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My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

bentasker.co.uk

11–20 of 172 posts

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#11
One warning, this scam, with it's fast timeline and request for funds to be sent to the girlfriend is a classic, but modern scams can be quite different than this.

"pig butchering" scams can run for months of contact with no requests for money, and then instead of asking for money, the user "invests" into what appear initialy to be profitable investments alongside the scammer.

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#12
post #8

I've never quite understood this sort of anti-scammer content and what its appeal is to readers. There are a million YouTube videos and other articles out there that explain, analyze, as well as mock[1] and denigrate scammers - who are essentially modern day slaves [2]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWzz3NeDz3E [2]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-02/human-trafficking-vie...

I can think of three things: serving as a guide, serving to raise awareness, and entertainment.

On the "serving as a guide" part, some people are activists and subscribe to the idea that if they are wasting a scammer's time, this means the scammer has one victim fewer.

On the raising awareness side, there are absolutely plenty of YouTube videos, but it's always good to educate people before they become targets. The psychological and financial impact of getting scammed can be devastating. Raised awareness could also prompt the authorities to crack down on scam centers.

On the entertainment side - some people just get a kick out of it.

Additionally, this particular article breaks down the various tactics used and teaches the reader to identify them.

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#13
post #8

I've never quite understood this sort of anti-scammer content and what its appeal is to readers. There are a million YouTube videos and other articles out there that explain, analyze, as well as mock[1] and denigrate scammers - who are essentially modern day slaves [2]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWzz3NeDz3E [2]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-02/human-trafficking-vie...

This deserves some nuance. Much of the scam-baiting content - in fact, all of the ones I'd seen until this post - revolves around tech support scams, advance fee scams and the likes, which unlike these romance scams are generally not done by slaves.

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#14
post #2

A bit of a missed opportunity with the war in Ukraine. He could have expressed pro-Ukraine sentiment and the (most likely Russian) scammer could have echoed them back and possibly be caught in a FSB dragnet.

Its also important to get the maximum engagement from the scammer. Text produced is work and time. This is the only thing you can cost them, so its time to engage chatgpt and have them stuck in a telenovella.

Modern lawyers use preproduced text blocks for their letters. I would like to believe, that scammers do the same. Probably they even have figured out what phrases are the most effective for good engagement.

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#15
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its also important to get the maximum engagement from the scammer. Text produced is work and time. This is the only thing you can cost them, so its time to engage chatgpt and have them stuck in a telenovella.

Modern lawyers use preproduced text blocks for their letters. I would like to believe, that scammers do the same. Probably they even have figured out what phrases are the most effective for good engagement.

Their early emails are often boilerplate, but once you get them out of their opening book, they have to write their own emails. I've often seen in advance fee scams, after the first few emails, there's a sudden decrease in the quality of the text, that's how you know they're writing their own emails

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#16
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was probably a Chinese slave in a Myanmar boiler room. Romance scammers and “pig butchering” scams are usually run by Asian gangs. Nasty folks. The “good” news, however, is that AI is likely to make a big impact, here, and reduce the need to kidnap poor folks.

Ha, with AI scammer traps (e.g [1]), it'll be AI lying to other AI, trillions of CPU cycles wasted accomplishing nothing other than speeding up the destruction of the planet. I suppose one can then declare the mission accomplished: zero scammers left on the planet. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV_SdCfZ-0s

> trillions of CPU cycles wasted accomplishing nothing other than speeding up the destruction of the planet.

Also known as "advertising".

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#17
post #2

A bit of a missed opportunity with the war in Ukraine. He could have expressed pro-Ukraine sentiment and the (most likely Russian) scammer could have echoed them back and possibly be caught in a FSB dragnet.

It was probably a Chinese slave in a Myanmar boiler room. Romance scammers and “pig butchering” scams are usually run by Asian gangs. Nasty folks. The “good” news, however, is that AI is likely to make a big impact, here, and reduce the need to kidnap poor folks.

Man, not even slaves are needed for scams anymore. Sad to see job losses even there... /s

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#19

One warning, this scam, with it's fast timeline and request for funds to be sent to the girlfriend is a classic, but modern scams can be quite different than this. "pig butchering" scams can run for months of contact with no requests for money, and then instead of asking for money, the user "invests" into what appear initialy to be profitable investments alongside the scammer.

I think at this point pig butchering is so famous that if you fall for it you'd fall for any scam.

Re: My Scammer Girlfriend: Baiting a Romance Fraudster

#20
post #19

One warning, this scam, with it's fast timeline and request for funds to be sent to the girlfriend is a classic, but modern scams can be quite different than this. "pig butchering" scams can run for months of contact with no requests for money, and then instead of asking for money, the user "invests" into what appear initialy to be profitable investments alongside the scammer.

I think at this point pig butchering is so famous that if you fall for it you'd fall for any scam.

If only that was true. In reality, outside of the more online-fraud-savvy demographics...
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