What if the real fantasy was to shoot a would-be rapist? :eek:
I’m curious about something that seems fairly obvious to people on the outside would be so effective in getting its hooks into people. What psychological angles do the scammers work?
I think the answer is in the thread title: they’re lonely. The desire for love and companionship is a powerful one.
That was also the subject of a Law & Order SVU episode from 2009.
OMG! Thanks for posting that.
I was imagining other types of scams, but this one makes more sense than anything I thought of.
People are really disgusting.
Yeah, but eventually you should use common sense.
I mean, come on, sending thousands of dollars to someone you’ve never even met? There’s vulnerable, and then there’s stupid.
I work for a company that provides a variety of services for military members, and civilians often call us when they are attempting to track down a military member or get what they think is necessary assistance for a service member (“I need to fill out form D2485 so that my fiance (who I’ve never met in person) can come back to the US on R&R so we can get married- do you know where I can find this form? I have his commander’s (gmail) email address to send it to and the $5000 to pay for his airfare…”).
**The Closer **used it as well.
In truth, the lies are never even that good, but either these women are old enough that they lack google skills, or they want to believe the lie more than they worry about being ripped off.
The military is a tempting lie because unless you have been in it, or part of a military family, it’s kind of a mystery.