Dr Elisabeth Carter, a criminologist and forensic linguist, investigates how fraudsters use language to scam people.
“They intentionally make victims feel as if they’re the ones making decisions that are reasonable and rational, so as not to raise alarm bells,” she explains. Scammers do this by making themselves seem very vulnerable, she says. “So if we’re talking about romance fraud, for example, they’ll say things like, ‘Oh, I’m new on this dating site.’”
Perpetrators will often say they’ve been scammed before, too. In the case of Cecilie’s scammer, who was the subject of Netflix’s 2022 documentary The Tinder Swindler, he said dangerous people were after him and were determined to hurt him. Cecilie’s scammer has not been convicted for the allegations she made against him.
Dr Carter says this behaviour has similarities to domestic abuse and coercive control.
Rebecca Mason is a fraud detective who specialises in romance scams. One red flag that’s consistent across these kinds of scams, she says, is that fraudsters are reluctant to meet you.
Analyse the messages you receive, she says. Look out for inconsistencies in how they speak, or if they forget small details often, because you might be speaking to multiple people. Romance scammers are often an organised crime gang, she explains.
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