One of Canada's most prolific romance scammers | Hacker News Reader

One of Canada's most prolific romance scammers

chatelaine.com

40 pointsaxiomdata31611 comments

> “What people don’t understand is how the victims in these scams are manipulated and groomed. For the criminals, this is their job and they are extremely good at it,” says Roy Beauchamp. In most cases a fraudster will start with “love bombing,” either online or in person. The technique—flooding a person with affection and attention to fast-track intimacy and build dependence—is also used in cult recruitment strategies. Mirroring—reflecting a person’s experiences, likes and dislikes—is another effective tool for creating the illusion of having found one’s “other half.”

It is easy to scoff at other people’s mistakes, but ultimately, we’re all a mess of biological impulses that want to be loved.

I like to think of myself as reasonably smart, but against someone like the guy described in this article? Who’s had tons of practice conning others? It would probably be like like going in the ring with a pro MMA fighter.

> A Federal Trade Commission survey from 2013 found that participants who had experienced trauma—a death, a divorce, a stressful career incident—in the previous 24 months were more than two-and-a-half times as likely to have experienced fraud than those who had not.

Astonishingly cruel.

I think the strategy is to avoid someone who doesn’t have a job locally that’s verifiable and not give them money.

The challenge is that even having a strategy fails when you’re in a vulnerable place and someone comes along and says and does all of the “right” things.

Many people are deeply lonely and will do and believe anything someone says if that someone is offering love and affection.

Usually people are not that blind. They pay others for their company when they make these mistakes.

Is a guy getting on hook for child support being scammed?

Is a guy on hook for alimony being scammed? I guess he also at some point was living under illusion that this relationship will last a lifetime.

I think personal matters like this are not worth going after, it's people making decisions based on evidences someone else provides them. Now if they lost the money, it's their own fault.

This goes places that probably aren't going to be much appreciated on HN. This is a hard problem to solve and it's complicated.

valuable and insightful comment

Vautour meaning vulture in French, nice aptonym.

This is a really big spectrum, and I wonder what the true cost is. Due to my position, I have a lot of firsthand knowledge from people who have either been unknowingly or knowingly 'scammed'. That is, some guys knew the women just wanted money in the end, but didn't mind because they loved having someone to talk to. Many were married. Some even 'married' women and brought them to the USA, under a relationship more akin to a caretaker than a wife. I guess both sides benefit in some way, but in reality, it's still a scam, if not to anyone but the US Government. And some truly just want money and disappear, which is what the article references. This happened to my aunt, and she wrote off her family for trying to stop her. Really sad.

I consider all three scams of some sort, and the real money involved would balloon.

You know what's interesting here? - The steps/trap or the playbook that these scammers have mastered

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