Victims of romance scams lost an estimated total of around $736 million last year, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
These scams are still going strong, said Guy Williams, president of Gulf Coast Bank and Trust. He explained the complicated, international web that fuels certain romance scams this week when he joined WWL’s Newell Normand.
“This romance scam really has legs, and one of the problems is – it’s being operated by very well-connected people in Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand,” said Williams. “These are people with connections to the government, people that own casinos.”
He said that these well-connected people lure people with English-speaking skills by promising them high-paying jobs.
“They’re literally taken prisoner, put in dormitories and forced to scam people all over the world. These operators are very sophisticated,” Williams added.
In addition to these “prisoner” employees, the scammers utilize scripts analyzed by psychologists, and artificial intelligence-generated images to conduct the scams, said Williams. For example, he received a text message from someone claiming to be “Linda from the pet store” who went on to send him a photo of an attractive woman – it turned out to be a scam attempt.
“One of the things the psychologists discovered is that people that are undergoing treatment for fatal diseases like cancer are very vulnerable emotionally,” Williams said, citing a news story about a woman with cancer who he said was scammed out of more than $2 million.
The FBI explained that romance scammers make targets believe “they are in a relationship (family, friendly, or romantic),” to trick them into sending money, personal and financial information, or items of value. This category includes any scam that pulls on a victim’s “heartstrings.”
Some tips the FBI offered for avoiding these scammers include:
· Don’t share personal information on social media
· Research people who try to contact you on the internet
· Ask a lot of questions when people try to establish a personal relationship over the internet
· Be wary of individuals who seem too perfect, or those who quickly want to communicate directly after connecting on a dating app
· Be wary if the individual attempts to isolate you from friends and family or if they request inappropriate photos or financial information
· Be wary of people who put off meeting in person
Additionally, the FBI said to “never send money to anyone you have only communicated with online or by phone.”