Think you'd never fall for a romance scam—such as someone online telling you that he is Jon Bon Jovi and asking you to send him some crypto? Do you believe that anyone susceptible to such deception is simply stupid and gullible? Well, the documentary Super Scam Me, which premiers October 17 on National Geographic may change your mind and help you realize how easy it is to fall for a scammer who gives love a bad name.
In the documentary, Emmy-winning investigative journalist Mariana van Zeller reveals how such victims—including the woman who was fooled by a non-Bon Jovi—can actually be very intelligent and well-educated; It's just that scammers can be quite manipulative and opportunistic. van Zeller even goes undercover and assumes an alter ego named “Mary Zelle”—a middle-age antiques dealer—to allow herself to be lured in by scammers.
It Is Too Easy to Blame the Victim of Romance Scams
Van Zeller recently told me how she came up with the idea for the documentary about a year-and-a-half ago, after she had already reported extensively on scams. She found that others hearing her reporting would quickly "focus on the victims and how is it possible that they did this? Why would you give money to a stranger? How stupid could you be? And that really sort of frustrated me. So I wanted to turn the table and try to understand and focus on the actions of those scammers."
She thought that maybe the best way to look at this might be to "place myself at the center of all these scams and try to see it from the perspective of the victim as a person who sort of is immersed in the tactics and the strategies used by these scammers and show how professional, how good they are at what they do."
Romantic Scammers Are All Over the Place
So how long did it take for van Zeller—or rather "Mary Zelle"—to attract scammers? "Within literally minutes of me posting Mary Zelle online on dating websites and social media profiles, immediately I started being contacted by scammers," van Zeller explained. "It turns out that Mary Zelle was very, very popular on the dating websites."
What made Mary Zelle so popular? Well, she was a woman and seemed to be real—two things that will automatically attract a bunch of men online. But Zelle's profile also drew from a typical profile of a middle-aged woman—the most likely target for scammers—"even though I truly believe any one of us can be a victim of a scam," van Zeller says. "Men are also as likely to be victims of scans as women, but they're less likely to report it. But with me being a woman, we looked at middle-aged women who are recently divorced or with husbands passed away, and who sort of lead a lonely night life and are out there looking for love." How did van Zeller make it clear that Mary Zelle was living a lonely life? "I literally said that I was out there looking for love."
Love Bombing Can Be Effective, Especially During the Loneliness Epidemic
Once the profile was up, van Zeller admitted that the experience was essentially da bomb at first: "It was kind of fun to have your profile on dating websites and be love-bombed by all these people, especially since I've been married for 20 years." (Love bombing is when someone floods you with excessive affection, flattery, and attention to quickly establish your connection to, and dependency on, that person.)
As van Zeller pointed out, such love bombing can be particularly effective if you feel lonely—after all, we are in the midst of a loneliness epidemic that's been growing ever since the 1980s.
Romance Scammers Use a Variety of Manipulative Tactics
Love bombing is just the start of the manipulation. "When I actually started having a relationship, particularly with 'Mark' [someone who called himself Mark Turner], it became very draining very soon, emotionally draining as well, because I was playing a part," van Zeller explains. She described Mark as "very needy" — "he was constantly wanting to know how I was doing and showing me he would remember little details about conversations we had weeks before. He was making sure that I was arriving home safely and that I was eating my dinner and I was sort of taken care of and seen and cared for. This is the emotional manipulation that they're so good at"
This experience helped change van Zeller's viewpoint on romance scammers, from thinking that "they are exploiting people's ignorance or intelligence" to realizing that "they are exploiting the emotions that we all share—hope, fear, love, sometimes greed—and are very, very good at doing that. They're very good at understanding what is it that you need and what you're packing in your life." She added that "they have an incredible resource, a very rare resource on their hands, which is time. They devote a lot of time to you and a scam." As a result, "you don't think this person is a stranger," which makes it a lot easier for them to get something from you.
What Can Be Done About Romance Scammers
With so many scammers out there, van Zeller believes, "people should be more aware of what's happening. We should be giving people tips on how to protect themselves." She urges everyone to "double, triple, quadruple check everything," adding, "If it looks too good to be true, it is probably too good to be true."
However, she feels that the burden shouldn't all fall on you. "I think the onus lies on the government that is not doing enough to prevent these scams from happening. Social media companies and big tech companies are not doing enough either—or the banks, which have become essentially tools for these for these scammers." In others words, don't bank on your own abilities alone. Get help from friends and others. Otherwise, you could find yourself "living on a prayer" when it comes to love.