Romance fraud. Asking a remote acquaintance NOT a friend.

[hobbit.]

Has anyone ever been done in a romance fraud? what gave it away - was it the reference to a nigerian princess or norwegian Deepsea diver ? the fake passport photo - a head photoshopped onto a scanned passport rather than just a head on a stick? at which/what point did the law get involved? would you consider a long range romance again? (send bank details for verification of susceptibility)

 

[PaxNurgle]

I've luckily never sent money to anyone I have never met in person, but I HAVE been strung along by fake online profiles/scammers, on a couple different occasions. We would e-mail back and forth for a while but her replies were always vague and didn't always seem to be directly answering my own questions/comments. Then, a few messages into the relationship, would come the inevitable request for money. At which point I was lucky enough to step away and quit wasting my time.

 

[FL30]

It amazes me that people still fall for this. They'll gladly send money online to someone that they've never met yet refuse to help the person standing on the corner asking for a handout.

What's the difference between the two? They're both asking for money. One they can actually see and the other they can't, and they send the money to the one that they can't see and have never met.

Unfortunately, even if they get the law involved, there isn't much the law can do as the money is long gone into a foreign bank account that even if the money can be traced to, doesn't have the money in the account anymore.

 

[Chernosoth]

There are models who specialize in custom photos for catfishing scams.