Scam Psychology — A Romance Fraud Case Study
Under the spell: How calculated deception turns fiction into reality.
Authored by Martina Dove, Ph.D.
Executive summary
Romance fraud is not simply a financial crime. It is a sustained process of psychological manipulation in which criminals exploit trust, intimacy, and emotional vulnerability to facilitate financial abuse. This case study demonstrates how a romance scam can develop gradually, with the perpetrator building emotional dependence and credibility, aided by AI, before creating incidents that encourage financial compliance. These crimes are about more than simply persuading a target to send money. Over time, the scammer constructs an alternative reality in which the requests appear legitimate, necessary, and emotionally tied to the relationship they have created.
The case study illustrates how a victim’s personal circumstances can shape the context in which a scam unfolds. In this case, a lack of knowledge about scams, previous experiences of coercive control, and a desire for stability and reassurance combined to create circumstances that the perpetrator could exploit. It’s important that these factors are not misunderstood as personal failings. The scammer actively identified and exploited vulnerabilities, combining familiarity, similarity, emotional intimacy, and coercion with carefully managed communications and fake bank accounts to establish trust. The manipulation then evolved into a cycle of financial exploitation.
Shamrock Updates
Sign up for information about the global scamdemic and what we’re doing to fight it. Get the newsletter and watch for invitations to online events.
> Stay Up to Date
When transactions failed, the scammer used anger and verbal abuse to create pressure and destabilize the victim. Following successful transfers, declarations of love and affection provided positive emotional reinforcement. Compliance therefore became associated with the restoration of intimacy and reassurance, contributing to a cycle that supported increasingly large financial requests. The case demonstrates how financial exploitation can emerge from a relationship that has been carefully engineered over time, rather than appearing as an obvious request for money at the outset.
Author: Martina Dove, Ph.D.
Dr. Martina Dove is a researcher, product strategy consultant, and subject-matter expert in scam psychology. Her work focuses on the human side of fraud, exploring the factors that can make people more vulnerable to scams, as well as the persuasion techniques fraudsters use to manipulate their victims.
With a background in user experience research and product strategy, Martina helps organizations design more effective fraud prevention strategies by better understanding user behavior, decision-making, and points of vulnerability. She is especially passionate about destigmatizing fraud victimization and empowering people to recognize and resist scammers’ tactics. She is committed to fighting fraud through education and awareness, helping individuals spot even the most sophisticated scam techniques. She has published a book on fraud psychology (The Psychology of Fraud, Persuasion and Scam Techniques), actively supports fraud prevention non-profits, and regularly writes for industry blogs on fraud and consumer protection.
On the Stolen Podcast:
More from Dr. Martina Dove & Kirsty
Related Stories from Our Blog
