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Comment by michael_h | Hacker News Reader

The first day he messaged her, we told her it was a scam to take window's money. Four months later, when we discovered she had been talking to him in the intervening months, we showed her a few websites that detail exactly how the romance scam works (matching her situation exactly). Last weekend, when we found out all of her money was gone, we had the police and adult protective services come out and tell her point blank that she was being scammed.

She listens, agrees, and then sends him more money.

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There's an interesting concept I read about, how members of doomsday cults tend to believe MORE strongly after the doomsday date passes and everything is shown to be false.

It's something about cognitive dissonance.

I wonder if there is a known way to convince someone who is in this state. Cult debunkers and such might have thoughts?

William Miller predicted Jesus' return in the year 1843. When that didn't happen, he adjusted his calculations to mean March 21, 1844. When that failed, it became October 22, 1844. He kept modifying his prediction whenever it failed. You'd think being constantly proven wrong would make people stop believing him.

That's how the Seventh-day Adventist Church was started. A church that today has more than 18 million members.

You can't reason people out of something they didn't reason themselves into.

This is also how the JW's started, and frankly continue. The simple, sad reality is:

People mostly believe what they want to believe.

Once the snowball starts rolling, the later generations don't care much for the ridiculousness founding myths. It just becomes a traditional culture. Same for all religions, and heck, even nations

You could argue the same thing about Christianity in general; didn't Jesus prophesize his return to occur within a very short time after his death?

Who knows. It's hard to tell at a 2000 year remove, when it's known that various scriptures have been heavily edited, redacted, etc. Mostly it seems like he was an early version of "Reform" Judaism that turned into a cult.

Any supporting materials to what you just said?

http://www.nola.com/religion/index.ssf/2011/03/changes_to_th...

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/17/138281522/how-bible-stories-ev...

https://skepticalteacher.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/the-embarr...

Beyond that, it's the entire history of the document, with the first 400 or so years being particularly amusing. To be clear, it's not like the same isn't true for other scriptures. You know that lovely story about Moses' birth? Just a ripoff of Sargon of Akkad's origin story, which was almost certainly not original.

Whoever wrote the texts in the New Testament was clever enough to specify it vaguely. Short, for god, can be very long for you, mere mortal. Of course, there slipped an error in some of those texts where Jesus promised that this "short" means "within the lifetime" of those who he was speaking to. But, again, the Bible is so full of much more blatant inconsistencies that this got drowned down below. The believers don't mind, though...

Its that part that gives meaning to meaningless life's. You are not just somewhere in the middle - another layer in the boneyard, you are the last generation. Being special.

The workaround for that "lifetime" bit is the claim that one or more of the people present were allowed to live forever. There is no end to the layers of explanations.

SDA here -- that's partially true, but at some point he did realize there was no actual prediction in scripture about a specific date for the second coming. The church has made no such claims since the 19th century.

Are you a geek? Is there no way you can start impersonating him and telling her you've been lying to her etc

Or get her to start sending money to a different account, one registered in her name.

Aside from the fact that you're impersonating someone, what would the legal ramifications be of "stealing" from someone only to deposit the money in an account they nominally control, but aren't aware of?

the cynical side of me thinks some regional prosecutor would love to make a name for himself my throwing the book at you for doing such a thing...

Maybe DDOS the scammer somehow.

She's paying for companionship. It's basically prostitution. If you don't approve, find someone to give her more comfort than her courtesan does.

I assume that was written by a secondary account from someone here. It seems to be a common way around the HN demands for civility... :-(

Regarding the victim, my guess would be on early stages of dementia and/or emotional trauma after becoming a widow.

But if I would discuss this with a victim, I would try bringing up the psychology of a scammer. First in general terms, like the Nigeria letters, then the specifics about romance.

To really hurt someone this bad is not far from the level physical torture. It is not easy for normal people to live with the self image of destroying an innocent person's life in that way. So the perpetrators of such horrible acts have to despise and blame the victim. (This is what scare me about hateful political idealists, by the way, they tend to think people contradicting them are evil. Not an American, so this was not about the election.)

So scammers and criminals really hate and despise the victim.

(This scammer wasn't someone desperate or really poor, that is partly another discussion.)

Which gets me back to the what I comment on -- "hilop" could probably get a career in scamming, he has the right attitude to other people.

The post seemed pretty civil to me, just straight to the point. Everyone else is trying to solve the problem by banging a hammer into the nail more - maybe THIS way will help you show her it's a scam.

In my opinion, it's worth considering that she is aware(at least on some level) that this is a scam, and she just doesn't care, because she's too traumatized, because she longs for companionship, or whatever else reason. It's impossible to know without having a deep insight into michael_h's life, but it's worth considering.

Interesting point on the psychology of "bad" people. Could this logic relation be inverted? If you see humans as evil, you are more likely to be a criminal or evil-doer? Thus Pessimism is the first stage of psychopathy? I weep for the species. Also weeping for science.

Sorry for coming back late.

I didn't study psychology, but from reading a bit and seeing people over the years -- I think there is a common thread with a need for perpetrators to dehumanize their victims.

About being depressed over humanity:

Compare clan societies with modern welfare states. The genes are about the same, so humans are really flexible from cultural programming. Just think about how to organize societies to make for nice places and nice people.

The point is -- don't weep for humanity any more than you would weep for cameras, because they might also be used to make bad art. Instead, wonder how to improve art education.

Well, prostitution is physically sexual. So it's more like someone who gets addicted to camgirls. However those situations are mutually honest transactions. In this case she's being deceived and lacks the strength of character or mental stability to fully realize that or cope with it. I do agree that she's probably starved for affection.

Frankly, an escort or camgirl habit could be cheaper.

> I do agree that she's probably starved for affection.

This. And I suspect she's paying for the appearance of being treated seriously and having her emotions treated seriously, which OP clearly fails to deliver by arguing that she's wrong. I don't have many constructive ideas what to do, but don't repeat things that have never worked in the past and pay attention to her needs, not yours, might be a good starting point.

This line of reasoning is repeated in every single thread about the romance scams, and it's enraging.

You have no idea what the situation is. This isn't some old lady we stuffed in an apartment and ignored on the other side of the city. My wife talks to her every day and we see her in person 4-5 times a week. She comes over for dinner every single weekend. She was treated seriously, right up until the point that she lost her life savings and started laundering money.

My armchair speculation, based on interactions with some genuine freaks, is that she secretly is shit scared of making a fool of herself. In front of you, in front of others, in front of herself. And I really mean scared - she doesn't talk about it to anyone, doesn't even think about it, just avoids this issue altogether. Every possible action, every idea which leads to thoughts of failure is rejected.

Remember it's not only quarter million bucks, but also her romantic feelings and her faith in this scammer and people in general. And her judgment and common sense.

So by some stupid fluke she took this risk and now she will do everything to make it work and prove she's right. The scammer offers her a path forward by promising happiness ever after, you guys don't because you keep telling her she will fail. This is roughly what I meant by "appearance of being treated seriously".

Probably she had never been that much of a fool, maybe she heard people laughing at others who had, it's entirely possible that it just doesn't occur to her that anyone could be understood and respected after such a spectacular failure. Especially if all the way along everybody was telling her she's wrong. Now if she fails she expects to be alone with it and have no one to understand her. So she can't afford her marriage plan to fail and will systematically disregard all of your advice which would kill this plan.

So what can you do? Don't listen to me, I may be totally off the mark. Don't care too much about her words, don't argue, instead pay close attention to her emotions. BTW, don't expect her to acknowledge them verbally if you catch her hiding them, it's going nowhere. Figure out what she wants, what gives her hope, what makes her anxious (probably most of the things you've been doing so far). Let her talk to heart's content about her plans regarding this scumbag and don't distance yourself from them (they are bogus anyway), let her figure it out on her own. She already has all the data to decide, but refuses to think about it. Don't treat her like a child by repeating arguments she could already recite from memory or expecting her to say one thing or another. It's her internal thoughts that really matter and you know none of it.

Think. Get help from a pro psychologist if you don't trust Internet smart-asses. Disregard anything that doesn't apply, it's all based on my observations.

Good lord, just log in to her facebook and block the dude... better yet, change her email address for the account and then the password so she can't reset her password.

Done, done, and done. That was the first thing we did. Facebook was only the initial mode of communication - now they communicate by text, which I can't control.

Assuming her phone is configured to cloak the number in favor of the name, maybe you could grab her phone when she's asleep and swap the phone number for the scammer's contact with the number of your brand new burner phone from which you will impersonate the scammer from now on.

You could also record a video on your own phone as you swipe down through the scammer's texts as a crude way to archive them to study later so you get the impersonation right.

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