The Dark Side of Online Romance: Scams
It’s easy to say, “That would never happen to me.” The reality is, anyone can be manipulated.
Episodes 5 and 6: There’s a stereotype that scam victims are easily misled. A PhD in chemistry, Carina helps dispel that myth. It’s not about how smart you are. People can be manipulated at any age and at any stage of their lives. Scammers use sophisticated psychological manipulation to steal. Organized crime groups invest significant time and money to create scripts to build trust with scam targets. And it works.
Carina met Evan on an online dating site. He lived in the same area and they had similar relationship goals. Within a few days, he asked to move the conversation to WhatsApp, where their bond started to evolve through text interactions.
Evan encouraged her to explore investing in crypto to pay off student loans and build savings. A wealthy businessperson, he coached her and gave her money to “experiment” with a trading platform. She quickly saw significant returns.
Meanwhile, Evan continued to build their personal relationship, asking about her interests and goals during affectionate conversations. In hindsight, he was doing research so he could say what she wanted to hear. He always found ways to delay actually meeting in person.
It’s easy to say, “That would never happen to me,” when you already know the end of the story. — Carina, Scam Survivor
Still seeing strong returns, he encouraged her to invest more. She sold her car. She borrowed against her retirement. Then came the complications. The fees and deadlines. Suddenly, she needed a lot more money. Evan assured her he’d help. She asked her family for money, confident that she could repay them soon.
When she went to cash out the accounts, support chat told her she had to pay a fee. Then there were penalties. And deadlines. And now Evan couldn’t access his money and got angry with her for not being supportive.
Carina finally confided in her family. Her stepfather did some research. He encouraged her to contact the trading platform directly. When she did, they informed her she didn’t have an account with them.
Evan wasn’t real. It was a pig-butchering scam.
She reported the scam to local law enforcement. The officer wasn’t familiar with the fraud she described, but told her that they’d get back to her in a few weeks. She reported the scam to crypto.com, Coinbase, and FBI IC3.
And she did much more than that. She learned about scamming, blockchain investigations, the truth about human trafficking behind the scams, and much more. It’s an intense story and definitely worth hearing.
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Episode sponsor: TRM Labs
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