I have recently been contacted by two different people about variations on the theme of online dating. Both are worth passing on, to show that Online Dating Fraud comes in many forms, and the unscrupulous will stop at nothing to make money from the vulnerable and unwary.
Fake Match-Making Sites
Marriage Scams
The first of these variations is of online dating sites that are set up to defraud the person joining the site, by charging them money to connect with potential partners, when the partners are not really available, but paid by the dating site to pretend to be available, to lure partners to stay on the site and pay money for the privilege of contact, and pretend to be able and available to marry. Continue reading Variations on a theme – marriage scams
I frequently get letters from across the world from people who have just realised they have been scammed. These letters often talk about the shame and guilt that they have once they realised they have been scammed. How do I reply to them? I know they write to me because they must tell their story to someone, to make sense of it for themselves, and they know I will understand.
A recent writer said
I have been sending money to woman in ..[deleted for privacy].. for ..[deleted for privacy]… I am not stupid, and I realised that this could not be the real thing, but I continued to write to her. I denied the obvious for so long time. I feel ashamed of my self. I now delete all “her” e mails, but I still feel afraid and guilt.
‘Shame’ from The History of Emotions Blog
It is a challenge to know what to write to people in this situation. I have been there too, wondering if it is a scam, denying to myself that it is, wanting the dream that is promised so badly. But I have had a long time thinking (and writing) about it since.
The ACCC’s data shows that people aged 45 and over are disproportionately vulnerable to romance scams: those aged 65 and over have the highest rate of “conversion” after being contacted by a fraudster, at 55 per cent. I discuss some reasons why I think this is so.
I know I promised to do more on the book Cyber Love’s Illusions: the Healing Journey, but I have been distracted by preparing to move and doing some speaking engagements with the Yarra Plenty Regional Library network in north eastern Melbourne. This series of talks was organised as part of Seniors Week, and is my story of being caught in a romance scam, what happened, how I came through this, and how to be aware of the dangers. I’m also asked to cover all the different sorts of scams that people are experiencing. Continue reading Why are Seniors more susceptible to scams?
The definitive text on healing from being scammed is Cyber Love’s Illusions – The Healing Journey – Recovering from a Romance Scam, by Anna AldenTirrill and Jon van Helsing. Here I review the first section on the emotional aftermath of the scam and letting go.
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Cyber Love’s Illusions Book Cover
I have talked about various aspects of healing journey after being scammed in my posts here, mostly from my own experience. The definitive text is Cyber Love’s Illusions – The Healing Journey – Recovering from a Romance Scam, by Anna Alden Tirrill and Jon van Helsing. This is the companion book to Cyber Love’s Illusions: Anatomy of a Romance Scam. I have wanted to have these books for some time, but have not had the money to pay for them and shipping to Australia. A dear friend has gifted them to me, but only the first has arrived so far. Both books have at their core the information and experience gathered from the Yahoo group Romancescams run by the experienced team from www.rormancescams.org . They have supported tens of thousands of romance scam support group members and millions of visitors to their site.
I was pleased to see that the ‘Healing Journey’ book addresses the emotional aftermath of being scammed in one section and the practical and legal aftermath in another. I have made similar distinctions through my blog. So far, I have only read the first section, and plan to write my next blog on part two.
The first chapter helps readers identify if you have been scammed. There is a quiz, with 18 Yes/No questions. Three or more YES answers leads you to consider red flags to see if they apply including:
9 characteristics or behaviours of scammers on first contact
22 typical characteristics of their communication skills
21 habits that define them
3 inconsistencies noticed about scammers
If you have identified that you have been scammed from this, there are 7 things you should do, including an additional set of six activities to prove to yourself that the person is not who they say they are, provided by a Nigerian “deep throat”. A number of different scam scenarios are shared, as well as examples of types of photos used by scammers, actual IM conversations, and a fake passport. Its all very comprehensive so if you have had any doubts before now, if any of these apply to you there will be no lingering doubts. There is also a space at the end of each chapter to write down your own thoughts about information covered in the chapter.
Through the next chapters the difficulties of letting go of the fantasy relationship set up by the scammer are covered, including the similarities with Battered Women’s Syndrome, and the stages these women go through. To quote:
“In extreme cases of victimization, as with domestic abuse, the overriding emotions included: learned helplessness, loss of self-esteem, self-blame, anxiety, depression, fear, suspiciousness, loss of belief in the possibility of change, and the tendency to use self-destructive methods of coping with fear and stress, like food, drug or alcohol abuse. Battered Women’s Syndrome (BWS) is recognised in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) as a formal clinical syndrome within Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).”
And, when the eventual awakening to the scam happens,
“This awakening brings with it the emotional devastation, not only of a broken heart, but diminished self-image, demolished self-confidence, and the inability to trust oneself, one’s judgement, one’s feelings and ultimately, other people.”
I recently received feedback that at a particular outing, one of the other people there found me ‘unfriendly’. I realised that it was exactly this state of being described in this quote applying in my life. I could not put myself out there to be friendly because at that time I did not value myself as someone worth knowing.
Illusions of Love, by Kalolaina
The feeling of being emotionally raped and the stages of Rape Trauma Syndrome as it applies to romance scams are explored. There are quotes from victims of the difficulties they have in letting go of the fairy tale romance, the dream that has been built by the scammer, and the grief and loss that is experienced. The way I got through this was to go to www.romancescam.com and read the postings there of interactions of others with scammers. I soon saw that the scenarios were the same, the text was often the same, and sometimes the names are the same. The name of the daughter in my scam was Patience Blessing ( I just searched on the name Patience and found this). I found a scenario VERY similar to mine where the daughter was called Blessing Patience. By doing all this research I was able to see that the scam was NOT PERSONAL. It was not about me as a person at all. It was all about the money I could provide. Doing this enabled me to let go of the idea that there was a person there that loved me. I realised it was all just an act.
The difficult topic of cyber-love is explored, including how people are lured by wanting “to know they are desirable, special, wanted, loved and cherished”, into disrobing in front of a webcam. Whilst they think they are doing this in the privacy of their own home with the partner that they love, will marry, and who is caressing them with loving words in a seemingly mutual engagement, in reality they are doing this on a webcam beaming to a cyber-café, somewhere in Nigeria most likely, with men standing around ogling at them and laughing at them. The importance of this event in the mind of the victim cannot be underestimated however, as it signifies and further inflates a deep level of intimacy, that is a further manipulation of the victim into being emotionally likely to send money.
“Because the scammer uses this perceived intimacy to make inroads into the victim’s mind, emotions and will, he can often totally disengage the victim’s normal reasoning ability and her (or his) sense of discernment and judgement”.
This is a key ingredient in “taking the brain” that I talk about in a previous blog. I know the power of this intimacy from personal experience. I had not realised it was actually abuse until I read this in the Scams of the Heart Blog. I held on to a comment made by my scammer that he was “surprised that he found himself attracted to my body type” as an indication that he was really attracted to me way beyond the time when I let go of other beliefs that the scam had been real. Luckily for me I was not subject to a further blackmail scam with threats to make my ‘webcam’ activity public, but I do know of others who have received this threat.
Though its not the last chapter in this section on the emotional impacts, I will close this blog with this further quote from this great book which echoes mylast poston the Right of Reply:
“Above all else, victims need to understand that they DID NOTHING WRONG! They were being a loving, compassionate and caring person. They’re not stupid and they’re not to blame. They don’t need to put themselves down or let anyone else judge or criticise them.”
More on the book in my next blog.
Anna Alden Tirrill and Jon van Helsing, Cyber Love’s Illusions – The Healing Journey – Recovering from a Romance Scam, 2010 Published by White Cottage Publishing Company.
http://www.cyberlovesillusions.com/
This is the companion book to Cyber Love’s Illusions: Anatomy of a Romance Scam.
I felt moved to provide a ‘Right of Reply’ comment addressing the negative responses to a recent guest contributor blog posted on Starts at Sixty. Its re-posted here.
I recently wrote a blog about my scam experience which was posted on the Starts at Sixty website, which I have recently joined. As with previous publications by me or others, there were many comments questioning “how could she be so stupid?”, “hasn’t she seen the warnings?”, “why doesn’t she join a club?”, etc. There were also positive and supportive comments, but I felt moved to provide a ‘Right of Reply’ comment addressing the negative ones. The following is copied from my comment (Comment No 199) on Starts at sixty. I don’t know if it will be read by those who commented on the blog, but thought it was worth reposting here. Continue reading Right of Reply…
Following on from my last post The shame of being scammed, about some of the mechanisms of shame that operate around a romance scam and how debilitating this can be, in this post I will talk about how we get beyond the shame. If we let ourselves be defined by this shame, to let this shame consume us, we are unconsciously colluding with our scammer(s) to be the victim that they have taken advantage of. This post is about what to do about the shame when it incapacitates us.
Brené Brown talks in her work about how to stop the 3 requirements which allow shame to exist and grow: “Secrecy, Silence and Judgement”. She elaborates on how shame is often something we feel as result of childhood conditioning and wounding, and her work with gender differences for shame is also illuminating. Our focus in this post however is on the shame of a specific incident – the being scammed.
Nicholas de Castella talks about the cost of shame, including the energy lost through hiding and cutting off from our feelings, which in turn cuts us off from others. “In the splitting off process we lose our sense of aliveness and our sense of connection to our essential being” he claims. This may leave us feeling like we are “being reduced in size or diminished”, and also leads to feelings of “being separate and distant from others”.
I remember for the year or so after the scam how I would be reluctant to go out, except to family, and though I was talking to girlfriends, was unconsciously keeping it at a very surface level. I gave the impression of being very together and positive, whilst underneath I was feeling unworthy, shut down, and unable to be my confident self. How could anyone respect or trust me when I did not respect or trust myself. Though I did not realise it at the time, this also impacted how I operated at work. I was definitely diminished, cut off, and not my full self, just as de Castella suggests I would be when in a state of shame.
Only when I had to defend myself and justify what had happened to the Australian Tax Office (ATO), did I fully understand what had happened. The ATO wanted to tax me at a high level (46.5%) because of money I had taken out of a Self Managed Super Fund against regulations. In writing to the ATO I come to terms with the fact that it was not just ‘unfortunate’ that I had been scammed, as they had labelled it, but that I had been deliberately targeted by professional and skilled fraudsters who had groomed and manipulated my emotions so I would compliantly part with my money. It took a lot of researching of scamming to come to this realisation.
This fits with one of Brown’s four steps to deal with shame, which is to reality check the situation. One part of this when scammed is to truly understand that you have been defrauded, and the second part is to understand how deliberate an emotional manipulation this has been, and that it is not just a mistake that you have made. The relationship that the scammer has promised you was not real, and never was. From the outset the money they conned you into paying was never for the reasons they gave. The promises to return your money were never going to be kept. Though it may have seemed that you willingly gave money, your acquiescence was totally manipulated by their deliberate lies. The reality is that you were not at fault or to blame, in the same way that someone mugged is not to blame for the mugging, or someone who is raped is not to blame for that rape.
Understanding this also allowed me to have some compassion for myself, and for what I had done, and took away the self judgement and feeling of unworthiness. This in turn allowed me to talk with and reconnect more fully with others. As I wrote the Objection to the ATO ruling about this, I also shared it with my girlfriends. As de Castella says:
“One of the ways to release the charge on a particular incident that we feel ashamed of is to find a safe, honouring, non-judgemental space where we can bring what we are hiding out. A space where we will be honoured: seen, heard, felt and allowed to explore how we are feeling about it.”
Writing this objection to the ATO, even though it did not achieve an exemption from paying the tax, is the point at which I was able to shift from being a victim to being a survivor, and was able to fully acknowledge what had happened, and my true responsibility in it. It shifted the blame from me to the scammers, where it should reside. I was no longer feeling the ‘un-wholeness’ that was identified as a symptom of shame in the last blog post.
As an aside, the tax bill felt like I was being ‘fined’ for being a victim and left me with tens of thousands of dollars of debt in additional to what I had already lost in the scam.
In sharing the draft of the objection to the ATO with those close to me, and getting their feedback on it, I was able to break the silencerequirement for shame and fulfil another of Brown’s four steps – to reach out and share with someone you love and trust. This also allowed them to have some empathy for what had happened.
The third requirement for shame to exist is secrecy and the antidote to this is to speak out, to ‘speak shame’. “Shame cannot survive being spoken”, Brown says. This is the reason I have spoken to the press about my scam, why I write this blog, and why I started the Romance Scam Survivor Meetup in Melbourne. By becoming an Ambassador for ACORN, I have also been able to support the prevention message, and hopefully prevent others from having the same experience. From doing these things I have been able to regain my self-respect, and rebuild my strength and self-confidence.
The forth activity to combat shame and build resilience in dealing with shame, whenever it occurs, is to understand what triggers the shame feelings in us. Usually these are the legacies of our childhood, especially those common messages we receive at that time like “Don’t be seen”, “Don’t be heard”, etc.. The previous post talks about mechanisms which occur in scams. Understanding and awareness that our feelings are of shame enables us to not be caught in the judgement, silence and secrecy that maintains them, and instead to reality check the situation, share with friends about our feelings, and identify and speak out the shame that we are feeling (this does not have to be to the person who triggered the shame).
Having had my own baptism of fire experience with shame I find shame and how it operates within us fascinating. There is much more that I have not included here. I highly recommend reading more of these authors. Both add different and additional dimensions to the understanding of Shame and how to go beyond the shame…
After my last blog on the importance of speaking out about being scammed, I wanted to talk more about how Shame operates to keep us quiet, and the need to step out from behind shame.
Shame is one of the biggest factors that stops us talking about what has happened to us. It operates in several ways in romance scams, once we realise this is what has happened to us.
Firstly, we are ashamed of our own ability to not see through the scammer, because we have believed in their words and promises. We have thought we had something ‘special’. There is a societal expectations that we should be an effective judge of character and on this occasion we have been found wanting. We feel shame because we are not whole, we are deficient in this way because we do not have this skill. Because of this we do not deserve respect from others, and more painfully, we also no longer respect ourselves. We do not trust our own feelings, as a basis for action. Any trust in ourselves is broken. This is congruent with the definition given by Brené Brown, a leading exponent on shame mechanisms, who says a feeling of shame implies that we are a bad person, compared with a feeling of guilt, which points to a bad action or behavior.
Secondly, we feel shame because we have not had the security of our money as the highest motivation. Our western capitalist societies value financial security and rationality above all else, especially above love, which is seen as irrational. In this instance we have gone against this societal norm and given away our money because of love. Many of us who have done everything to assist our ‘loved one’ [the scammer] financially, have seriously and detrimentally damaged our own financial standing in the process, creating:
‘Shame’ painting by Carla Navoa
loss of security such as housing, now or future;
Loss of other valuables, assets, and ability to support ourselves into the future
loss of savings that we have work hard for years for;
increased credit through credit cards, loans, mortgages;
and at times, illegal activities such as stealing or using money that we are not entitled to use.
In some cases, it may be impossible to recover financially from these losses, and these losses may cause further financial detriment such as additional taxes or loss of credit ratings or bankruptcy.
Monica Lewinski: Shame and Survival, Vanity Fair
Thirdly, shame is generated by the fear of being publicly humiliated. As Monica Lewinsky has highlighted in her recent essays and TED talk on the Price of Shame, the internet as a tool for humiliation is very strong, and its power enormous, to reinforce our societal view of what we have done wrong, no matter how incorrect it is.
I have experienced this directly, in the Facebook comments to the exposé that I participated in on A Current Affair, and more recently, in comments attached to an article in the Daily Mail. In reading the comments you will see many people saying the comments below. These comments hurt, because they do not reflect an understanding of the situation, which can be seen from my responses to the comments.
“How could she be so stupid” (I wasn’t stupid, I was deliberately targeted by professional, manipulative and skilled fraudsters who have honed their skills by doing it thousands, perhaps millions of times. These skills include the “same type of mind control techniques used by cult leaders and domestic and dating violence perpetrators”[i]. I did not know I was being lied to and my feelings manipulated.)
“Hasn’t she heard all the warnings” (No. I was never interested in online dating before, so was not aware of the warnings. I did not even know there was a need for warnings. When I was warned, I was already ‘hooked’ in the relationship, and the scammer encouraged me to disassociate with those who were warning me.)
“How could she give money to someone she has not met” (This was someone [the scammer] who had built up such a degree of intimacy with me that I had agreed to marry him. This was not done lightly. I felt I had met and got to know him, so this premise is incorrect. Even though I had not seen him, I had talked incessantly with him. It is not like I was giving money to someone off the street that I had not met before.)
My understanding of the motives behind these comments is that evidence of being caught in a scam highlights a potential vulnerability that we all have, but don’t like the prospect of. Making the comment pushes this fear away from ourselves, with a haughty declaration of “It would never happen to me” that clearly sets THEM, the invincible ones apart from US , the ones who get conned and scammed. So it’s a separation defensive mechanism through creating superiority. Whilst I understand the mechanism impacting those who comment, the victim’s fear of public reaction and ridicule especially when not feeling strong in ourselves, makes us feel doubly ashamed.
Lastly, any research we do into scams tells us that we are unlikely to be able to do anything to get our money back, so we are unable to rectify the situation, to make it right again, to get retribution, to apportion blame where it should reside, with the scammer. In this we are powerless, and the lack of control we have mirrors the lack of control we had to be rational in the first place within the scam. We are again ashamed that we cannot now ‘fix’ or redress the situation. This powerlessness is in contrast to the multitude of TV shows that portray the criminal being caught and punished.
All of these mechanisms of shame coalesce when we realise we have been scammed, so it is not surprising that being scammed not much talked about, at least in an open exploratory way. Scams are talked about to shock people into taking more precautions, but for us this is too late.
Brené Brown[ii] says that there are 3 things which allow shame to exist: “Secrecy, Silence and Judgement”. All of these are in operation, in fact they spiral together when we realise we have been a victim of a romance scam. Its no wonder that people do not report scams, and do not tell family and friends about it either.
Nicholas de Castella comments about shame:
Shame is an emotion. It is the sadness (energy of loss) in which we feel that we are wrong, bad, flawed or invalid. A common reaction to feeling shame is to tighten our bodies, leaving us feeling numb, blank and unable to respond. This is a collapse of being into virtually non-emotional existence. Our right to ‘be’ is invalidated – challenging our right to: have an experience, to have an opinion, to have a feeling, to have an existence.[iii]
The experience of shock and shame you feel when you realise you have been scammed is truly debilitating for the victim.
In my next Blog, I will talk more about how to come out from behind the shame and become a survivor.
With this week being InternationalFraud Awareness Week there has been the release of a report on levels of fraud in the past year from the ACCC. Romance scams account for most money lost in scams. I have been called on for interviews for news articles and TV by a number of outlets, because of being an Ambassador for ACORN, and so declaring my willingness to speak out.
Speaking Up. Speaking Out.
I know I have an interesting romance scam story – I was caught in a romance scam, gave away over $260,000 expecting it to be returned, and lost it all. I noticed, however, as I was interviewed for TV, that I was happy and cheerful to be doing so. Even the questions about “What did you feel at the time?” I answered with a smile on my face. I have done this a few times now.
I know they come to me because there are not too many people willing to speak out about their experience. It is hard to publicly acknowledge that I fell in love, and I was fooled by their lies. People may think I am stupid, and I was. It is a vulnerable place to be.
In speaking out, though, I own what I was responsible for.
I own that I wanted love, and to be loved. That’s normal.
I own that I chose to follow my heart, in giving the money to the person I thought was my partner for life, rather than be ‘sensible’ or ‘reasonable’.
I own that I did not take heed of the warnings I was given, and stepped over the inconsistencies, thinking, no, feeling that I was ‘in love’ and that it could not be a scam with this level of intimacy.
I own that I made a mistake, and that this has made my finances precarious to say the least, now and into the future.
Many who suffer hardship turn around and fight for it to not happen to others. The Morcombes, and Rosie Batty are the most high profile ones that come to mind, but there are many. In speaking out, particularly with a message about prevention or recovery from scams, I am doing the same. I am saying I will no longer be a victim of this singular event, I will make it have a powerful and ongoing meaning in my life, and through this, the lives of others.
In speaking out I have regained my self-respect. I am not hiding my mistake behind shame and embarrassment. I proclaim that I am human, and that I can learn and grow from my mistake, and hopefully love again.
I have discovered a love of writing. As well as this blog I have written a book, though I am still looking for a publisher.
About scammers, I have learned
They are skilled professionals, manipulating us, twisting our love to defraud us of our money
It is not personal. By this I mean that they do not care about us personally. They are scamming many people at the same time, using the same photos and scripts/emails under different names, in teams. They actively lie to us, never intending to follow through on their promises.
I say this here because it is important to know about scammers. Without this it is too easy to say it is the victim’s fault, they were just stupid or naive. No, the victim was deliberately targeted and defrauded. And they should not be stigmatised with shame for falling victim to this. It can happen to anyone.
Be wary, and know how to check what’s true, i.e. do a Google photo search.
Never give money, or your bank details. Don’t think it is OK if you send money via banks: These are not safe institutions in the hands of scammers. Certainly do not send money via Western Union. The money can be collected from anywhere in the world despite where you think you send it to. No-one else is going to protect your money. I made over 20 separate transactions and was never asked by anyone if it could be a scam.
Rapid declarations of love are downright suspicious, especially when you have not met the person face-to-face, and no-matter how beguiling they sound. Scammers are very good at building up a sense of intimacy which makes you think it could not be a scam, but this is false. Promises to come and meet and marry you are false, and will never be fulfilled. Only communicate or date with someone who is local to your own area, that you can meet face-to-face.
Educate yourself about the various red flags which might indicate a scam, and if in doubt, treat it as if it is a scam. Here’s a great example from the Scam Disruption Project.
Speak out and educate others about what you are finding….
If you do actively protect yourself in this way it is possible to meet the love of your life online. Many people do.
This is how I came to be a Romance Scam Survivor. By powerfully speaking out. I will continue todo so.
I know the power of this intimacy from personal experience. I had not realised it was actually abuse until I read this in the Scams of the Heart Blog. I held on to a comment made by my scammer that he was “surprised that he found himself attracted to my body type” as an indication that he was really attracted to me way beyond the time when I let go of other beliefs that the scam had been real. Luckily for me I was not subject to a further blackmail scam with threats to make my ‘webcam’ activity public, but I do know of others who have received this threat.
