If you or somebody you know ever fell for a romance scam, how did you or the person fall for it?

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/855011

And when did you / the person you know realize he was scammed?

What tips do you have for people who haven’t lived this, so they don’t fall for it?

How long till they start asking for money?

What sites do scammers use? Can it be a facebook group or is it only limited to dating sites?

acetanilide ,

I once knew someone who got locked in.

I'm not sure how long they were in for but by the time I learned about it they were $75k+ in.

They met on some app that I can't remember what it was called. One of the weird ones that was in the news. Some sort of messaging app.

Anyway, the person I knew was some sort of computery accountant type person (not sure exactly what they did just know it involved both lol) so I was shocked that they fell for it.

They asked me to help them so I tried but they went right back to it. What's crazy is the person scamming them gave them access to an account that had like $1M in it. So I'm not sure why they believed the person needed money?? So weird.

My tip is: do not give anyone money. Ever.

wallybeavis ,

Check out this podcast (I'm sure you can find it on your favourite podcast app)
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1347-love-janessa

If you're on a scam binge, the NYT (yes, I know) Daily podcast did a piece on how drug cartels are scamming people using the sale of property

https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-daily-243479/episodes/how-one-family-lost-900000-in-206336812

moistclump ,

Also, this John Oliver: https://youtu.be/pLPpl2ISKTg?feature=shared

foggy ,

I got a kind of funny story with regards to these..

My girlfriend's Brother's family are nudists. Well, casually. Among their family is a teenaged boy. He got targeted by some bad people on the internet who did not know about their family being nudists, and tried to extort him after getting him to send them naked photos.

Kid just laughed it off and told them he didn't care. Told his parents. They reported it. All done.

Having once been a teenager, and seeing how damaging these campaigns have been towards young kids, respect to that whole family and that kid. 👊

wallybeavis ,

I feel bad for both parties in these scams. The scammer, from what I've read, is duped into the job and threatened with violence and death (along with their family) to continue the work. On the other side are the poor kids who risk a level of psychological damage that may take years to repair, if it can be repaired...all for a few bucks

GarytheSnail ,
@GarytheSnail@programming.dev avatar

Isn't your girlfriends brother's family also your girlfriends family?

foggy ,

No.

Her brother has kids. My girlfriend doesn't. Those kids are her extended family. Not her primary family, or "family," colloquially.

GarytheSnail ,
@GarytheSnail@programming.dev avatar

Oh gotcha. That makes sense.

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