Online romance scams: Research reveals scammers’ tactics – and how to defend against them

Sometimes, true love is too good to be true. kate3155/iStock via Getty Images

Fangzhou Wang, University of Texas at Arlington

In the Netflix documentary “The Tinder Swindler,” victims exposed notorious con artist Simon Leviev, who posed as a wealthy diamond mogul on the popular dating app Tinder to deceive and scam numerous women out of millions of dollars. Leviev is a flashy example of a dating scammer, but criminal operations also prey on emotionally vulnerable people to gain their trust and exploit them financially.

The internet has revolutionized dating, and there has been a surge in U.S. adults using apps to find ideal matches post-pandemic. While these apps offer convenience for connecting with romantic partners, they also open the door to online romance scams. Criminals create both deceptive profiles and urgent scenarios to carry out the scam.

The Federal Trade Commission reports that nearly 70,000 Americans fell victim to online romantic scams in 2022, with reported losses topping US$1.3 billion.

Online romance scams exploit people through calculated online social engineering and deliberately deceptive communication tactics. In a series of research projects, my colleagues from Georgia State University, University of Alabama, University of South Florida and I focused on understanding how scammers operate, the cues that may prompt changes in their tactics and what measures people can take to defend themselves against falling victim to this scam.

Simon Leviev, the ‘Tinder Swindler,’ conned several women by posing as a diamond mogul.

How online romantic scams work

Online romance scams are not coincidental. They’re carefully planned schemes that follow distinct stages. Research has identified five stages:

  • Baiting victims with attractive profiles.
  • Grooming victims with intimacy.
  • Creating crises to extract money.
  • On occasion manipulating victims with blackmail.
  • Revealing the scam.

In short, scammers do not swindle victims by chance. They plan their actions in advance, patiently following their playbooks to ensure profitable outcomes. Scammers worm their way into a victim’s heart to gain access to their money through false pretenses.

In a previous study, my colleague Volkan Topalli and I analyzed victim testimonials from the website stop-scammers.com. Our research revealed scammers’ use of various social engineering techniques and crisis stories to prompt urgent requests. Scammers leveraged social norms, guilt and supposed emergencies to manipulate victims. Scammers also paid close attention to communication patterns and adapted their tactics based on victims’ responses. This interplay significantly influenced the overall operation of the scam.

Across the globe, online romance scammers use different techniques that vary across cultures to successfully defraud victims. In my recent research, for example, I looked closely into an online romance scam in China called “Sha Zhu Pan,” which loosely translates to “Pig Butchering Scam.” In Sha Zhu Pan, scammers bait and groom victims for financial exploitation through well-structured group setups. Multiple scammers across four groups – hosts, resources, IT and money laundering – persuade victims through romantic tactics to invest in fake apps or use fake gambling websites, convincing them to pay more and more without ever receiving their money back. Hosts interact with victims, resources members identify targets and collect information about them, IT creates the fake apps and websites, and the money launderers process the ill-gotten gains.

Deterrence and rewards

Like street robbers, online romance scammers can be influenced both positively and negatively by a range of situational cues that serve as incentives or deterrents.

Our investigation showed that deterrent messages can significantly affect scammers’ behavior. Here’s an example of a deterrent message: “I know you are scamming innocent people. My friend was recently arrested for the same offense and is facing five years in prison. You should stop before you face the same fate.” Based on live conversations with active scammers online, our recent analysis suggests that receiving deterrent messages reduced scammers’ response rate and their use of certain words, and increased the likelihood that when they sought further communications, they admitted they had done something wrong.

Our observations indicate that scammers not only diversify their approaches to prompt more responses, such as appealing to their romantic relationships, asking for identifying information and requesting victims switch to private chat platforms, but they also use several techniques for getting victims to overcome their misgivings about sending the scammers more money. For example, scammers subtly persuade victims to see themselves as holding more power in the interaction than they do.

Blocking scammers

There are methods that could help users defend against online romance scams.

In experimental findings, my colleagues and I suggest online apps, especially dating apps, implement warning messages. An example would be applying linguistics algorithms to identify keywords like “money,” “MoneyGram” and “bank” in conversations to alert potential victims of the scam and deter scammers from engaging further.

In addition, apps can use tools to detect counterfeit profile pictures and other types of image fraud. By concentrating on identifying scammers’ use of counterfeit profile pictures, this advanced algorithm holds the potential to preemptively hinder scammers from establishing fake profiles and initiating conversations from the outset.

The FBI gives advice on how to protect yourself from romance scams.

How to protect yourself

Online dating app users can take precautions when talking to strangers. There are five rules users should follow to steer clear of scammers:

  1. Avoid sharing financial information with or sending money to strangers.
  2. Refrain from sending private photos to strangers.
  3. Pay attention to spelling and grammar because scammers often claim to reside in English-speaking countries when they actually operate in non-Western countries.
  4. Use image and name-reverse searches.
  5. Confide in family and friends if you grow suspicious.

One last piece of advice to empower those who have fallen victim to online romance scams: Don’t blame yourself.

Take the courageous step of breaking free from the scam and seek support. Reach out to your loved ones, trustworthy third-party organizations and law enforcement agencies for help. This support network is essential in helping you restart your life and move forward.The Conversation

Fangzhou Wang, Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Texas at Arlington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.



SHARKNADO Swirls Back to the Big Screen to Celebrate a Decade of Chaos

Picture Source: The Asylum

Did you know? Sharknado is turning 10 this year! The first movie stormed onto Syfy on July 11, 2013, then, it became a series, spawning five insane sequels and two crazy spinoffs. To celebrate, the original Sharknado movie is coming back to theaters for two nights on August 15 & 16, all fancied up with new special effects and remastered in 4K! Check out the official trailer of the event below!



Before developing the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer’s early work revolutionized the field of quantum chemistry – and his theory is still used today

J. Robert Oppenheimer is responsible for a fundamental idea in the field of quantum chemistry. AP Photo/John Rooney

Aaron W. Harrison, Austin College

The release of the film “Oppenheimer,” in July 2023, has renewed interest in the enigmatic scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life. While Oppenheimer will always be recognized as the father of the atomic bomb, his early contributions to quantum mechanics form the bedrock of modern quantum chemistry. His work still informs how scientists think about the structure of molecules today.

Early on in the film, preeminent scientific figures of the time, including Nobel laureates Werner Heisenberg and Ernest Lawrence, compliment the young Oppenheimer on his groundbreaking work on molecules. As a physical chemist, Oppenheimer’s work on molecular quantum mechanics plays a major role in both my teaching and my research.

The Born-Oppenheimer approximation

In 1927, Oppenheimer published a paper called “On the Quantum Theory of Molecules” with his research adviser Max Born. This paper outlined what is commonly referred to as the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. While the name credits both Oppenheimer and his adviser, most historians recognize that the theory is mostly Oppenheimer’s work.

A black-and-white old photo of two men wearing jackets and ties. The one on the right is younger and looking down, in the backround is a blackboard with equations written on it.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, on the right, in 1947, speaking to mathematician Oswald Veblen at the Princeton Institute for Advance Study. AP/Anonymous

The Born-Oppenheimer approximation offers a way to simplify the complex problem of describing molecules at the atomic level.

Imagine you want to calculate the optimum molecular structure, chemical bonding patterns and physical properties of a molecule using quantum mechanics. You would start by defining the position and motion of all the atomic nuclei and electrons and calculating the important charge attractions and repulsions occurring between these particles in the molecule.

Calculating the properties of molecules gets even more complicated at the quantum level, where particles have wavelike properties and scientists can’t pinpoint their exact position. Instead, particles like electrons must be described by a wave function. A wave function describes the electron’s probability of being in a certain region of space. Determining this wave function and the corresponding energies of the molecule is what is known as solving the molecular Schrödinger equation.

Solving the Schrödinger equation lets scientists calculate the properties of a molecule.

Unfortunately, this equation cannot be solved exactly for even the simplest possible molecule, H₂⁺, which consists of three particles: two hydrogen nuclei (or protons) and one electron.

Oppenheimer’s approach provided a means to obtain an approximate solution. He observed that atomic nuclei are significantly heavier than electrons, with a single proton being nearly 2,000 times more massive than an electron. This means nuclei move much slower than electrons, so scientists can think of them as stationary objects while solving the Schrödinger equation solely for the electrons.

This method reduces the complexity of the calculation and enables scientists to determine the molecule’s wave function with relative ease.

This approximation may seem like a minor adjustment, but the Born-Oppenheimer approximation goes far beyond just simplifying quantum mechanics calculations on molecules. It actually shapes how chemists view molecules and chemical reactions.

When scientists visualize molecules, we usually think of them as a set of fixed nuclei with shared electrons that move between nuclei.
In chemistry class, students typically build “ball-and-stick” models consisting of rigid nuclei (balls) sharing electrons through a bonding framework (sticks). These models are a direct consequence of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation.

Three images, one on the left showing simple chemistry annotation of a hexagonal benzene ring of C for carbon connected to H for hydrogen. The second image shows the same shape, but with spheres to represent the atoms and sticks to represent bonds.
The ball-and-stick model shows nuclei represented by spheres – or balls – with shared electron bonds represented by sticks. This image shows the structure of a benzene molecule. Aaron Harrison

The Born-Oppenheimer approximation also influenced how scientists think about chemical reactions. During a chemical reaction, atomic nuclei are not stationary; they rearrange and move. Electron interactions guide the nuclei’s movements by forming an energy surface, which the nuclei can move on throughout the reaction. In this way, electrons drive the molecule’s progression through a chemical reaction. Oppenheimer demonstrated that the way electrons behave is the essence of chemistry as a science.

A diagram showing a graph of a chemical reaction, with a molecule arranged one way at the beginning, and another way at the end.
Molecules can change structure during a chemical reaction. Chem540grp1f08/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Computational quantum chemistry

In the century since the publication of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, scientists have vastly improved their ability to calculate the chemical structure and reactivity of molecules.

This field, known as computational quantum chemistry, has grown exponentially with the widespread availability of faster, more powerful high-end computational resources. Currently, chemists use computational quantum chemistry for various applications ranging from discovering novel pharmaceuticals to designing better photovoltaics before ever trying to produce them in the lab. At the core of much of this field of research is the Born-Oppenheimer approximation.

Despite its many uses, the Born-Oppenheimer approximation isn’t perfect. For example, the approximation often breaks down in light-driven chemical reactions, such as in the chemical reaction that allows animals to see light. Chemists are investigating workarounds for these cases. Nevertheless, the application of quantum chemistry made possible by the Born-Oppenheimer approximation will continue to expand and improve.

In the future, a new era of quantum computers could make computational quantum chemistry even more robust by performing faster computations on increasingly large molecular systems.The Conversation

Aaron W. Harrison, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Austin College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Science vs. Pseudoscience: 3 Ways to Spot Bad Science

Pseudoscience is composed of a set of theories, methods, and assumptions that may resemble scientific practices but lack genuine scientific validity. In the some of the worst cases, proponents of pseudoscience intentionally exploit this resemblance to deceive and take advantage of people. However, even when well-meaning, pseudoscience can prevent individuals from getting the help they truly need. In this video from Ted-Ed, learn about 3 factors that can help you spot pseudoscience.