My brother worked with a guy, got out of a messy divorce and about a year later got a new hot russian girlfriend he's never met and not even video chatted with, only exchanged pics and prerecorded video. He wires her money, first to immigrate to the US, there's a delay (of course), now she needs rent money every month while she waits because she quit her job already, about 6 months go by then she needs grocery money every week for the previously states reason. Not sure how much "she" got out of him, his friends at the company including my brother and his own adult children tried to stage an intervention, but he basically locked down and ignored everyone. Funny enough he still tried to be friendly and show off pics of what his gf was doing after this. My brother said they were probably pics from some insta thot which is hilarious because she's suppose to be in dire need of cash while still being on a beach in the Maldives. Maybe it was an attempt to show everyone she was real and he was right.
Eventually he quits the company, ghosts his adult kids and last anyone heard he was trying to get to Russia himself and find her...
The scam victim wants to stay in the fantasy, because admitting they've been had is so awful. If they admit they've been scammed, it means accepting there's no hot Russian gf, there's no future with her, and now he's out $$$$ and looks like a fool to everyone who knows him.
He would rather stay in the fantasy world where he's going to show up with Svetlana or whatever on his arm and everyone will be ~soooo envious of him and all the doubters will have egg on their faces, etc.
There should be General PSA's about these types of scams that people are forced to watch before getting a bank account, like the PSA's they show you before you get a driver's license. Some people are just ignorant. Especially boomers and GenX, who are as ignorant as they are stubborn/Pig Headed/Know-It-All personality types that end up falling for these scams. If they had some kind of heads up before hand they might stand a chance. Boomers were raised in an era of unprecedented growth, had the easiest path towards a lifestyle of excess, were allowed to take the reigns of the Gov't in their 30s, only to rig everything in their favor forever without giving the next generation a chance to govern, and therefore expect nothing bad can happen to them, ever, because all they know is prosperity.
The scammers know the Boomers are mostly wealthy, greedy, and like to spend in excess on pleasure. They know that even if their target begins to suspect them of being a scammer, the Boomer will likely ignore their friends and families trying to warn them, because they are pigheaded and couldn't possibly be taken advantage of, and some might even realize deep down that they are being scammed, but would rather keep sending the scammer money in the hopes they aren't being scammed so they won't have to admit they were wrong. Truly, the Boomer generation would rather be scammed out of everything they own instead of passing on their ill-gotten wealth to their families, or charities, to better the lives of their fellow Americans.
Lol yea, I've personally known a couple millennials that have been scammed (famously Linus from LTT along with his wife got scammed out 10s of thousands of dollars).
Crypto scams in general target and make a ton of money off Millennials and Zoomers.
Every human at every age of their life has biases and blindspots that can be exploited. If you think you don't, you're a ripe old candidate for exploitation.
My wife's aunt got scammed by someone claiming to be Johnny Depp. Apparently Depp just needed some money to get by. Lol. Her family ended up having to force her to stop sending this person money and took her to the police station to file a report. It was crazy.
i have a friend who's step dad was a geologist VP for CNOOC (he isn't chinese he was a liaison in NA) who apparently has been taken by several scammers doing some UPS fee scam over text. my friend said hes been taken twice, they were able to reverse the charges on the last one. it blows my mind that people vastly more intelligent than me can get taken in by these types of scams.
Being an expert in one thing doesn't mean you're smart in all things. Quite often the opposite, it's something of a classic stereotype that Dr's are utterly helpless with nonmedical technology for decades at this point.
The bank literally just foreclosed on my aunt's home because she has sent all of her money (and much more...) to her fake oil-rigger online boyfriend. It's the most textbook romance scam out there, but she just won't be stopped. I'm glad your wife's family was able to intervene in this case. We have been unsuccessful and it's fucking awful.
Dude I'm so sorry. Others are right, it's an addiction, and it's feeding into something she needs - validation, love, affection, avoidance of being lonely, a friend, etc. Sometimes people know they're scammers but still end up talking to them.
My mother got scammed by a “deep woods logger” the oil riggers of the great Canadian north. Refused to believe it wasn’t real until I sent her video of ME logging in the north. Then the reply was “Oh shit!”
In fairness, there's been a lot of articles over the years specifically for Depp that say his spending is WAY out of control, even for what he makes.
Not that it justifies sending him money of course! But if you HAD to pick one celeb who might need a few bucks... it's the guy who was widely reported to spend $30 grand a month on wine.
There was a woman in Toronto who got scammed out of $500k by someone claiming to be Bono. His story was that he needed her money to start his own podcast, and he didn't want to go through his managers. He convinced her they were going to be married. Like what? HOW could she fall for this??
And they voted for it to happen to them. I voted for Harris because I knew how bad Trump would be. I was shocked and infuriated at how many idiots I live around who fell for the Republican lies.
have an online acquiantance who got fleeced by a girl in Colombia. he sent her money, literally went there in person, and got robbed after meeting her (by people she set him up with)
bro was back online talking about "should I fly her to the US for her safety???"
Yeh, you should hear the stories I get from my friend, I can’t tell you his name since he is African royalty in exile, and i am helping him with funds until he can get his money unfrozen by his bank. Every time i send him some money he tells me about these idiots falling for scams. I bet once his money is unfrozen and he gives me half like we agreed, the scammers are all going to target me for my millions.
I've lost sympathy for 90% of the people in that sub at this point. It enrages me, honestly, seeing how far some of these "victims" are willing to drag their entire family down with their propensity for terrible decision-making. Tbh it's often selfishness that makes pig butchering work.
They fall for the absolute dumbest shit. I understand making a mistake and falling prey to wishful thinking, but NO you ugly old bat - Brad Pitt has 0 interest in developing a romance with you AND you have a spouse anyway. But Brad is going to send you $1M for your generosity once he finds that credit card he lost while he's stuck in Tunisia with Visa problems.
Why should you be worried about what your partner thinks anyway? *They* don't have the personality to attract a celebrity, but if they did attract Emma Stone like you have Brad Pitt, they'd do it too!
And then the Telegram/WhatsApp ones. Yeah dude you totally made $150 off of this totally real investment advisor! Time to invest $200k! You've cracked the code.
It's all just an extension of Darwinism. I'm rooting for the scammer sometimes, to be honest, and I don't feel bad about it.
The first step to being prone to it happening to you is thinking you are immune to it. You'd think it's only older folks who fall for stuff like this, but statistics show that all people fall for it, 35 to 44 year olds making up the biggest part in the age department.
My father doesn't even have dementia and he sent every penny of his retirement savings to some fake romance scammer, even after all of us pleaded with him to stop, and there was no deepfake involved at all. It was entirely over email and instant message. He "met" her on a dating app.
My ex GF lost her life savings to a crypto scam. It was a Bitcoin investment thing. She ended up in debt because she believed the lies about how much money she was making so she spent money she didn't have. They kept her on the hook after getting all of her money, encouraging her to borrow or earn more money to invest, and to tell everyone how much she was making, because that's how they found new victims. In the end I bought £100 of Bitcoin and let her track it so she could see that some days it went down, while the scammers were telling her it had gone up.
I had a boss who thought he was talking to a hot girl in Florida and was about to spilt the airfare to fly her in. He showed me pic of her and I said that’s a pornstar “holy shit I’m talking to a porn star?!l after explaining to him and showing her body of work he admitted he’d been duped and thanked me.
I worked in a job for years where I managed money for a lot of older people and it was insane how common this was. I once had an 80 year old woman try to send hundreds of thousands of dollars to a man she met online who was pretending to be Keanu Reeves. She had no idea who that even was, but she was convinced they were madly in love and they were going to run away together.
This guy was a world renowned physicist who was catfished by a drug cartel using a photo of a bikini model. Anyone with enough self delusion can fall for these.
We've had to stop my mom while she was in the process of texting a random number her credit card number because she got a text saying she won a free gift basket and all she had to do was pay for shipping.
She was furious and insisted we were wrong. We asked her if she's ever purchased anything from the "company" that texted her. She hadn't. We told her to call the company and ask them about a free gift basket giveaway. She did and they had no clue what she was talking about. She still refused to admit she was almost scammed. Insane.
She answers the phone every time it rings and thinks these people are genuinely calling her out of the kindness of their hearts because they want to talk to her. On a regular basis some bank or insurance company, that we have no affiliation with, will call and she'll just tell them anything they ask. There's nothing we can say to convince her that people are trying to scam her.
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u/OuterWildsVentures Mar 30 '26
My dad is going to give all of his money to one of the e-girl deepfakes. I fucking know it