I have recently been watching episodes on the ‘Catfished’ channel on YouTube. Catfishing, in this case, is the creation of a fake online profile and luring a target into an online romantic relationship, with the goal of getting money from the target.
The stories are shocking. The basic plot is that an older lady (usually) is contacted on social media by a man and he gives her some attention and expresses interest in her. For this article, I will assume that the scammer is male and his target is female. They chat frequently for a while and he makes her feel cared for. He eventually declares his love for her. Then after a few weeks, all sorts of ‘problems’ come up on the boyfriend’s side and he says he needs financial help.
During all this, the man is using stolen pictures on his profile to pretend to be someone else. When they speak on the phone (if at all), he disguises his (usually Nigerian) accent. There is usually some problem that he says makes video calls difficult or impossible. Alternatively, he sends a recorded video that eventually turns out to have been manipulated.
Some random points.
One, a lot of these scams would not work if the target simply had a bit more awareness. Not just awareness of the specific tactics used by the scammers, but also awareness of how the world works in general. For example, some of the scammers claim that they are in the military, yet they ask for money for food or for hospital bills, or to pay a fee in order to be excused from a specific mission. With some awareness, they would know that the military provides food and medical care for soldiers. They would also know that if your boyfriend is in jail, he probably will not be able to send you a (very clear) picture of himself behind bars.
Two, it seems that it’s true what people say: when a woman likes a man, she will do (almost?) anything for him. One lady sold her house to get her boyfriend out of some trouble. I think he said he was in jail. I asked a question similar to what I asked after ‘Tinder Swindler’ debuted – did she not have any friend to mention to that “I want to sell my house because of ABC?”.
Three, those scammers have mastered this particular aspect of human psychology. They have mastered their craft and they adapt to situations they face during execution. They manage to extract tens, and even hundreds, of thousands of dollars from their targets without ever meeting them. In some instances, they even speak rather harshly to them “Are you sending the money or not?” “Send the money now” and the targets comply!
One of the business thought leaders that I follow on LinkedIn posted that a business needs just four things:
– a specific problem to solve
– a small, niche audience
– a compelling offer
– a way to pay
Of course, I am not endorsing or approving of what these scammers do, but they have certainly identified or set up these four things in their ‘business,’ and are getting thousands of dollars from their ‘audience.’
The problem they seem to solve is that some people are lonely and feel starved of companionship.
Their niche audience is mostly retired and/or widowed people, though I watched some episodes where their targets were in their 20s.
The offer is individual, consistent attention, with the hope of a relationship, sometimes with a seemingly wealthy partner.
The way to pay is a rather elaborate network of other targets who send money back and forth based on some story that they have been told by the scammers. The scammers do this to make it more difficult to not only trace the movement of the funds but also to make it harder to link the money to the scammers.
These scammers operate with focus and consistency. How much more should we, who have helpful, genuine, legal and ethical offers, be doing?