We discuss 5 stories that romance scammers will tell when trying to lure victim’s into handing over their money.
Romance scammers prey on vulnerable people online. They attempt to gain their trust by building an online relationship with them. And once they feel the time is right, they’ll pounce. The requests for money will begin, as well as the emotional exploitation and manipulation.
To avoid falling prey to romance scammers you should never send money to people you don’t personally know outside of the confines of talking online. These scammers are particularly adept at making a victim think they know them and can trust them. But if you’ve never met a person in the real world, there’s always a good possibility that you’re talking to a cyber crook.
Romance scammers can make-up any reason as to why they need the victim to send money, but after looking at countless real-life scams, there are some re-occurring themes, which we discuss below.
(Read our full article on spotting romance scams here.)
Perhaps the most prolific theme among romance scammers is travel. Romance scammers will usually claim to be living in a different country than the victim. Either because they are currently working abroad (e.g. a contractor or member of the military) or simply because they are just a national of a different country. (We have an article about military romance scams here.)
This provides them with an opportunity to claim they need money to travel. This could be for a passport, other travel documentation, flight tickets or they may claim that they are required to have a certain amount of money in their bank account before being permitted to travel to the victim’s country.
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Crooks will deploy emotional exploitation on a victim if they believe it is needed to convince the victim to hand over money. One such effective way to do that is to claim they need emergency funds for unforeseen medical bills, whether they claim it’s for themselves or for a family member.
The crook may claim it is for emergency surgery or for medical bills for a long-term sickness that they have become unavailable to pay.
This is a popular method because it is designed to provoke an emotional reaction from the victim which increases the likelihood that they will send money.
Romance scammers may claim to have incurred large gambling debts and will plead with the victim to help them pay those debts. The scammer may manipulate the victim by claiming their life is in danger or that their relationship cannot progress if the gambling debts are not paid.
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This variant works similarly to an Advance Fee scam, whereby the victim is told to pay an amount of money in order to – they are told – receive a much larger pay-out. Of course the large pay-out doesn’t really exist.
With romance scams, this is often disguised as a loan for a business deal or opportunity. The scammer tells the victim they are on the cusp of closing a lucrative deal but need a loan from the victim to get them over the edge. The victim is told that they will be reimbursed (and more) upon completion.
This could take on the guise of an ordinary business deal such as a contracting deal, or even more unusual deal such as smuggling diamonds out of a country.
Romance scams are not always about just tricking a victim into sending a scammer money. Sometimes scammers try and lure victims into being a money mule. This means the victim is unwittingly moving money or laundering money on behalf of the scammers, so any paper trails will lead back to the victim.
In these cases, the victim is told to receive money into their bank account (or open a new bank account in their name in which to receive money) and then forward all (or a portion) of money received onto other bank accounts. In many cases the scammer will claim this is money the scammer owes other people and that they cannot pay the money from their own bank account.
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With all these cases, the simple solution is to never agree to send money (or receive money and forward it on) from someone you have never met in person. Such scammers are skilled at luring victim’s into trusting them, but if potential targets stick to easy-to-follow ground rules, they won’t find themselves the latest victim of a romance scam.
We have more details about how romance scams work and their tell-tale signs in our article on spotting romance scams here.