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.
Awesome, sopris.
“If I am feeling insecure or shameful around a person I now know they are devaluing me, even if in their mind.”
I have to relearn this lesson daily.
It’s not easy to discern, because really, denial can run in the other direction, too. The acceptance of criticism, the self-adjusting mechanism, is what separates us from the beasts.
But I’m occupying a “higher ground” these days. I can take a bird’s-eye view of it all. I realized last night that nobody owes me an apology, much as I don’t owe them one. Let’s just call it even. This whole “apology” thing operates in the swamp of neurotic little interactions that take us in circles. Big, heroic people aren’t called to “apologize” or be “perfect.” They’re called to act.
Excuse the vernacular here, but I don’t know any better word for the game being played than “bullshit.” I can keep running around in that, wondering if this or that person “respects” me or will take my calls next time or will turn against me — or I can pluck myself out of it and be “unreasonable” and “dangerous” and actually laugh at being called these things by people who seek to limit my beauty and creativity because it affronts their pettiness. “Pardon my dust” as I run them right over!
Self-adjusting people who can still do this are powerful people. What is that old saying? “Money talks, bullshit walks.” How about: “Power talks, action talks, . . . bullshit walks”?
Getting back to the “romance scams” theme with Internet romance, I actually see the Internet as a great tool against this kind of thing . . . if you use it right.
The Internet is just one more way to make initial contact with people, neither more nor less. So it really sets off my b.s. detector when somebody wants to sit around and chat for a couple of weeks, “get to know me.”
Nobody “gets to know me” on the Internet. They have to show up for coffee, at least. They have to understand simple instructions, like, meet me at a movie theater, not insist on picking me up in your car.
I’m still at a distance when I’m online. Anyone asking me to get closer without meeting them first is a scammer.
It’s called a date, not a booty call with a stranger.
SisterSister: Great quote!
”Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem, just make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.”
~ William Gibson
Yes, VERY appropriate! 😉 Unfortunately. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you to all of you for your good wishes concerning my health. It means a whole lot to me to find you all the way I have…I was “Blessed” the day I came to this website.
You have all actually HELPED me, medically, get to a point where the emotional and psychological pain is tolerable from this mess I have gotten my soul into with this “THING” that came into my life…everyone of you have added a little something to my progress. Every single one of you, in your own ways.
I am grateful. xxoo
I have been on a ‘quest’ for personal peace, steadily, since my sudden heart failure 9 months ago. It has taken me all this time to gain my strength back. Just the simple will to LIVE! Heaven seemed a softer place…and I think if you refuse to entertain such thoughts, they just fade away, like the spath eventually does. YOU ALL have helped me find so much….
Your ‘understanding’ has healed a large part of that hole that was left inside my heart in a lot of ways, by sharing this walk and understanding and sharing. There is no place else that could POSSIBLY understand what it is we have been through except for people just like us! Sad ‘club’ to belong to but we couldn’t have found a better place than right here.
Things are starting to settle down for me now in this area.
You have helped me reach a certain ‘understanding’ about myself and that’s what this is REALLY all about – not those SOUL-LESS spaths; IT IS ABOUT “US”. At least that is what we should be making this: ABOUT US NOW.
Change is so hard and difficult in life. It takes commitment to ourselves and to that which is right and good and just. It takes honesty, with ourselves and that honesty begins when ‘sharing your heart with a friend’…someone that truly DOES understand that what you are saying is not just crazy person gibberish, although in my case, I have to admit, I was ‘there’, just teetering on that edge of insanity that I shall NEVER allow around me nor my life again. I have a little bit of this life left now and I am going to be rather selfish with it.
I am still trying to get on my feet, medically, but I couldn’t be doing that EITHER if I hadn’t of had such wonderful and caring support. I just can’t say it enough. And right back at ya! 🙂
I am grateful we have all met on this Beautiful Journey of Life!
Constantine: YOU take good care of yourself and remember I love ya. I understand and can feel your ‘peace’ and your ‘soul’; you are a kind heart and are such amazingly strong support and it comes through the ‘heart’. I know this because I can ‘feel’ it.
If there was ONE THING I could give to ALL OF YOU, it would be the gift of REAL PEACE in your lives. Inner peace. Once you find that ‘inner peace’, I just know you all will be alright in this life. Because you all truly DO deserve the best now; we have already come through the pits!~Time for something new. 🙂
Happy day all…
Duped
nothing to do with nothing – BUT, one of the things that is lacking i my life since the spath is enough laughter. now part of that is that i lost my freinds, but not to whine, i wanted to share this: i found the Graham Norton talk show on youtube – and these shows are making me laugh aloud. just a reco for down moments. 🙂
likin’ your 10:45 post sistersister!
Thanks for your support!
“IT IS ABOUT ‘US.’ At least that is what we should be making this: ABOUT US NOW.” — So true, DUPED_IN_SOCAL. Someone I actually barely know observed last week that he’s a victim of an “ex” and her prowess around the divorce courts, yes, a victim of “someone else’s choices,” as he puts it. I don’t know if he’s telling the whole truth about what he did to get himself into this mess, but giving him the benefit of the doubt, I asked him if he had a choice when he chose her.
He acted as if I was blaming him. But I realized something: We make limiting choices based on limited information. It’s nobody’s fault, but we can do our best to get more information. And more. And more.
And how about more information about ourselves?
So in that sense, it’s all about us. What we failed to do, even if we didn’t know we had to do it. Now we know.
And one/joy_step: You’re onto something huge with the laughter. I’ve often observed that totalitarian regimes discourage laughter and comedy. It’s subversive. Nobody can laugh and control/be controlled at the same time. I recommend the movie “In Bruges” for a look at a strange little place where all the so-called rules get followed — a very humorless place. If you kill someone, you get killed, and so on. And just how ridiculous, even funny, that gets in its Medieval, Day-of-Judgment extreme. I’ll look into Graham Norton. Never heard of him.
sistersister: you can’t see me right now, but I am standing up on my feet, in my living room, giving you a standing ovation:
“It’s called a date, not a booty call with a stranger.”
Um, do you think perhaps you could be a little more direct~! 🙂
Thank you for that genuine smile you gave me. I LOVE IT!
Oh yes, the internet can be a GREAT TOOL when used correctly!
Unfortunately, there is LOW LIFE SCUM in our world who is using it shop for prey. Period. That’s the bottom line.
I am not going to say that ALL people on the internet are that way…the ones looking for romance…that would be like saying that all people who are tall are abnormal. But, what I WILL say, that from experience, YOU CAN NEVER BE REALLY SURE WHO THAT PERSON IS ON THE OTHER END OF THAT COMPUTER!
Sure, you can try to ‘research’ them. But they don’t leave many trails. And, I would HIGHLY advise against delving. Best way to go on this is just NOT KNOWING ANYMORE: walk away while you still can. Make it complete and realize that you are taking a stand FOR YOURSELF irregardless of what your heart is telling you. I mean, for some of us, we are talking BASIC SURVIVAL.
I met “IT” on the internet. I am a SUCKER for our combined forces in the middle east. I have met thousands of people who have served from Britain, America, Germany, numerous other places – I have met and known some of the best of us. I have done all I was able to do over the past 30 years to aid and assist those returning and transitioning, to ‘settle’ in and make their readjustment process just a little easier by providing assistance and counsel to them. NOT ONE PERSON PREYED ON ME EXCEPT FOR “IT”. Not one. Interesting; isn’t it?
Most of the time, they have become lifetime friends.
Priceless friends, so I can’t say that the ‘internet itself’ per se is a demon but it can be a two-sided sword and I am here to tell you: “”””WARNING”””” A person can be or say anything they want to while on the internet.
As for me: I cleaned up my internet tracks. I went to all those ‘fun to do’ dating sites and deleted my accounts. I don’t believe you can find love IN LIFE so easily. I mean, think about it. What about all those little innuendos such as the twinkle of the eye; the touch; the sound of someone’s voice; the way they walk; talk; their mannerisms.
The internet leaves too much space open for us to become prey.
That is just a fact of life. We can no longer allow our belief in the basic good of human beings to rule our constitutions. We must safeguard ourselves from falling prey to these master manipulators. While they may be so charming and let me tell you, I bought in, hook, line and sinker! It is difficult to really tell when the ‘novel’ was written so very well…
But there ARE red flags. And I NEVER EVER EVER EVER date off the internet. NOT ANYMORE; NOT EVER AGAIN. I learned my lesson!
Yes; I want to ‘caution’ that if any of you are dealing with a ‘dangerous’ or ‘violent’ spath, you have met on the internet,
my best suggestions to you would be this:
A) Clean up your internet tracks. Remember if “IT” found you there, “IT” can find anything about you anywhere you have been.
B) I have removed all of my sites and deleted all of my tracks.
They use the internet as their tool. The same way WE use a cake pan. Seriously. Please be careful and don’t allow yourself to go there or fall prey!
C) I removed EVERYONE from my messenger list.
D) If you think you may be dealing with an internet predator,
cease all further communication, delete, delete, delete!!!!! BLOCK EVEN! THEN DELETE. 🙂
I am a firm believer now that internet dating sites are the cesspools of the devil himself.
E) NEVER tell someone you have met on the internet, NO MATTER HOW LONG YOU HAVE KNOWN THEM, personal details about yourself. Spaths take that information and while they call it ‘getting to know you’, they are actually ‘profiling’ you and your ‘neediness’ so that can tailor fit the ‘show’ to you!
(how thoughtful!) :::BEWARE:::
My ‘belief’ in basic human goodness almost got me murdered.
Imagine that. The mind job of all mind jobs. Hmmm? It’s alright, I am making my way past all of this.
The way “I” win at this, you see, is that “IT” isn’t in my life anymore and I am able to put up my hand, in it’s face and say: “No thank you. I want no more of this. Be gone.” But you have to really mean it and not let those pangs of ‘guilt’ and ‘sadness’ and ‘missing’ overtake you. You need to realize that what you are dealing with is out to destroy you in the long run and you need to just get away from it and stay away from it no matter what that takes.
Being raised the way I was raised, has made me wiser, smarter, more understanding and better able to deal with all of the ‘illusions’ of this life. I was RAISED to take ‘aiding and assisting’ as a second nature. It has been that way my whole life.
The NOT SO NORM is people taking advantage of that kindness.
And like I told “IT”: “I don’t HAVE TO CARE ABOUT YOU. You are forgetting that. I don’t HAVE TO BE HERE CARING ABOUT YOU. Not when I could be caring somewhere else for someone who would truly appreciate my caring and not abuse it.”
Yah, I am pretty good at leaving “IT” speechless. heheheehe
A lot of times “IT” would get me on a roll and just silently slither out of my home. Seriously. My tongue has left welts with it’s honesty. No more internet for me!!!!!! I learned MY lesson!
But, I see it still out there, trolling and phishing.
DONT GET SCAMMED BY IT! It never took money from me because it DID have that much respect for my ‘authority’ but I have had people contact me (strangers) who have told me he is leaving a swath of devastation and that he has not only stolen wives, marriages, hearts, souls, he has also stolen money.
Duped
So sorry this all happened to you out of the Internet. I can understand why you don’t want to make connections there, and I don’t necessarily make a lot of them there either — especially on those “match.com” and such sites that seem very artificial to me.
I like this: “What about all those little innuendos such as the twinkle of the eye; the touch; the sound of someone’s voice; the way they walk; talk; their mannerisms.” To clarify,
I advocate leaving my heart open to chance encounters on the ‘net, toward the goal of getting to those “little innuendos” as soon as possible. I want to feel out the “vibe,” and if I feel anything wrong, I’m outta there. We all know that there are people who can manipulate even that, but that’s a hazard even without the Internet making the introduction.
My favorite way to meet people isn’t even through dating, actually. The best way is to meet through everyday activities, such as church or volunteer work. I go where people are expressing their values, putting them into action. You can tell a lot in those situations about how a person interacts in a group, respects others, and gets out of the way rather than in it when the chips are down. When people have an axe to grind — a cause to support — it’s a real temptation to take shortcuts around other people in the name of that “good cause.” Spaths tend to create an uncomfortable feeling in at least someone in a group. The other advantage to hanging around these places is that I get to express my own ways, too. And finally, these interactions take place over time — not just someone sitting across a table from me making easy talk about what their values are and asking me to believe them in an hour or less.
Dear Duped and Sistersister~
All I can say is WOW! Your posts on internet dating are awesome! I have always been leary of it ~ especially with all my friends trying to push me in that direction.
I am now laughing my head off because my Ex has met at least 2 of his galpals (that I know of) on none other than “Match.com” and by the way….he lives in Southern Cal!
Sick World!!
I read with interest the part about filling in the blanks in online encounters — the way we fantasize that the person is exactly whom we wish they might be, not through what they tell us, but what we tell ourselves in the gaps.
And then I started reading Garry Wills’ “Reagan’s America” on my lunch hour. Interesting. I’m not — and he’s not — saying the beloved Reagan was a spath, but there’s a method of seduction at work in both cases. And isn’t it interesting that Reagan was a master of the media, a place of illusion even before the Internet made electronic interactions so personal?
“His approach is not discursive, setting up sequences of time or thought, but associative; not a tracking shot, but montage. We make the connections. It is our movie.”