Georgia State Researcher Eyes Online Romance Scams Through Lens of Victim

ATLANTA — Fangzhou Wang's research interests include the psychological component behind cybercrimes, like an offender’s ability to manipulate victims into romance fraud through online dating websites.

In a new study published in the American Journal of Criminal Justice, Wang and co-author Volkan Topalli collected and examined detailed testimonials on romance fraud experiences. Their work suggests that understanding the social and behavioral interactions between victims and offenders during an online romance scam is critical to establishing protective measures for the targets of online romance fraud.

In this Q&A, Wang shares insight into her work and where it’s likely to focus next.

What sparked your interest in online romance scams?

Many people around me use dating apps, but many have never heard of online romance scams. I read statistics on online crime and found there was little to no research on these scams, despite their impact and how quickly they are growing.

Dating websites faced a surge of over 126 million users from 2015 to 2021. Numbers for online romance fraud losses range from estimates of $304 million in 2021 reported by the Federal Trade Commission to $956 million in 2021 reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) — but no one knows exactly how large this problem is because not everyone reports it.

Romance scam offenders feed on susceptible users by creating fake profiles using misleading photos and manipulative self-narratives to initiate contact with potential victims.

My work focused on romance scams on an international scale, and I found there are differences in the operations of fraudsters when examining their work from a cultural aspect.

What differences did you find?

Fraudsters in Western countries tend to be more of a lone wolf and hold conversations with victims one-on-one. In these instances, offenders work alone to isolate and interact in a more intimate form of communication to create the illusion of a romantic or close relationship to manipulate then steal from victims.

In non-Western countries, romance scams are more of a big business with different employees who are responsible for communication with the victim, technology and money laundering.

Did you have any difficulties doing this research?

Romance scams are a little difficult to research because there aren’t many secondary data sets for this type of problem. I had to collect my own data set and use first-hand data to generate our findings.

I collected victims’ testimonials from websites including stop-scammers.com and male-scammers.com. To better understand these fraudsters, I used experimental methodology in my research. I created an online dating profile and communicated with fraudsters to examine how three different types of communication styles can change a fraudster’s self-presentation strategies when talking to potential victims.

So, you spoke with the fraudsters yourself. What did you learn?

While posing as a potential victim to fraudsters, I grouped my conversations into three categories. The first group received incentives within the conversations, and I told them I’d send them money. When I spoke to fraudsters in the second group, I told them that I knew people who worked for the FBI, and that they’d be arrested for prodding people for money. The third group was a control group, where I maintained general conversations with fraudsters.

I compared the responses from those three groups and found out that certain messages can deter fraudsters from continuing the conversations. Some fraudsters will admit their intentions to scam potential victims out of money.

In some moments, I felt like I was defrauding the fraudsters. Although I was angry while speaking with fraudsters, I remained calm during these conversations because I’m a researcher. I knew I could not bring my subjective ideologies into the conversations.

Will you do further research on this topic?

I think my next stage would be interviewing fraudsters incarcerated in state or federal prisons. I would like their perspective on their operation of online romance fraud. The sample may be small, with only 10 fraudsters to interview, but we would still receive an objective perspective of how they carry out this type of scam.

– By Ashley Thompson, M.A. in Communication candidate

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