I recently gave a talk to a local PROBUS Club (for over 55s who are retired), about my experience of being scammed. I’m getting better at doing these talks, but still am taken aback by some of the questions. The one that most niggled this day was if I had been single for much of my life.
“Ah!” He said, when I replied positively to this. In his mind I knew he had now 
put me in the box of “lonely, therefore scam- able”. I wanted to scream, because I knew he was also making the leap to “I’m not lonely, therefore it won’t happen to me”. They all wanted to believe “it won’t happen to me”. All 90 of them listening to my talk on how I was scammed. It was similar to those other questions which implied that I was gullible or stupid to fall for a scam.
Though I had explained that it was not loneliness which made you vulnerable, but rather naïvety to what it was like online, and so, not being prepared and forewarned, the question stayed with me. It was one that often came in these presentations.
It kept me awake all night thinking about how I could have respond to this automatic trigger. Having thought it through, now I was angry and wanted to scream “You are asking the wrong question! Instead you should be asking questions like who are the perpetrators? What are our police forces doing to prosecute them and lock them up, or at least protect us from them? They abuse us and take our money!”.
Why did it always come back to blaming us, the victims, for a personal attribute such as being lonely. They put all the responsibility on to us for everything that had happened, and this was neither fair, nor correct.
The way I saw it, it is a bit like rape. Fifty years ago a woman raped would have been asked if she had a short skirt on, or if she had already been with a man, and then blamed for “wanting it, attracting it”. Today we know better. We know that rape is perpetrated on women as a power game by men, and we know that whatever the circumstances, that this does not excuse the behaviour of the men, and that it is not the woman’s fault.
Being the victim of a scam is not our fault either, and attitudes will have to change the same way they did for rape victims. We did not ask to be scammed. Being lonely (and I deny that I was) is not a reason to be scammed.
Similarly with the grooming that pedophiles engage in for child sexual assault, we do not blame the child for complying with the pedophiles wishes, sometimes over years. There is a power imbalance there and we know it is not the child’s fault.
The outcome that scammers achieve through love bombing is similar in that it ensures compliance with their request for money. There is also a power imbalance, hidden behind that fact that that are lying, and manipulating our emotions with skill and deliberateness. We are also groomed, into a love state where our rational mind is dis-engaged and they can control us to do their bidding. I will have to do a better job of explaining this in future presentations.
Its too easy, when people have not experienced a scam and the emotional manipulation that takes place to explain away that a victim was scammed because they are lonely. And the research shows this to be the case.
In a small number of circumstances, it is likely that fraud victims could be understood as gullible, greedy, and naïve persons, but our research dispels this myth, rather arguing that the vast majority are not, and the reason many are susceptible to them results from the various techniques (such as social engineering and grooming) used by the fraudsters.♠
There had been few questions about the perpetrators from this 90 strong audience in the presentation. Few questions about what the police had done. Little anger that it could be allowed to happen. Little anger that my vulnerability had been so easily abused, no acknowledgement that these were evil people who abused others. The role of the perpetrator and and highly skilled and tech savvy nature of these criminals is ignored.
Perhaps the way I told my story incited this view. In speaking about what happened I wasn’t visibly contrite enough about it, I wasn’t being vulnerable and self admonishing enough about my own role in it. As a way to protect myself and not have to relive it all I had cut myself off from the emotion behind it and talked about it matter-of-fact-ly, and skipped over much of what happened too quickly so the impact of it was lost.
I will have to act the part of victim and explain it better next time. To make them more aware, that it can happen to anyone, that it could happen to them to, lonely or not.
♠Mark Button and Cassandra Cross, Cyber Frauds, scams and their Victims, Routledge, 2017, Page 63.
Dating sites are popular nowadays, and there are lots of scammers too. I had this bad experience, we’ve met each other 4 times and i really thought she was the one for me because I already proposed to her but after a couple of months i found out that she’s been talking with some other boys online using a different name in some dating sites. I found out also that she even made love with a foreign guy twice as her age just because of the money. I was so fucked up that time and I don’t know what to do, If I only knew, i should have done some research about Signs that she is a scammer just like what other people are doing. I was blinded with love that time so i didn’t care if she asked money before. If i only knew. So we better have to be careful especially those person we encountered online. Being scammed isn’t the victim’s fault, always remember that [Note to readers: this poster is touting for business. JM]
This is really sad. Scammers are everywhere especially in dating sites. So i think before getting involved with any body online, we really need to do some background check and loyalty test so that we really know who we are dealing with. Being scammed isn’t a joke especially if there is a money involved. Being scammed isn’t the victim’s fault. You just fell in love with the wrong person thinking that he is “the one”. We really have to be careful.
Victim shaming is something of our human nature, this alone deserves a PhD level of study to analyse why we do this. I think there are many books and references out there for why that is but I can’t really care for studying them as one of a victim of romance scam.
We do have to admit though that we have done it to other victims of other crimes, or not even for crime victims but say if something at work goes wrong we blame the most vulnerable person in the office. (e.g. junior staffs etc) when it really wasn’t his/her fault. This too I guess arise from the same or at least similar psychology behind.
I was never a victim of crimes before I was scammed. What the experience told me was that, 1) I am lucky enough to be on the OTHER SIDE of the world from the scammers, 2) I need to be kind to others because everyone is fighting their own war in their lives.
I have to say that those who shame victims, in various degrees, are either naive, inexperienced in plight of life (never got scammed, never got sick, never went hunger etc), or pure sociopath with void of empathy. I think the most fall into the “naive” or “inexperienced” categories.
Real question for us, victims, though is that can we forgive them?
Forgive their audacity, naive-ness, their ignorance.
It’s hard when our pain is still raw.
Thanks for sharing this experience. I’m sorry to admit that I might have been one of those who “blamed” the victim 12 months ago, or at least have thought “how could they get caught like this?” Now, having experienced a scam I see it very differently. No, I was not lonely and had always avoided responding to Facebook messages from strangers. In my case I had responded to a private message after a comment I made on a Christian musician’s website. The perpetrator’s hook was to present himself as a fellow Christian, something of course that I now doubt very much.
Thanks for your honesty Bernice. Sorry this happened to you too. Yes, they will use any hook that they think will work, and they are good at profiling you so they can do this.
Thanks Jan, I really appreciate what you are doing. A friend alerted me to your blog after hearing you interviewed. Listening to your story has really helped me come to grips with how I got hooked and helped me to feel less guilty about it. Fortunately for me I didn’t lose the amount of money that you did. I didn’t have as much to give away. However, I have still been disadvantaged by the amount lost. I wish you all the very best.
Hi Jan… I am currently being scammed. How can I report or be proactive now? I have finally come to the realization that this “relationship “ is a scam and I actually feel relieved. What can I do now? Please advise.
Than you,
Cathy P
Hi Cathy, report to ACORN if in Australia, and your local police, or to your local fraud reporting organisation if elsewhere. Break contact, change any passwords and if you have paid any money via your bank, get in touch with them to see if you can get any money returned.