All the lonely people . . .
Increasingly efficient traps seem to be awaiting those looking for love online.
Purchase scams? Nasty. Investment scams? Even worse. But for moistlipped avarice the romance scam is the most lowdown of the lot. No longer are these villains oily Lotharios working in isolation. They are increasingly being revealed as skilled overseas teams, operating like little businesses, capable of diligent research, adept fakery, real patience and reactive slyness as they set about breaking hearts to empty bank accounts.
These villains don’t prey on greed or laziness. Or even simple naivete.
They target their betrayals on the lonely and the isolated.
And if their victims aren’t already sufficiently separated from people who love and support them, then the tactic often becomes to fan mistrust of real-life families and friends, heightening their vulnerability and dependency to the point they can be left broke and emotionally brutalised.
The elaborate Tinder swindle revealed by Stuff, in which three New Zealand women collectively lost more than $2 million, reveals much about how elaborate their methodology is, and how cruel the outcomes.
To some extent, yes, there are areas in which public and private institutions can lift their game. It may prove a useful exercise that Parliament’s finance and expenditure committee has opened a briefing on banks’ responsibility to identify the hallmarks of these scams – a move particularly necessary given the banking ombudsman Nicola Sladden’s investigation has highlighted that, at least under the rules as they stand, the banks didn’t fail to meet the level of diligence required at present when transactions were authorised by the people whose money it is.
But more, yet, could be required of banks by way of reasonable steps to identify and react to red flags. A case in point would be where they have been willing to lend to people who have emptied their own accounts for reasons they are reluctant to discuss.
There are much wider issues here in any case. This is not a problem that banks and investigative resources can entirely fix.
There are so many potential victims out there.
Emotional wellbeing is at a low ebb. These are frightening days. Worries about health, housing, job security, the cost of living, weigh heavily on even well-supported people. So many are looking for somebody out there who will listen, will understand, will be willing to get close to them.
The online realms offer a huge array of ways for people to connect with one another, but it is also a universe that includes many facades, much echoing untruth, and the ability for putative friends to seemingly materialise, and then effortlessly dematerialise.
Such mirages can themselves be more of an isolating influence than a connective one; concentrating attentions to online activity while the real world outside passes people by. The more that the real world’s better representatives can show a compassionate, caring interest, the better the chances of people escaping the thrall of the deceivers.
And it doesn’t hurt for everyone to be armed with the tools to identify romance scams; the way they often (not always) move quickly to expressions of love or strong feelings; the way personal troubles that can be solved with money tend to arise; the way they don’t want to meet in person unless, perhaps, you could meet their travel costs.
For self protection; don’t respond to requests or hints for money, or send money to anyone you feel you’re in a relationship with but don’t know or haven’t met in person. Don’t give out personal details that could be used to impersonate you. You could be the benign identity face the scammer adopts to trick the next person.