Romance scams to defraud your loved one of their life savings.

One woman went thru this horrible experience being really scammed by her husband. Now ex. He took loans and got involved in bad investments, lost everything.
She was so not interested in doing anything for herself, i.e putting money away into retirement account, because husband felt it was not a good idea.
After watching this W5 Cocaine Buttons and comments about women 50-60s being sheltered from finances, I am a little surprised, I think most are financially savvy.
And us caregivers, mostly age 50-60, if we take care of somebody for 10-20 years, how are we going to take care of ourselves?

I’m not worried about my single or divorced friends. One told me to shoot her if she ever considered marriage again. 😆

One of my friends was engaged many years ago. Her heart was broken when he called off the wedding.

Now, she is thrilled not to be attached to anyone. She is free to come and go as she pleases. She travels. She does date occasionally. She doesn’t even want a dog or cat!

It is sad that people fall for this nonsense. They have to be incredibly naive and vulnerable to get into a situation like that. Or perhaps they are desperate for companionship.

A married, male friend (who fancies himself a real catch but is most certainly not) was scammed out of $15,000+ last year. We know, because he tried to borrow money from us to hide his losses from his wife. We coaxed him to talk and it was clearly a romance/investment scam.

Last month he asked for tech help to set up financial transfers to a Swiss bank account. Some lovely woman in Switzerland talks with him everyday, and when she heard about his losses and she said she could help him earn the money back with super secret lucrative investments.

We explained the scam to him. But he is certain he is smarter than we are and, if only we were as smart as he is, we’d be able to understand his smart financial strategies and how much she obviously cares for him to help him this way.

We explained the situation to his wife. She knows he’s being scammed but figures it’s the price to pay for keeping him out of her hair. We tried to get her to understand that he can lose her money too, as most of it is in joint accounts. We suggested strategies to protect their money, privacy, etc, and she seemed very dismissive.

We also warned them that scammers trade information about gullible people. Sure enough, they’re now getting calls asking for help from “grandchildren” in trouble with the law. They said they recognized that as a scam. Because they have no kids nor grandchildren.

As we all know, you can’t help people who ignore the warnings, refute the evidence, double down, and refuse help.

The situation upset us. Thanks for letting me vent.

Dr Phil had a show on this one time. And a talk show life expert, I forget her name, did a show and both said the same thing...its a mindset. Like brain washing. The women are intelligent, hold down jobs and are independent. One woman was supporting 5 men and had never seen any them. Dr. Phil proved to the woman that all the men were fakes. She started crying when she finally realized everything Dr. P said was true.

I cannot see how anyone would fall for these scams now. Its all over the news how these are scams. I have never understood why people friend people they don't know on Facebook. I don't even friend friends of friends. If I don't know you, I don't friend u. I noticed on a few friends pages this woman always posting. So I asked who she was. Two of my friends said they really had no idea but she was a friend of a friend and had sent them a friend request. I found one friend who had graduated with the woman from the same school I did 4yrs later but I did not know her. Same with my other two friends, one graduated 3 yrs later the other 6yrs later but neither knew this woman but they friended her. I don't know u personally, I don't friend. Actually all my settings are private. I have gotten some friend requests from men I know are scams. Hey, I like my money too much to give it away. 😊

I have always wondered if anyone has turned the tables on these scammers. Like playing their game just to see how far they will go.

I understand the wanting a partner and being lonely. Sometimes I think a partner might be nice, have some company to enjoy... But, then I think NAH, I like the way I live, the space I have, and nobody to put expectations on me. I only have to answer to myself, oh and the cat. She is not too demanding, though.

I just cannot even imagine living with anyone after caregiving for four years and completely on my own now for the last eight years. Really strange things I think about.

I cannot imagine me ever falling for one of these scams. I find it unbelievable the number of people that do, and there are men and women! Just wild!

I had a 'friend' who never married, and after getting to know her better, I saw why.

She was in her late 40's when I first met her-she dated all the time and was on all the dating apps that were out there.

Picky doesn't begin to describe her choices--she'd meet a guy, go out with him for a bit and then he'd 'fail' some random test she had for new BF's. One was that if he liked Olive Garden, then he was considered a cheapskate loser and she'd dump him.

Many years passed and one day she shows me a weird pic of a 'kid' (she was 52 at the time, he was 24) who loved in Cyprus but was from Nigeria. She actually went to Cyprus to try to help him move back to Nigeria, or better yet, to America.

Complete and total scam and she is out thousands and thousands of $$. She finally MARRIED him, or at least that's what she believes happened when she finally got him sent back to Nigeria.

She lost her house here in America, lost her job and is living with her mom. She works 2 jobs and supports HIS family, although he cannot come to America...she is content just to say she's married.

She said to me "Think how stupid everyone is going to feel when I walk into church with my HUSBAND". I unthinkingly said "They're going to think you adopted a 25 yo man".

Welp--she never spoke to me again, which is fine.

IDK what she was thinking or what she's thinking now. I still cannot believe that she married a kid who could be HER kid.

Very definitely loneliness, but also a very high level of self esteem, where she was so doggone picky about whom she'd even date.

I think those articles are great suggestions.
But I believe it comes from something else.
Loneliness,self esteem, desire to help others?
Many women reaching 50-60 and either being divorced or windows want partners and who can blame them?
But what is astounding is how any woman would believe any man she never met who profess his undying love?
Somehow a good old fashioned rule of dating for a while does not seem so bad.
There was this terrifying episode on W5 few weeks ago, this woman was scammed twice, one time for money, second time she travelled to Africa and never met the guy, but he sent her clothes and asked to meet him in Hong Kong, clothes with lots of big buttons, she end up in jail for 15 or more years. The episode was named Cocaine Buttons.

It is said that AARP has interesting online information on all sorts of scams. Haven't myself gone there yet, so uncertain, but I do know they talk about sweetheart scams. Dr Phil does a lot of programs about this, but again, I don't know about what he might or might not have online on a website; just know it is an interest of his in the past.

Thanks for posting, Glad.