How Could She Be So Gullible?

[piggynose]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-54613937

[woofgang]

because she was vulnerable...and I don't think its kind to call her gullible.

[webbo3]

She even admits she was stupid
\\“I hold my hands up to being stupid and the naivety of it all.”//

Shes like one those women that go to Egypt or the Gambia and meet a waiter, bring him home and he does a runner with her money and a younger model

[Mamyalynne]

Lonely, still grieving - desperate for kindness, very sad.

[woofgang]

yup mamya....there but for the grace of God.

[Tuvok]

It happens to lots of people.

Doesn't have to be romance scams.

For a real life case Trilogy Media on Youtube met a victim of a refund scam - at first they thought they were going to meet a scammer. Even when confronted with the reality she still thought she was getting her money back.

https://youtu.be/i1Bu034pGdc

[LadyCG]

Haven't there been enough of these scams in recent years to serve as a warning to all women (or men), despite the depth of their loneliness and grief?

You never EVER give money to a stranger on the internet whom you've never met in person.

Looking back, before I met my ex-fiancé in person (we first started chatting on here), he was trying to tap me for money saying he hadn't got enough petrol to get home at the weekend to see his kids. I was immediately suspicious, particularly as he had been incommunicado the weekend before (claims his laptop was stolen from his car at some motorway services, but the Police miraculously found it the next day in a dawn raid in London - yeah right!). I never lent him any money but did go on to meet and become engaged to him and ultimately he did the dirty on me.

I have since found out he was with another woman on the weekend when he was incommunicado and he must have blown all his money on her, then tried to scrounge off me. What a waster.

Beware of parasites!

[Barmaid]

It is so very easy to sit on the sidelines and ask that. I mean who could be so stupid? The problem is that she is a victim to a confidence trickster who found and exploited her when she was vulnerable. I used to bait these chaps in a previous life - it kept them busy, I "de-educated" them and I used up their valuable internet time. The tricks they use are extraordinarily clever. But the best trick of all is the fact that they are promising love to someone who desperately misses it.

My own (94 year old) grandmother was a victim a few weeks ago (although not to a romance scammer) - the timing was just right. Her washing machine had broken and someone phoned regarding her "appliance". Before she knew it, she had given her card details out to a scammer who was ostensibly going to send an engineer out immediately. Thankfully, she called my mother, who called me and we stopped the card and emptied her bank account (legally - we are the attorneys). It could have been so much worse. But it must have been SO easy for them. She is still really upset at how stupid she was. No amount of reassurance that she was tricked will deal with that.

There are thousands who fall prey to these scammers, but they never report it for fear of being called stupid.

[david small]

There’s one born every minute. Shame that people exploit each other, but such is life. There are good souls that shine out like a beacon. Honesty, openness, attracts the duplicitous, and the nefarious. Wanna buy a bridge?

[LadyCG]

I see what you're saying, BM, but you cannot open a newspaper these days without reading one of these stories.

Your nan's case is somewhat different and my husband's grandparents recently had a similar unfortunate encounter with a bunch of tinkers after their living room fire packed up.

But women who hand over tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds to a man they've only ever communicated with via Whatsapp defy belief. Internet scammers preying on vulnerable, lonely women is hardly a new scourge. It's being going on since time immemorial.

[woofgang]

lady G the thing is that they are GOOD at it.

[LadyCG]

They are only as good as their victims are completely unmindful.

[webbo3]

If something looks to good to be true then it probably is.

[jim360]

Everyone thinks they'll beat the fraudsters until it's their turn. I don't think we should judge the victims so harshly.

[Sqad]

Jim..a tenner,yes,could you lend me £300.....maybe.................but £320,000.
Gullible IS the correct word.

[jim360]

I'm not disputing that, I'm just saying that we shouldn't blame the vulnerable for being so cheated.

[Sqad]

OK Jim.........

[woofgang]

no not unmindful. Hurt, lonely, vulnerable.

[Jackdaw33]

Lady CG @ 1907. I don't want to awaken unpleasant memories, but the name Bobjugs rings a bell.

[LadyCG]

That's was him, JD. An evil little maggot if ever there was one.

[Barmaid]

The difficulty is, it rarely matters how much coverage there is about such things. These scammers make people believe what they desperately want to believe and they exploit that. When I used to "play" with them, you'd be amazed at the kind of security they would offer when their pleas of undying love appeared not to work. To the untrained eye, they were very persuasive.

I actually had first hand experience of someone I knew falling victim. She wasnt unintelligent, she was just lonely and vulnerable and very very trusting. I had to employ some extremely underhand tactics to ensure she didnt lose any more money (and I never got the bottom of how much she had lost). The unfortunate fall out from my actions (although she did not realise it was me) was that her lover vanished.

Lady CG - I actually object to that. On behalf of maggots.