heart of a person with, well, a heart? (we always talk of them as being souless…but maybe they are just heartless?) i hope i am able to say this well enough – that i am able to find the concept i am looking for and articulate it. here goes: i got a hit of such sadness from you comment about anthropomorphizing them. it goes without saying that i deeply respect your journey to understanding them – but the sadness i felt drives me to say, move away from this, and into a sky life that has more space, more light.
not suggesting moving away from the subject if you can find a way for light to come with it: you could actually write a book about spathy, you could lecture. you are clear and articulate. but i want light in your life sky – i want you to see and be the sky….to move out into the world and touch yourself.
my impressions and thoughts….for what they are worth. xo
One, I think I hear what you are saying…and I too have had to move out into the LIFE beyond just healing. You can heal and still be obsessed with the injury to the point that you have no other “life”
I’ve started stepping out into the LIGHT more….moving away from just “healing” the wounds, but using the life I have regained for peace and pleasure and growth. Enjoying the wonderment of each day.