Psychology of a victim

[JulieNP]

That is great ladibird - it has been almost 3 years for me since my scam and I am not ashamed to share that even today when I happen across a photo or letter from my scammer I have a very visceral reaction. But then I come to my senses and realize who and what this individual was and say a silent prayer for karma to take over. Hang in there this too shall pass.

Julie

[NiceNYGirl]

Hi - Pinky is absolutely correct (not that she needs me to tell her that ). It is one of the things I enjoy most about baiting - the art of wasting their time, the thrill of knowing they are counting their $$ before they get it, the chase when they keep trying to call me and I ignore their calls and texts because they believe there is a big payday coming and finally knowing that when they realize there is no payday that their day is ruined and hopefully some other lucky gal is being given enough time to do her homework before she gets sucked into their scam.

I find it interesting that when I am not in the mood to play with them that I will get an email telling me they have to break it off because they can't be with a woman who isn't who she says she is! Oh you mean obedient and dedicated to your bull?!?

ladybird this too shall pass and I concur you need to stop contact immediately as I don't believe you have enough internal strength to play with your scammer and there is certainly enough documentation on this site alone to support that SweetK is a POS and deserves to rot in hell.

Julie

I did this very thing to my scammer-
I kept them dangling saying I had a large "loan" coming due and every time it would come I would make up another story about why I could send the money.
I could see steam coming out of the computer!!! HaHaHa!!!

[Wingman182]

As I understand it this thread is intended as open discussion to talk about various elements of psychological aspects that scammers can use to embed themselves into a victims life.
Well I think I have a different angle to bring up that may bring with it very different reactions.
It starts with a simple thing. And it's something we have all done at some point in our lives.
And it dose not matter. Young or older, male or female. At some point we have all painted a portrait in our minds eye of that perfect special someone we would meet and spend the rest of our lives with. This is a normal thing, and it's natural to do. And it's harmless, or so we think.
Because I believe scammers love it when we do this. Why? Because even though everyone will have a slightly, or drastically different final image in their mind. Like anything else these portraits all start with a bass foundation. And that foundation is based on an impossible fantasy. It's based on stereotypical standards that have been hammered into us from as far back as we can remember. Standards that dictate what is and is not beautiful. What is and is not desirable. And I have come up with a name for this hammer. And I have chosen to call it “Social per-programming”
This per-programming is infused into us during our developmental years as we grow up. It is encouraged by our patents. It is pressured into us by our piers and friends in high school when we are starting to think about dating. And we are surrounded by it everywhere we go. It's on billboards. It's on T.V. It's in the magazines we read. No matter where you go we are constantly reminded of this set standard that is dictated by social per-programming.
But where did this standard come from, and why was it established? Answer; Capitalism. Because the quest of becoming attractive sells.
Public enemy number one would be the fashion industry who sell their products with fantasy. If we are to believe what their version of what beauty is to be true. Then all woman need to be moderately tall and so thin as to be anorexic. And all men must be tall, built, and boast thick lush hair.
Then there is the fitness industry selling better bodies by showing us these before and after photos of people. And this is to reinforce the standard that thin is good, but to have even just a little meat on your bones is bad and undesirable.
But has this always been the standard? Of course not. It had changed and altered throughout time. In fact ladies, historically speaking, it was not that long ago that in order to be thought of as beautiful in public you had to subject yourself to a mid evil devise called the corset. And with the help of at least one other person it was used to squeeze, constrict, and gradually crush the mid section rearranging the internal organs along the way. All to achieve the smallest waist line possible. Why? The social per-programming of the day dictated that the small the waist, the greater the beauty.
Now on the flip side of the coin there are tribes in Africa that view larger, hardy woman. Because in their culture, or social per-programming a larger woman is a sign of good health. And give her a better chance of not only surviving the harsh environment that they live in. But also maintain her health during pregnancy and later nursing their young.
Venturing into any art museum and looking at painting of around the sixteenth century would emphasize this opinion. You won't see any ultra thin super models portrayed there. No, what you will find are painting of larger, hardier woman.
These examples could go on forever but I do want to mention just one more.
The famous Geisha's of Japan who's beauty is measured by the size of their feet. Again the smaller the feet, the greater the beauty. And in order to achieve these tiny little feet a young Japanese girl who is chosen to become a Geisha. (as part of the initial training) must have the bones in her feet deliberately broken. Then bound in tightly wrapped cloth, and forced to heal in an unnatural fashion.
If you were to see an authentic Geisha barefoot when you looked down you would not see anything even closely resembling a human foot. What you would see however would more likely remind you of a horses hove.
Now are any of these example the right or wrong standard? Who's to say. I'm certainly not qualified to judge. But if the modern day standard is the correct one then most of man kind is doomed to be undesirable from the day we are born. We are too short. We can't have our bodies stretched. If we have large bones we can't have our bones shrunk.
But the portraits we form in our minds eye are not confined by these limitations. We can mold them anyway we like. Further more we give these portraits personality's which elevate them to the ultimate perfect special someone.
Now enter the romance scammer. Who asks so many questions in the beginning, but answers so few of their own. Or just give vague or illusive answers. That's because they use the victims answers to start painting themselves into the portrait we have in our minds. And if successful they become a living, breathing manifestation of our ultimate perfect special someone. After that no real person we could ever meet in real life could ever measure up. Because the standard had already been filled.
And I believe this is why the pain a victim can experience can be so gut retching. Because suffering a broken heart over a normal relationship with a real person is bad enough. But to have your heart broken by your ultimate special someone. That one person in all the world who could never do anything to hurt you. The resulting pain can be devastating.

Thank you social per-programming. Thank you so very much.

[keira]

Hi Wingman182,
It is true that the standard about how much fat women should have differs from culture to culture and changed in history, but what stays the same is the waist - hip ratio that should be in a certain interval to be considered as beautiful. The right waist - hip ratio ensures good pregnancy and things connected with it, and the preference to healthy women with a good potential of giving birth to a healthy child is innate, it's in men 's brain. Corsets are maybe some kind of "overstimulation". Like in animated films they make women' s legs longer than it is normal in reality, or using high heals to make the legs look abnormally long, or legs to look abnormally small by binding. As for fat, it can be different in cultures what is the sign of well-being. In developed countries it is a slim woman, and in not developed countries a fat woman. But with the right waist-hip ratio. So it is only partly true that the media and industry forces on us what is beautiful, because the media just shows us what is in our minds naturally - although with some exaggeration. Then there are some individual preferences, which is called "lovemaps". Like you wrote : painting the picture. We do this unconsciously, through our development from early childhood. This picture is influenced by our education, social background, intelligence, values, interests... Yes, the scammers want to know our preferences and they portray themselves as somebody who fits to that picture perfectly. It's always hard to fall in love again after disappointment in somebody who we thought is our perfect mate - in fact a perfect fantasy. As for female victims they know that lonely women after certain age have some money and know how to get money, and usually women want men with more money then they have themselves, so the scammers to be secure paint themselves as very rich, with high status, in the age to match women they aim at. They "have" many interests so that every victim can find something interesting in them. I really would like to know how this all started, this online romance scam. If it was by accident, or if it was planned and then tried and because it worked it started to be used widely? Who and when was the first online romance scam and when West Africans started to use it? Does anybody know?

[Wingman182]

Okay. I see by my last post here that I may have placed too much emphasis on examples and not enough on the point I was trying to get across. As I have said before it's how my brain works sometimes.
The point I was trying to get across was that social per-programming can have a strong influence on our judgment as to what is beautiful or desirable. And there was a point I was hinting at that social per-programming will never touch. In fact social per-programming will avoid this one aspect like the plague, and will never be a factor in the equation. Because this one single aspect would completely cancel out the entire social standard and leave us to discover what beauty is on our own. (The way it should be) And that one single aspect is;
“Inner Beauty” or if you wish “The Beauty of the Soul”

Now I have to be completely honest here. Besides if you can't be honest here of all places then there is no need to post in the first place. But over time I have come to except that fact that I do bare some level of responsibility for what had happened to me. Now this responsibility is in no way connected with blame, that rests solely on the shoulders of the criminals.
But the responsibility I bare is that I had allowed myself to become seduced by social per-programming. And had set a standard that was quite frankly unrealistic. It also didn't help that I did not measure my own age by how many times the calender flipped over, but how old I felt at heart. Which never did keep a proper pace. I was fun loving and outdoorsy, and most of the women I was meeting “My Age” considered me childish because I enjoyed things like rollerblading in the park for example. Which left me feeling that they were just acting old and stopped allowing themselves to have a little fun.
So I turned my search to the internet, and signed on with a dating site. I was 46 years old, lonely, and had set a search parameter of an age group of 25 to 35. (To me I felt 35 at heart at the time) So dumb ass me thought that this age rang was reasonable. WRONG !!!!!
What I had done however was to create what a scammer would view as an ideal male victims profile. The rest as they say is history and has already been told elsewhere in this forum.
But even though a victim can go through a lot of pain. Some positives can also be found from the experience. First off we become stronger and wiser individuals. But for me something else had occurred. For me during my healing process something wonderful had happened while sifting through all of that darkness. The illusion of the standard created by social per-programming along with the unrealistic standard I held was complete shattered, never to return. And what had replaced it was a completely new and different perspective of sight. One I wish I would have had all along.
And if any of you have seen the movie “Shallow Hale” then you know exactly what I am now talking about. Because, fully admitting to myself, the move Shallow Hale is a perfect metaphoric example of “Me” both before and after my scam.

In short Hale was an average guy with average looks. Just like me, all though Hale had a bit more going for him in the middle. Hale was a nice guy with a good moral sense of right and wrong. The kind of person someone could easily become friends with. Again just like me. Hale's only short falling was his standard of his special someone (a super model type). At least I knew that was not going to be in my future. My Achilles tendon was the age group.
Anyway by chance Hale found himself stuck in an elevator with a hypnotherapist who by hypnotic suggestion gave Hale the ability to see past the exterior and see the beauty, or lack there of, of a person on the inside. And it changed Hale's life forever. For the better in my opinion. And even after this hypnotic spell was broken and Hale was able to see the real world as it is. In a fashion he maintained his new perspective of sight. And became a better person for it. Why? Because Hale could see the inner beauty, or the beauty of the soul. And I have found that kind of beauty far more desirable, and preferable. This new perspective of sight is also what had lead me to the woman I now proudly call my wife. When I look at her I do see her, flaws and all. But also at the same time when I look at my wife I see the most beautiful woman in the world.

So I guess the point I have been trying to make all along here is this.
What is more important. “Outer Beauty” or “Inner Beauty”
In the end the choice is completely up to you.

[keira]

Hi Wingman182,
I think now I understand better your previous post, I thought that you wanted to express something personal, but I didn´t want to push, so it´s good that now you wrote it yourself, I appreciate very much your honesty. In your previous post it sounded like you were blaming social pre-programming for the scam, but now it sounds like your confession of being shallow before the scam, or maybe the emphasis is on your choice to give chance also to women who were different than what your idea was. It sounds also a little bit like you were blaming yourself of wanting a 25-35 years old woman, like it was insolent and the scam was a slap in the face for that. I don´t think that you were too old for rollerblading and I don´t think it was too daring that you wanted a partner who is similar to you in sports. But maybe it´s not that big probability that you find somebody like that, and that´s not the most important thing in a relationship to go rollerblading together. Is this what you wanted to say? It seems that changing your attitude was profitable, that you really found a women who you could love! So it proves that your decision was right.
By the way I knew the movie and now I saw it again after you mentioned it .
I will be honest too. I perceived the scam also as a slap in the face, but for a different reason than you. I had a radical change of attitude to men in my life too, but much earlier than the scam happened. It was when I was in my early 20s, after my first big disappointment in love. I found the reason for my suffering in the book of ROBIN NORWOOD „WOMEN WHO LOVE TOO MUCH“, it´s about women who love men who don´t deserve it and can´t return it. I found out that men who I instinctively fall in love are emotionally cold, it was explained that it´s because these women are from unhealthy families where the family members don´t talk openly about problems and so they fall in love with men with whom they repeat the behaviour patterns from their childhood. In that time I believed the book so as the book suggested I started to allow to think about relationship with men who I wouldn´t choose instinctively, but whom I felt good with, felt that I´m „OK“, relationship without manipulation, without stress, without the „stone in stomach“. I learned and then believed that this is how normal relationships look like. Then some years later I met a man and my feelings were totally different, I didn´t have to ask myself, if I want to meet him, if I want to try a relationship with him, if I love him, if I want to stay with him for the rest of my life, I naturally wanted everything with him and I realized that this is the true feeling, this is how it should be when somebody enters into a relationship and my previous attempts of relationships were false. Very soon he turned out to be emotionally very cold, he hurted my feelings very much, he was very quarrelsome and bad to me and manipulative, I never understood what he wanted and why he did something. I was learned from the past so I tried to distance myself from him all the time, but still I spent another years with more or less suffering because of this man. I´m able to be with not manipulative men in relationship many years, neither me nor my partners were quarrelsome so we had a very quiet relationships together, but I don´t have the feeling that this is how it should be, I´m bored in some way. I´m not bored intellectually, and we were always friends and trust each other, but something is missing, some feelings that push people to get married and these things. I don´t know how to explain better.
Then came the scammer, I had very bad feeling about him from the beginning. Although this was different, because with the man who I loved the bad feelings came later, in the beginning I had fantastic feelings and I didn´t think anything wrong about him. Unlike the scammer, because about the scammer I thought he is stupid and liar. But I thought that I was „bored“ so many years with „good feelings in relationships“ that maybe a „bad feeling is what I need“. I wanted to explore what kind of person is that crazy liar. I found out that he is a completely different person than me, as the man who I loved was completely different too and I didn´t understand him. I thought that if I learn to understand the scammer, than I get answers to my questions about the man I loved. He (the man I loved) always accused me of something and I didn´t know if I made a mistake that many times I couldn´t oppose him enough so he couldn´t have respect for me, or I opposed too much for his taste, I don´t know. But I know that just the fact that I´m asking these questions proves that it was not a good relationship for me, I´m aware of this, and I don´t want to live a life like that, that I´m always asking what I´m doing wrong, that was so much stress that I couldn´t live a normal life because of that. But I want to understand so much what was the problem with that man and what he felt to me and what he wanted and why did he do those things I didn´t understand. The scam ended very quickly, so I didn´t learn much about this, but at least something: about psychopaths, and I learned much about myself.
Now as I understand it I´m attracted to emotionally cold men, which is a psychopathic trait and that´s why there is a big probability that if I meet a man like that, it will be a psychopath who hurts others´ feelings and painfully manipulates and I can´t be in a relationship with him because it destroys me. Maybe there is a man who is „emotionally cold“, and if he is authoritative and wants to set the rules in the relationship, then those rules will not be bad and painful, and would have respect to me, because mutual respect is one of the most important things in a relationship for me. So at least this was a little step in understanding of that „relationship“, maybe that will be a whole life work for me to understand, but at least I just would like to know if it´s possible to live a really happy life in a normal and long term relationship for a „woman who loves too much“, without a background feeling that „it is somehow not that right“. I remember that there were stories of women who were happy in normal relationships after they healed from their previous unhealthy relationship, but if I remember well, those relationships were not that long yet. For a few years that woman can think that she is happy in a relationship, but I don´t believe she can lie herself for 10 years. I really would like to know if a woman with that experience can live happy in a non-problematic relationship for 10 years, if she really can "heal" and change what attracts her?
That´s why the scam was like a slap in the face, like somebody wanted to say bad feelings are bad and I should be happy with good things that life brings, that somehow I´m damaged and that´s why I can´t have a complete perfect relationship (or at least it´s very little chance), but life always offers me the best that is possible in my condition.
Although our stories and shortages are different, I saw this similarity in your confession, that as I clinged on the feeling of being in love, you clinged on a „rollerblade woman“, but that is not what destiny prepared to you to be as happy as you can in life.
I don´t know if I see all this right or wrong, maybe I´m mistaken, if so then I would be just happy if somebody explained to me what I understand wrong.

[keira]

I have read some very interesting articles about MANIPULATION, it gave me another proof how emotions are powerful!

There was a story about a student who wrote a paper about manipulation, she knew the techniques, so when she came to that group she was decided not to fall prey and when she recognized the signs she got angry because she knew they are trying to brainwash her, but paradoxically THE ANGER ENABLED HER TO FALL INTO TRANCE! I was very happy to read it, because it showed me, that I´m not the most manipulable person on Earth... NOT ONLY POSITIVE, BUT ALSO NEGATIVE EMOTIONS ARE THE GATE TO MANIPULATION. So my negative emotions were also a gate to be manipulated by the scammer.
I have been wondering how the scammers knew when I was ripe to send money. If they just tried, because I was a bothersome victim for them as I was arguing with the scammer so they didn´t want to waste another time with me, or they thought that I´m in love already? Maybe they assumed that I feel enough emotions (positive, negative, or confusion) to be suggestible for doing what they want. Maybe they were doing that confusion with lies intentionally, they saw that it makes me angry and confused. A normal person would stop talking to a person like that, but I was curious and continued talking to him. It was a good sign for them that I was still talking.
They create a state in the victim, that is similar to hypnotic trance. In that state the victim is suggestible. The victim carries out the instructions even after not in trance anymore, because those suggestions were inserted in a vulnerable state, and they can work as posthypnotic suggestions. The victim doesn´t know that he is manipulated, as I didn´t notice when my scepticism passed to a state when I was doing irrational things, that caused me bad feelings, that I was endangering myself because of some people who I already knew they are scammers (it was before I came to this site). The problem was that I kept talking to them. The only solution is to STOP EVERY COMMUNICATION with the scammers! Of course there are differences in people´s sensitivity to hypnoses.

In a simplified way we can say that the left side of the brain is for analytical, rational thinking and the right side of the brain is for creative and imaginative thinking. The scammers´ intention is to make busy your right part of the brain, they make you imagine about the beautiful things you will make together and the beautiful life you will live together.

Another story was about a Hare Krishna member who took advantage of SHOCK and CONFUSION to „communicate“ with the right brain of victims whom he wanted to sell books to. He jumped in front of them shouting. When people are shocked by his strange appearance, they unconsciously want to protect themselves from reality, so they fall into a state when they are vulnerable to manipulation. Then he talked to them kindly, quietly. What is going on in the brain of the victim is something like hypnoses, if the brain of a person experiencing a state like that is measured by electroencephalography, his brain waves are similar to those in hypnoses. The person takes the book when in shock and then out of some kind of guilt he gives the manipulator also money. I think this can be a reason of some of my experiences, but they don´t have to give me anything and I start to act how they want. Sometimes even a compliment works as if they gave you something. Or the feeling that somebody clings on me, even for some unknown reason, but I feel INDEBTED to that person even if I see him for the first time in my life.

We all know that people in confusion of emotions are not capable of rational thinking, and when we love somebody we would do everything for him, but it´s still good to know these things what is going on in your brain, otherwise you can be very surprised, like many victims of romance scams, and furthermore there can be other consequences too, like fanaticism.

I think about this also in connection with politics. About CROWD MANIPULATION. For example when masses are manipulated to hate or fear of other nations or races. It is again through the gate of emotions and right brain. Fanatics are not psychopaths and stupid people, but simply PEOPLE WHO DON´T CONTROL THEIR EMOTIONS. They can be intelligent or stupid, good or bad. As well as non-psychopathic people can be intelligent or stupid, do good or bad things, so the psychopaths (people with psychopathic traits) too. A STUPID PSYCHOPATH CAN BE MANIPULATED BY A SMARTER PERSON (for example baiting in romance scam, when somebody is already not brainwashed, not under control of emotions, resistant to the scammer´s attempts to influence his right brain through imagination, and ready to quit the communication in the right time), no matter if that person is a psychopath or not. This is quite obvious, so for me is much more interesting the manipulation through emotions and when an intelligent person is manipulated to do things he feels uncomfortable to do. When people do bad things in mass manipulations, those aggressive psychopaths are just acting in agreement with their personality, but interesting is when a good and peace-loving non-psychopathic person is acting in contradiction with his personality even if he is not literally forced to do that. Those highly intelligent and unemotional charismatic psychopaths are usually those who pull the strings in mass manipulation.

Mass manipulation techniques are used in sects and allegedly among soldiers too (I don´t know I never was a soldier). There are many ways how to influence the right brain, many times it´s music, rhythm, humiliation. Also starving, sleep deficit, drugs. Or vulgar speech when the listeners feel uncomfortable.

Maybe this is also a mechanism in DESTRUCTIVE RELATIONSHIPS where for example a woman is becoming more and more addicted to the man and even if he is bad to her she can´t leave, and despite she consciously „knows“ that she is not worse than him, unconsciously she „feels“ like she was and only the manipulator gives meaning to her life. Romance scams are many times also destructive relationships, when the woman already knows she is dealing with a scammer, the scammer starts to be bad to her, she feels uncomfortable in that relationship, but she is still addicted to him, communicates with him and sends him money. Many times she needs a third person who cuts her off from the manipulator, prevents her to send him money. Doesn´t matter how she fights, it´s the best for her. I was several times in similar situation and although I fought until I could, deep in my heart it was a relief and I was grateful in the end. The victim needs time without the scammer to realize what is going on and to gather strength to protect himself/herself.

Something similar happens in STOCKHOLM SYNDROME too. When somebody who is intimidated, tyrannized, controlled, starts to feel admiration, love or sexual desire toward the person who is doing this to him.

[keira]

I want to add one more thing which I didn´t highlight sufficiently in my previous post: I wanted to say that practically everybody can be scammed. Theoretically a person who is able to separate emotions and rational thinking in every situation can be immune to suggestions from scammers, but there are not so many people like that.

I add another findings from my internet surfing:

[keira]

COPING WITH THE AFTERMATH OF A FRAUD:
12 Steps to getting your life back on track
by Annie McGuire, fraud victim,

Fraud Victim Advocate, Founder - Fraud Aid, Inc.

1. The Toughest: STOP BLAMING YOURSELF AND PUT THE BLAME WHERE IT BELONGS - ON THE PERSON WHO CONNED YOU! Focus your anger toward of the ones who used you unmercifully with no concern for the consequences to you, no guilt, no pity.

2. Don't beat yourself up. Say this out loud as many times a day and for as many days as it takes to stop feeling miserable: "Okay, I made a mistake. Now, let's move on." Yes, this really does work.

3. Do not allow yourself to be casually judged. If anyone tries to make you feel guilty or foolish, as if you don't feel bad enough, either walk away or tell them flat out that they are in no position to judge you. If the person who has been assigned to your case tries to make you feel stupid, ask to speak with someone else or ask to speak to a supervisor.
Remember this: fraudsters hit everyone including heads of state, corporate giants, pension fund trustees, finance managers, corporate attorneys, investment companies, all to the tune of thousands and millions of dollars. They even swindle cops.

4. Give yourself time to grieve. It's your right - you have been robbed of more than money or possessions, you have been robbed of your self-confidence and your self-esteem. That kind of loss is not to be taken lightly.

5. YOU ARE A VICTIM. The swindlers who involved you in their schemes are professionals. It is their life's work and they study their craft day and night.
Their sole purpose is to use you for financial gain, and they are very, very good at it. They are intelligent and as well-educated in their line of work as any doctor or lawyer is in his or her respective profession. They are often under-estimated and like it that way because it makes their job easier.

6. Get on with your life! No easy thing, but make some headway each day. Give yourself a goal and head for it ruthlessly.

7. Find someone to talk to who has no ax to grind. When you do open up, be completely honest. If you continue to hide this or that, it will all haunt you. If you did something stupid, admit it. Go through all the "if only's" and "shoulda' coulda's" IT'S OKAY! Eventually your inner system will get tired of hearing about it and will force you to get on with things.
If you absolutely cannot stop swimming in a whirlpool, use the services of a counselor to help you move on. That's what they are there for.

8. There is no such thing as a little con and fraud is not a victimless crime. All swindles hurt, some more than others. It is not for anyone else to judge how much a scam has hurt you.
Do not allow yourself to be belittled. You were the one on the front lines and absolutely no one can judge how they would have reacted under the same conditions.

9. Don't rack your brain trying to figure out why your "friend" did this to you - he or she did it because that's what swindlers do. Their minds do not operate in the same way yours and mine do.
You can't peek in there and try to make sense of their behavior because you are trying to analyze the behavior of a criminal mind using a sane, moral mind as a base platform. You might as well try to psych out a Martian.

10. Never live in the Past. Flashbacks happen. Nothing you can do about it. But the more time you spend re-living the events of the scam, the more you will find yourself stuck there. This doesn't do you any good at all. As a matter of fact, it prevents you from realizing what life is offering you NOW. Live in the Present, do not anticipate the Future. Plan for it, yes. But that's all. The Present is happening now, deal with it.

11. Justice takes time. Understand that a case file can remain open for years and years before the criminal is caught or, the case may finally end up in the dead case file. This is especially true if there is a lack of information or if the grounds for indictment are very weak.
If you depend on the authorities to put an end to the criminal's career before you feel vindicated, you may very well end up with an emotional door hanging open, banging in the wind. Forget it. Once you have given all the information you have to the authorities, that's your vindication, that's your closure.. It has to be. If the crook is caught, that's just icing on the cake.

12. Learn to laugh again, with yourself but not at yourself! The sooner you do this, the sooner you will heal.
Avoid rehashing the stupid mistakes to make them laughable. If you do, you will reinforce the shame, the humiliation you are feeling. You will only prolong the healing period.
People always listen to their own voices before they listen to the voices of others. Tell yourself often enough that you are a stupid dolt and you will sincerely believe it no matter what anyone says to the contrary. There is no need to prolong your misery beyond what is reasonable.

[keira]

About the threats of physical violence from fraudaid.com:

It's important that you understand that scammers are in the business of making money from their victims - not in the business of spending money on them when there is no possible profit. Yes, it's true: one occasionally reads of a scam victim being killed by a fraudster; however, that is extremely rare and occurs when there is a long-term close, personal, face-to-face relationship between the scammer and his or her victim. That is not the case in the variety of scams we are discussing here.

Sending a fraud ring member or hired goon to beat up or kill an uncooperative scam victim is very expensive. The costs are twofold: 1. The travel and job expenses; and 2. The risk of exposure to and arrest by local law enforcement.

Remember I said that scammers are in the business of making money, not spending money on uncooperative victims. "Uncooperative" is the key word. While a determined scammer may try to squeeze more money out of a victim by using threats, if none is forthcoming they move on to their other targets.

As for the risk of exposure to local law enforcement, financial scams do not carry the same weight as violent crimes. Once scammers begin resorting to violent crimes, they will be hunted down by international law enforcement with vigor. This is not what the scammers want. They are quite happy with their low profile, which is far more profitable.

[keira]

9 basic truths about fraud - Busting the myths about fraud and fraud victims (from fraudaid.com):


1. If fraud was so easy to spot it wouldn´t be a multi-billion dollar per year industry in the US and a multi-trillion dollar industry worldwide.

2. No one is immune to fraud; no one. This is common knowledge in the fraud-fighting community, public and private.

3. It's not that the offer is too good to be true; it's that the offer is too good to pass up.

4. Fraud schemes are flexible, adaptable, and expandable: they are custom-tailored to fit the target.

5. There are hundreds and hundreds of scams and scam combinations. Just because a target has been burned in one scam doesn't mean he will recognize another that is completely different.

6. Scam victims can be so desperate and terrified about their losses that they can be victimized by the same scam a second time merely because the new fraudster, using the voice of authority, claims that unlike the previous scheme, his offer is not fraudulent and the victim will recoup his losses.

7. 7 out of every 10 people you know have been scammed.

8. There are only 3 kinds of people: those who have been scammed and don´t know it; those who have been scammed and know it; and those who haven´t been scammed - yet.

9. The easiest person to swindle is the one who believes he´s too smart to fall for a scam.


I especially like the "8" .
And "5" is very useful, we have to watch out!

[keira]

Studying scammers led me to studying h y p n o s i s. I felt that something happened that was very disturbing for me and that I couldn´t explain, now I finally can. I had never been interested in hypnos i s and things like that, because I always worked for clear and straightforward communication with others. I perceived hypnos i s and suggestion as some kind of sensation or a tool for controlling others and it was against my beliefs. Now I know how I was wrong. Hypnos i s is a part of our everyday life, we are getting into hypnotic trance several times a day, and those are that moments when a person is highly suggestible. There can be a misunderstanding in the terminology, because for some people hypnos i s means only the classical, traditional hypnos i s, which means relaxation, sleepiness, monotony and things like that. But there are states of mind which we call alert trance, hyperalert trance, waking hypnos i s, alert suggestibility, alert active hypnos i s etc. There´s a study which showed that the biggest rise in suggestibility was in hyperalert trance! There´s another study about prolonged hypnos i s, where the subjects were in hypnos i s 7 days, while the cycle of alertness and sleep was preserved! So the suggested (or hypnotic) sleep or relaxation is just one form of suggestion, it´s not the definition of hypnos i s. You can induce hypnos i s by tools that increase tension, awakeness and activity. In alert hypnos i s the subject is completely awake, his sensation is intact, but logical thinking is reduced and he is in a state of increased suggestibility and able to carry out hypnotic suggestions - manifest hypnotic phenomena. There is a difference in people´s hypnability, most of the people is in the middle and around 10% is not hypnable or very weakly. Maybe it will be more understandable if you think about it as being in a dream. You think that you are awake too, but you are not. Everything seems normal, you think about something, you want something, you are doing something, but after you wake up you are wondering why you did or thought exactly that, that your choices were somehow limited. In fact dreaming and hypnos i s are very similar mechanisms.
I had known something about manipulation, but even as for manipulation I thought it is about aiming at your characteristics and emotions as for example your altruism, kindness, benevolence, love, responsibility, pity, shame, guilt and this is achieved by some distortions of reality the manipulator uses in his speech or behaviour, some kind of pervert logic, that destabilizes you and makes you agree with the manipulator – so I thought everything can be brought to a conscious level and than if you recognize the mistakes in that pervert logic and his attempt to make you unsure, you are able to resist manipulation. I knew from the beginning that the scammer was manipulating me, I was always waiting what kind of manipulation he pulls out next. I knew that the scammer was:

- driving the responsibility to me from himself
- trying to raise guilt in me
- didn´t say clearly what he wants
- using evasive answers, avoiding straightforward communication with me, changing subject
- directively shutting me up at uncomfortable topics for him
- was very moody, changing often
- opposite statements
- evident lies
- trying to raise feelings of inferiority in me
- made a victim of himself to achieve pity
- wasn´t really interested in me, although he said how he loves me, his words were inconsistent with what he was doing
- emotional blackmail
- forced me to act in time pressure
- describing himself in a very positive way
- flattering
- pulling information from me about my preferences in purpose of using it for seducing me

I KNEW all these things, I knew he was manipulating me, I was completely aware of that, I just didn´t know his motive, I didn´t think about money at all, I found it out only the next day after I already sent the money. Also I had known for many years that if somebody asks me for money although I barely know him, is definitely a bad sign and I should get rid of him. I had been repeating this for years like a mantra, I was firmly decided to do this if it happens. When I was sending the money it popped in my mind, but that idea was so pale and distant, like a Fata Morgana, and I shooed it away immediately. So if not obeying it, why I didn´t consider it at least if I had been so firmly decided for so many years? Why I didn´t think about it at least for a while? It´s just a thought, I wouldn´t have to obey it, just think about it, nothing more, after all it´s a lot of money and above all I don´t have it? Somebody can say that I am simply weak in my decisions, but that´s absolutely not true, and I am very responsible about money. But ok, let´s say that it´s true, but why I didn´t even think about that option? That doesn´t make sense at all, it´s absolutely not what I am normally, I usually think of many many options if it makes at least the smallest sense. So this was one of the main reasons I felt so lost and hopeless when I started this thread, because here my logic absolutely failed and I realized I had no tools to protect myself, and not only I couldn´t protect myself , but I didn´t even know why. I was aware of my rights when I sent the money, it came to my mind for a moment that here it goes again, I´m fixing something that somebody else spoiled, I knew that it´s not my duty to pay for his mistakes, but still, my only aim was to get money from somewhere and send it to him. There was also a thought that why is that me again who is doing the first step in showing trust as he didn´t show me anything just plain words. Abnormal was not that I sent money, because it has a rational explanation, I wanted to help because I thought he needs help. Abnormal was why I believed he needed help and I am the only one who can and should help him and especially why I wasn´t able to think about other options? Why I was focused so much on what they wanted from me, that all other thoughts that wouldn´t support sending money were paralyzed? But maybe I should be positive and be happy there was that „Fata Morgana“ at least, because when I go back to that days and re-experience what happened, it´s quite a miracle there was that „Fata Morgana“ considering how difficult was to grab those thoughts. I still find myself in situations where obvious things don´t occur to me when I´m under stress.

[keira]

I hope nobody thinks that I blame the scammers that they controlled me with some magical power, because I know that I had my own motives, it was me who wanted to help the scammer and it was me who was afraid of them. But: they took advantage of my altruism – which is nothing new for me, and what is the most disturbing for me are those moments of psychic paralysis, moments of not questioning anything, not to see any other option and even shoo away the slightest idea of another option! Now I know what was missing in my knowledge. They aimed also at my more primitive part of brain and took advantage of another natural characteristic, which was hypnability and were communicating with my unconscious mind, while my conscious mind was just focusing on what the scammer said and comparing to my knowledge and had no idea what was going on in my unconscious mind. That´s why there were those surprising things, like for example I didn´t understand how could I BELIEVE that he loves me while I KNEW he doesn´t. Because with my conscious mind I knew, but it´s not so important what I know and what I think, if my unconscious mind is being persuaded about something else. We can see it many times that belief is stronger than knowledge, you can´t change somebody´s belief with rational arguments, but you can change it aiming at his unconscious mind, which is usually also the tool of a successful psychotherapy, no matter what kind of psychotherapy it is. For communication with the unconscious mind are used different tools than with the conscious mind, and I didn´t know about them until now.

Tools for communication with the unconscious mind online romance scammers use:
- imagination : an agent of an insurance company who visits you at your home will not say „buy this insurance“, but instead he says „imagine this beautiful house completely burnt down“, in the moment you start to imagine, you are on the way to hypnos i s, he continues to bomb you with another and another techniques until you buy the product and then later regret. I didn´t understand for a long time why the scammer asked me to pretend that I love him, it seemed such a stupid idea to me, now I know why.
- sensory stimuli: pictures of attractive people, in attractive surroundings, showing well-being, pictures of an injured child in hospital, sweet talk, other pictures and talk that evokes sensory perception in your fantasy (vision, sound, taste, smell, touch, pain...)
- emotions: happiness, love (promising wonderful life together), anxiety (accident, illness, being robbed, threats, changing moods, unpredictability), anger (constant lies), pity (dead wife, child in hospital)
- creating of intimacy: mirroring (you like music – scammer likes music), matching (you like musician A – scammer likes musician B), compliments, appreciation, listening to your problems, these are the natural mechanisms when creating friendship or romantic relationship, we do it unconsciously but cheaters do it intentionally
- confusion technique: one of the most famous techniques of hypnos i s, this technique according to literature is used for patients with negative attitude, the scammer creates confusion which enormously focuses attention, which is a basic condition of hypnos i s, then every clear information makes much bigger sense than normally and that is the right time for suggestions, because those information can serve as suggestions (I suppose the suggestions in my case were – among others – the information that he loves me and he needs my help, the other things didn´t make any sense to me, because I knew he was evidently lying), this mechanism is employed also when you are solving a puzzle or watching a movie where you expect a resolution and you are strongly drawn into the plot, just try to remember the euphoria after the resolution or other strong feeling that touches your soul, which lasts minutes, hours or days following solving a puzzle or watching that movie, the solution is so enormously important to you in that moment
- shock technique: accident, being robbed, money request, everything to be done immediately

These information what I´m writing here about hypnotic tools is nothing new, it is widely used and taught among managers, dealers and others, there are complex programs based on it, cheaters widely use this. With these tools you can become manipulated once you start to cooperate, even if you are intelligent, have enough self confidence, know about manipulation, have experience etc. Even if you are aware of the hypnotic technique used on you, if you let it act upon you and you are suggestible enough, it will influence your unconscious mind whether you want or not, doesn´t matter what you think about it. The only tool to defend yourself is ignore, not listen, not read, not look at, not think about, just go away. I had been wondering for a long time how the scammers knew when I was ripe to respond to their money request, now it´s obvious to me. There were many signs and scammers who scam systematically have their tools to test the target.

So to say that the victim of romance scam just believed lies and that´s why he sent money, like if you say to a mentally retarded person „go there, they give you ice cream“ and he goes and finds out there´s no icecream, is a fatal error, an enormous simplification. That is one of the reasons why victims feel so ashamed, because people usually associate falling prey to a scam with lack of intelligence. Of course, it can happen that somebody falls prey because of his low intelligence, or because he is not that experienced and doesn´t recognize the cognitive distortions or doesn´t react in time, or just doesn´t know that kind of scam can exist, there can be many other reasons too.

[keira]

People don´t think about hypnos i s because everybody knows that it´s natural if you love somebody you would do anything for that person or if you are a helpful person than it´s natural that you help to a complete stranger too. Than why we feel so ashamed? Is it because they were Nigerian? That they were somebody else than we thought? Or because he needed the money for something else than what he said? What would it change? Why would that be a source of shame? If we love that person and we are helpful, so what´s the difference, we just helped somebody who we thought he needs it? There´s nothing shameful in it. I will not speak on behalf others, I just say how I perceive it myself, I think my main source of shame and disappointment was that I saw the „red flags“ and despite that I did what they wanted without thinking about other options and questioning the discrepancies. Just a few examples: why the „banker“ wrote me from a gmail account or why he didn´t send me official bank documents about the conditions of the account. These thoughts appeared, but as I wrote above, they were something like a Fata Morgana. I can say that I didn´t question because I was tired of all those discrepancies so I was just too tired of questioning more, which is true, this is how I felt, but I think if I want to be completely honest to myself, I just didn´t want to know that because it would be an obstacle to complete the task of helping the scammer and as I didn´t have much time I couldn´t waste time with thinking about the obstacles, so the thought appeared for a while but then flew away, this was automatic, unconscious. And that is something that scares me. Those other options were so weak in comparison with what they wanted from me, although rational would be the opposite according to what preceded with the scammer, and even earlier, considering that I´m not completely stupid. So there were red flags that I was completely aware of, like I wrote in the beginning of my today´s post (the manipulation techniques), and then there were red flags that I saw only pale and my logic and will was already weakened (it was when I was already in hypnotic trance). I see that many people here mentioned they saw the red flags, so everybody can answer themselves how they saw the red flags and how they felt. But many people here wrote that they saw the red flags, they had bad feeling that there´s something wrong and then they felt ashamed. Did they feel love? Falling in love is a kind of hypnotic trance too.

I remember very well how I felt that day.

A had some kind of positive feelings towards the scammer too (which as such is quite surprising after what we went through – it´s because it was only a kind of hypnotic attachment), but those positive feelings didn´t have strong roots, they were quite shallow, after I sent the money my negative feelings were gradually rising through the evening and the night (if I really loved the scammer, this would not happen, that never happened to person that I loved, that means I must have felt unconsciously there´s something wrong). Those negative feelings had rosen to a sheer disgust, I remember my thought in one moment that night: „What did I do??? I made such an enormous effort because of somebody so disgusting!“

According to the literature the person in hypnos i s wouldn´t do anything that is not in him. Abnormal was not that I sent money to somebody who needed it, but to send „so much“ money to a stranger who I knew only through writing on the internet, who I never talked to, who I knew that he manipulated me so much and was lying to me, especially in my situation when I didn´t have money and I had to make another enormous debt, is not normal. First he was very compassionate and comforting, but then he changed again and was bad to me, that intensified my disgust towards him, I thought what kind of person is this, I made such a sacrifice because of him and he is still assaulting me and making me anxious?

The first day I sent the money, first it was about helping him, then it was a mix of helping and fear, whereas helping dominated but as my disgust was rising the ratio was changing. As for fear I knew that it was not my duty to send him money from the legal point of view, my fear was unjustified, and if I was able to think rationally, I would also know that even if it really was a respected person as he presented himself, then he would just make a fool of himself in the public if he harmed me because I didn´t send him money. So my fear was also just a result of my lack of rational thinking in that moment, it proves that my thinking was paralysed. Now I completely understand people in movies who are blackmailed and give money to a blackmailer in a situation where as a viewer I know that it clearly doesn´t make sense because there´s no guarantee that he will go away and will not want another money and that becomes true and the victim gives another money and so on.

The next day they wanted another money and I wanted to send them and was ready to borrow again, I wanted to help him but not because of some positive feelings towards him anymore, I just wanted to end this misery and not to hear from him again. I didn´t care if he pays me back, I just wanted him to be content and free myself from him as soon as possible. Only some external circumstances stopped me from sending money and I gradually realized that they are acting like greedy bastards and somehow I finally realized that saving the scammer was only a trick to get money from me and I had an idea I can play with them a little bit too. Although I played with them it was destroying me, especially when they were threatening. I hate them so much because of this.

[keira]

But even if I hate them, in fact I ´m thankful for this experience, now I perceive it as a somewhat expensive lecture of hypnos i s and other things. This anabasis with the scammers educated me how to protect myself from any kind of scam and generally in life. I have paid more for psychoanalysis, other therapies and education in my life, so in comparison with that this was not so expensive.
Hypnability and suggestibility is not only a bad trait, because it correlates with imagination, learning, memory, personal development, crossing your borders, it has connection with many fields of life, it´s a very powerful tool. I can recall people who influenced me through hypnos i s either in a positive or negative way, intentionally or unintentionally. I also can recall situations when I hypnotized myself, although I didn´t know it was hypnos i s. It could be a reason of many of my disasters, but it was also a reason of my successes, many things that I achieved and seemed unbelievable now I know it had to do something with hypnos i s.
As hypnos i s is part of our everyday lives you don´t have to be too smart to practise hypnos i s to cheat someone. That means if you were hypnotized by a scammer that doesn´t mean he is smarter than you, because even a stupid scammer can hypnotize if he learns some techniques and finds a victim who is suggestible enough.

If moderators think my today´s post should be accessible only for members with more posts, then please move it into another thread where it is possible, or I don´t know if it´s possible to do it with this thread. Those systematic scammers are very probably already educated in this, but some amateur scammers can learn something new. My aim is to prevent to become a victim again, so I think we as victims should know this.

Interesting that in all my posts the word " h y p n o s i s " is written with " e " , even if I change it to " i " by editing, after submitting it´s again with " e ". That´s why I put those spaces between the letters in that word - "hypnos i s".