76 Year Old Lost Her Life Savings In A Romance Scam. Her Son Was No Help.

Jules said:
Yes, it is. In the case of the original story, what was the excuse for the son.
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It sounds like the deal was done before the son had a chance to suggest anything. The mom was in her late 70s. Had parents who refused to relinquish control, ask for advice or kept their finances mostly private until their late 80s. Although all he had to know or should've been alarmed by 'online', 'good deal', 'too good to be true' etc. Both probably led a crime free life ie never a victim of a crime or personally knew a victim(not me syndrome)
 
Old Salt said:
Or with those men? Just google "men who were duped online" and you will find hundreds of examples. Loneliness coupled with gullibililty is a formula for failure and heartbreak. Date the old fashioned way, never on the Internet. Some have been lucky but that's very rare.

Man duped out of €55,000 in online scam | Cyprus Mail

This one is a warning about scammers in general:

Romance scams in 2023 + online dating statistics - Norton
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You are right OS. Men do get duped. Hell, some get duped by women they do meet in person. He's older, she's a young, pretty thing who convinces him he's attractive/sexy. She's high maintenance and he's got money.
 

I do not use my real name on Facebook, and a hotmail addy. So anything addressed to Chris Richards automatically warns me. I really have to laugh when Chris gets a scam from someone pretending to be my buddy, offering me millions of dollars!
 
People are desparate for [what they convince themselves is love] I have never understood it but. I had a neighbor who told me face to face she was scared of growing old alone [adopted young adult child was drifting away].

She [neighbor] was dating two men, there was a Saturday afternoon show down right out in the street .... I was just glad no one was hurt as a resualt .

They both turned their backs on her , she met a third , they got married and moved away. I wish them well.

She was a nice person, just a-bit strange ... jmo
 
Sippican said:
Sometimes elderly will hide the fact they got scammed to save them from embarrassment to the family.
They don't want to appear old and feeble minded.
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That's true Sippi. Family and friends. And some, whose children don't treat them well, might fear facing elder abuse from their own children for making such a huge error in judgement...especially if it means their child(ren) won't be getting that inheritance they thought they would.

@Jules I didn't watch Dr. Phil, but I was channel surfing one day and came across a Dr. Phil episode featuring a woman who had given $300,000 to a man she met online. Her daughter and SIL had to get involved to save her from losing her house. After they loaned her money, she still sent $$$ to this man! He claimed to be in England, always had a health emergency needing money and had promised to visit her several times.

Of course each time, he was supposed to come, something came up. Dr. Phil and her daughter/SIL showed her how they knew it was a Nigerian scam artist. They had a voice recording and noted he didn't sound British at all. They also found that he had used a fake photo (of course) and pretty words he had "borrowed" from another source. She still didn't want to believe he had scammed her! Unbelievable!!
 
You cannot help the stupid! They think they know it all and will not listen to any advice no matter how good it is. This scam is as old as internet dating but stupid is stupid and they cannot learn.

Sorry! I wish the world would be different but it isn't. No matter how much you believe in love, the kindness of people, Jesus and other positive ideas, there will always be winners and there will always be losers. You just have to decide on which side you want to join.

I am not against internet dating since I have met 2 really wonderful ladies using this dating method. However, sending money to anyone who you never met, to my way of thinking, is totally stupid and makes no sense at all.
I have to admit that I do not feel sorry for this lady at all. As for the son, I believe that he will never be an Einstein.
 
They say during a con the grifters frequently exploit the victims/marks own greed. In this case could substitute the desire for love or companionship for the victim's greed.
 
Packerjohn said:
You cannot help the stupid! They think they know it all and will not listen to any advice no matter how good it is. This scam is as old as internet dating but stupid is stupid and they cannot learn.

Sorry! I wish the world would be different but it isn't. No matter how much you believe in love, the kindness of people, Jesus and other positive ideas, there will always be winners and there will always be losers. You just have to decide on which side you want to join.

I am not against internet dating since I have met 2 really wonderful ladies using this dating method. However, sending money to anyone who you never met, to my way of thinking, is totally stupid and makes no sense at all.
I have to admit that I do not feel sorry for this lady at all. As for the son, I believe that he will never be an Einstein.
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While I wouldn't be quite as harsh as you, the fact is she didn't "lose" her money, par se. She sent it to someone else. A fraudster. There is, essentially, no way to get the money back, to prosecute the people who do this, or to bring them to any kind of justice. The only remedy is education.

I just looked it up, and the stats says that in 2022, $1.3bn was lost to romance scams in the US. No need to wonder why the scammers are doing this. Tons of cash, low to no risk......
 
VaughanJB said:
While I wouldn't be quite as harsh as you, the fact is she didn't "lose" her money, par se. She sent it to someone else. A fraudster. There is, essentially, no way to get the money back, to prosecute the people who do this, or to bring them to any kind of justice. The only remedy is education.

I just looked it up, and the stats says that in 2022, $1.3bn was lost to romance scams in the US. No need to wonder why the scammers are doing this. Tons of cash, low to no risk......
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I don't know if you looked the stats up to verify what I wrote in the OP (I mentioned that stat), but you are right. $1.3 billion proves that these scams are quite lucrative.

@WhatInThe I'm thinking greed may have entered into it on the son's part. Maybe he thought..."Oh boy...we're getting a $670,000 home for only $78,000! That's a great deal." Down south, that kind of money buys a lot of house. But of course, him feeling that way is just conjecture on my part.
 
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OneEyedDiva said:
I don't know if you looked the stats up to verify what I wrote in the OP (I mentioned that stat), but you are right. $1.3 billion proves that these scams are quite lucrative.
@WhatInThe I'm thinking greed may have entered into it on the son's part. Maybe he thought..."Oh boy...we're getting a $670,000 home for only $78,000! That's a great deal." Down south, that kind of money buys a lot of house. But of course, him feeling that way is just conjecture on my part.
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I won't hazard a guess at what the son was thinking. Apparently he was not a big user of the net, because these scams are not exactly new.

The way some people throw around their life savings is mind-boggling. She's correct though, she won't be getting the money back.
 
Many of these stories about romance scams on the internet are the same over and over and over. They are something like this:
1. Lady meets man on some dating site.
2. They don't meet but he says he loves her
3. Lady falls for this line like a ton of bricks.
4. Man claims he wants to see her.
5. Man writes he cannot come right now because: a) he works on some oil field in the Middle East, b) Military,
c) any kind of cock and bull story.
6. He writes that he has been robbed
7. He writes to the lady, please help him out and send him some money.

I wish the ladies out there wouldn't be scammed but I can't stop them. Only the ladies can say NO!
 
These scammers are clever. They borrow photos and info from some person that is a military guy or doctor, or some other noble profession and build a fake profile. So it looks authentic, except for absence of meaningful posts. The son, perhaps in his 50‘s, was not too well versed in Facebook to recognize this. A check of the fake name would show an identical authentic person with that name.
 
I don't want to say they found a person's weak spot but just by appearing on certain websites or responding to posts the predator knows the victim over trusts people or is naive. Both of which they exploit in their cons.
 
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the common denominator is these people WANT to believe .... pure and simple .... Why in the world would anyone send money let alone a lot of money to someone they have never met. boggles ones mind ... you can develop close friendships but the first thing it to verify.
there are many ways to research.
I still believe in order to cut down on scams and ID theft .......Facebook can run a photo and see how many profiles using same sets of photos etc. They are simply not interested because shutting fake accounts down would hurt their # of accounts and such.
then from there most fake posts may have likes but not many comments and such or posts...
 
Loneliness plays a part, I think. Our bodies get old, but our need for a companion is strong is us all (well, other than the psychos :D) Not excusing the rookie error of sending money abroad, but as Jeni says, these people want to believe that there is still time to enjoy some time with a partner who loves them, and they can love. That's the truly sad part of it, imo.
 
My heart goes out to families who are defrauded by slimy opportunists.

I wrote a lengthy post about my FIL being fleeced out of over $10K. Though very canny and perceptive through most of his life, when in his early 80s he started having cognitive losses. When we interrupted the scam, we forwarded the calls to my business phone (and I changed the outgoing voice mail to "We're away from the phone right now; please leave a message" without stating the name of the company, my name or phone number).

The scammers were relentless in trying to keep DFIL hooked. Called all hours of the day and night. Sometimes every ten minutes.

To me, their ploys were clumsy and ridiculously transparent. These weren't sharp operators - but they were sharper than my FIL, which is all they needed to be. It costs them nothing to endlessly "fish" for vulnerable victims.

DH and I have no illusions/delusions that one day we might be similarly vulnerable and have asked our children to keep a sharp eye on our cognitive abilities.

The full story for those who haven't read it: Post 24
New Scam
 
StarSong said:
My heart goes out to families who are defrauded by slimy opportunists.

I wrote a lengthy post about my FIL being fleeced out of over $10K. Though very canny and perceptive through most of his life, when in his early 80s he started having cognitive losses. When we interrupted the scam, we forwarded the calls to my business phone (and I changed the outgoing voice mail to "We're away from the phone right now; please leave a message" without stating the name of the company, my name or phone number).

The scammers were relentless in trying to keep DFIL hooked. Called all hours of the day and night. Sometimes every ten minutes.

To me, their ploys were clumsy and ridiculously transparent. These weren't sharp operators - but they were sharper than my FIL, which is all they needed to be. It costs them nothing to endlessly "fish" for vulnerable victims.

DH and I have no illusions/delusions that one day we might be similarly vulnerable and have asked our children to keep a sharp eye on our cognitive abilities.

The full story for those who haven't read it: Post 24
New Scam
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Smart thing you did Star! Your FIL was lucky to have you intervene.
 

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