This is horrifying. From your perspective, what's the hook that gets a person to hand over the money? Is it to make return on investment, or is it because they think the scammer loves them, or some other reason?
This is horrifying. From your perspective, what's the hook that gets a person to hand over the money? Is it to make return on investment, or is it because they think the scammer loves them, or some other reason?
I cannot find the article again, it was posted here a few months ago so maybe someone knows of it but,
A guy intentionally went down the rabbit hole of one of these and wrote about the anatomy of it. In his case it was a young (like 30 something young) woman who graduated at the top of dentistry school in Uzbekistan and got a large grant to start a practice in the UK. Something like that. They talked/flirted for weeks/months, sent pictures, all that. The mark of course lives in the UK and she will need a place to stay while she gets her feet on the ground.
Finally right as she is leaving to come to the UK there is a bureaucratic problem and she needs ~$10k to resolve it quickly before the grant lapses, and she cannot access the grant money for expenses until she is in the UK. Also her bank froze her account because of this mess so she needs to use these alternate means to get the money to her, and she can immediately pay you back upon arrival. You get the idea.
I found it again: https://www.bentasker.co.uk/posts/blog/security/seducing-a-r...
Pretty simple, for women; the promise of companionship, romance, someone to listen to them.
For men; sexy pictures, flirting, promises or chances of physical intimacy.
Older, single or widowed people are especially vulnerable.
Usually it's a combination of both. The scammer works their mark for months and develops a deep relationship with the victim ("fattening the pig") before moving to the next phase where they mention how they started making tons of money in crypto, or recently got into financial trouble and need help, or similar ("butchering the pig").
I think in his case they simply built up trust, and made it seem incredibly casual. It's hard for me to know exactly because I wasn't super privvy to what was going on, but by the time I talked to him about it he effectively trusted them over me.
It all would have been so clearly a scam to anyone with any internet sense at all it blew my mind he would have been fooled.