
Psychological Characteristics of Romance Scam Victims (2018) - laurex
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/cyber.2016.0729
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winchling
The reason these scams seem so crude and obvious, as I learnt from Daniel
Dennett, is that they're _designed that way_. They filter out the vast
majority of the population. The scammers can then focus on trying to reel in
potential victims, in a series of verbal/written exchanges, from the tiny pool
that remains.

~~~
precisioncoder
Interestingly enough if a large amount of people replied to fishing emails
they would become unprofitable as most of those people would not be tricked
into sending them money. If anyone felt like a charity project a chatbot that
contacted spam senders could put a lot of these scam operations out of
business...

~~~
daniel-cussen
I agree. The real solution is false victims, there to demand larger time
commitments from the scammers.

~~~
dsjoerg
Holy crap that could be a public charity. You donate $10 to help keep a
service running that honeypots the scammers. Like an automated / machine-
learning version of kitboga, the guy on twitch who scams people and thousands
of people watch him do it.

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emmelaich
This is confusing; from the abstract

> victims .. they tend to be .. less kind

which doesn't sound right to me. Then in the text there is

> it is hypothesized that individuals who score high on a survey measuring
> kindness are more likely to be victims of romance scams

which is the opposite?

A typo in the abstract perhaps?

~~~
hatmatrix
The answer is in the article.

Hypothesis:

> Little is known about whether the victims of MMF are more kind compared with
> nonvictims; however, given that many of the romance scam narratives involve
> a victim helping out another it is hypothesized that individuals who score
> high on a survey measuring kindness are more likely to be victims of romance
> scams (H9) compared with those who have not become victims of romance scams.

Method of measurement:

> Participants were asked to complete a series of demographic questions (e.g.,
> age, gender, education, knowledge about cybersecurity), personality items
> (e.g., impulsivity, locus of control, trust in others, trustworthiness,
> kindness, greed, addiction disposition), and whether they had been scammed
> by MMF. They were also asked specially whether they had been scammed by the
> romance scam.

Interpretation of findings:

> The finding that less kind individuals were more likely to be scammed by
> romance scams was less easy to explain. Perhaps, less kind individuals have
> fewer networks to help them check profiles or perhaps they seek out more
> harmful relationships. Kindness might also be a more transitory disposition.
> At the time of the scam, researchers have found that criminals isolate the
> victim from loved ones and push them to focus their time and resources on
> the fictitious relationship. They have also found that it is difficult for
> victims to rebuild their social networks after the scam has taken place.
> This might explain why victims of romance scams are less likely to rate
> highly items such as: “going out of their way to cheer up people who appear
> down,” “helping out a neighbor in the last month,” “getting excited by
> others good fortunes,” or “calling their friends when they are ill.”

~~~
gwd
> The finding that less kind individuals were more likely to be scammed by
> romance scams was less easy to explain.

My hypothesis would be this:

\- There are two things which encourage the average human being to form
relationships: 1. the pleasure of doing good to other people / seeing other
people happy 2. the pain of being lonely.

\- "Kindness" is essentially a measure of #1. People who are naturally more
kind have more friends, and thus are less at risk of experiencing loneliness.
People who are less naturally kind, but still find loneliness painful, are
more driven by #2 to act somewhat against their inclinations in order to
maintain relationships. They thus have fewer relationships, those
relationships are perceived as requiring more effort, and they are more at
risk of experiencing loneliness.

\- The "romance" scam involves someone treating someone well _almost no matter
how they act_. The relationship is maintained whether the victim is kind or
not; and thus the victim gets their need for a relationship fulfilled without
the extra effort required from other relationships.

\- So a person who is less kind has much more to lose from losing their
relationship than a kind person. A kind person is much less at risk of being
lonely, and is more likely to feel like they can create other relationships if
the "scam" one fails. An unkind person is much more at a risk of being lonely,
and much more likely to feel like replacing the "scam" relationship will be
difficult.

\- This drives an unkind person to be more desperate to maintain the "scam"
relationship than a a kind person

