Anatomy of a Lonely Hearts Scam: “Day 8 How long will it take”

I have been asked how long do you think it will take before “Alice” tried to take my money? In this blog post, I’m going to explain the number one weapon of the lonely hearts scam artist. Patience.

If you are just joining us then I recommend looking at the previous posts!

Previous Posts

    What is she waiting for?

    Most of us have encountered a scam or short con. This is where there is this mysterious phone call from Amazon, Telstra or someone claiming to be from a bank. These scams tend to be quick and dirty. They scare you by giving access to your computer or outright giving them a credit card number. However, if the phone scam is a hammer the lonely hearts scam is a surgical blade. Time is the best friend of the Lonelyhearts scammer.

    Time removes doubt.

    If I was to accuse one of your closest friends of some horrible crime where you are the victim. What words would you say to defend them?

    • “They would never do that”
    • “I have known them for a long time”
    • “They are the kindist person”
    • “It does not seem like them”

    Unlike the short cons .. The longer the lonelyhearts scam takes the less likely you are going to believe that you have been scammed when you look at your empty bank account. This will take weeks if not months to develop the type of trust or ‘Confidence” in this person for the scam to work. And you will end up using the same phrases above.

    Even I have doubted they are a scammer.

    The whole point of taking their time is to make it so your drop your guard. Every message builds a little bit of trust. Every week that goes by without asking for a dime makes you doubt they would do you any harm. Mix this with some flirting and the dream of money you are hooked.

    The whole goal is to have you so love blind, so trusting that the betrayal will make you scream “Etu brute!!?”

    The topics that have nothing to do with money are the money makers.

    I have been saying this for years in sales. “The unrelated conversations is what makes the sales, not the features and benefits” for most money motivated people this is very hard to do. They have this powerful urge to close the deal. So much so when I tried to teach a “How to Podcast class” to businesses the hardest thing to do was convince them to produce content that was not a 45 min long sales pitch.

    This is important because we all know this. We expect the salesman to try to take our money. We expect the begar to ask for money. We expect a con artist to play their hand right away. …. So when they don’t. We think maybe it is not a scam.

    During our conversations we talk about everything.

    Most of the conversations we have had so far have been “off-topic”. From how it is to live in Australia to our favourite foods. What we like to do on the weekend etc. Once again the whole idea is to make you think that they are actually interested in romance. (Some of this may be Phishing for security questions)

    Still more to come as we are still talking.

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