Love Scam Documentary - 60 Minutes

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Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2016 3:01 pm

I stumbled across this documentary today - an episode of 60 minutes, covering the story of an Australian woman who was possibly murdered by a Nigerian scammer whom she met online and left Australia to be with. It's over a year old, but still relevant imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA0qr-hPIoI

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2016 5:05 pm

Thanks. I watched it. The video appears to be incomplete, as it cuts off after 20 mins.

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2016 5:09 pm

If I remember right (I haven't watched television in years), 60 Minutes does three reports, each about 20 minutes long.

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2016 5:38 pm

If it's the same one I seem to remember the woman was still on line to a scammer when the old bill was still in the house and she'd already lost a lot of money to them.

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 10:42 am

I'm surprised the lad pushed her to move then actually went to meet her in South Africa. He had already fleeced her for everything she had, including her house and car. All he got out of her once he arrived in South Africa is some jewelry, credit cards and a computer. He already got $90,000 out of her and had to know the well was running dry.

And that's the sick part. She lost her life over a few inconsequential items. He couldn't just twig. At least then she could have rebuilt her life, even though that was an extremely expensive lesson to learn. I hope he gets stabbed to death in prison. Evil or Very Mad

Elite Baiter Joined: 28 Mar 2015 Posts: 1916

^ Well, one can only theorise, but that part kinda puzzled me, too.

Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2016 12:06 pm

Sad but to be honest she was daft

Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2016 12:11 pm

I think that you'll find that you're in the minority here with that viewpoint.

She was vunerable and targetted by a scammer who knew exactly how to play on those vunerabilites.

Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2016 12:33 pm

I despise these scamming gits as anybody else, but what I mean is common sense would have prevented her death.

Elite Baiter Joined: 28 Mar 2015 Posts: 1916

^^^ There is reason to think that being in love is akin to a certain kind of madness. Common sense just doesn't come into it. This poor woman desperately wanted, nay, needed, to believe in the delusion the scammer had created in her mind and would have done anything for it. In this case, most tragically, it turned out to be her life.

My theory is that he finally travelled to South Africa under the pretense of marrying her and in the hopes of getting the last of her cash. She may not even have dared tell him there was nothing left, for fear of losing him. Upon discovering the truth of her situation, it may have been at that point that the scammer decided to get rid of her and steal what she had left, her laptop, jewellery, etc.

After all, he had to cover his travel costs, when his journey turned out to be not worth his while, yes?

Sad

Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2016 2:11 pm

Well put B8er and Morgan. It's easy to suggest from a distance that victims like the one being discussed are missing important, obvious cues that something is amiss -- and often leading to the conclusion that victims are in some part responsible for being scammed.

It's worth mentioning here that scammers are professional manipulators, and hardly ever do they throw all the information at a potential victim at once. Love scammers can be especially effective in this way, sometimes only very gradually working different emotional angles and weaving their stories to build rapport and distract the victim from what is really going on. The victims really have been led to believe they have made a real, strong emotional connection with their scammer--just like any other strong emotional relationship.

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