> “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.