A ROMANCE SCAMS NOW COMMENTARY

A visitor to our website demanded to know what we were going to do after she reported a scammer to us.

Here is our response (hard truth style):

We add “him” to our watch list and accumulate information until we have enough for a police action in his source country. We have our own contacts in each country for action against them.

Usually this results in a confiscation of his assets and money for tax fraud, since scamming online is not a serious crime in many of these countries. Where we obtain arrests is usually because they also scam locals. But we are fairly successful in taking away their stealings or proceeds, almost US$80,000 in the last two months in Ghana alone.

The money will never come back, but slowly we take away the profit motive. However, given the fact thAT you expect someone else to do the work for free, you are fairly lucky we exist.

Most victims expect someone else to clean up after them – reporting is only the first step, then the hard work begins.

Sorry, but this is a hard truth, we are the only group that actually does anything, and we put our own money into it.

Unfortunately, it is easy to demand that others clean up after them. Welcome to the real world, where victims are willing give away their own money, then expect help for nothing.

At least we do something real, but as long as victims have this mentality, nothing is going to stop the scammers. All we can do is slow them down. If we had a million dollar budget, we could arrange for the arrest of hundreds a month by going after what these host countries care about – their reputation in the world.

Since you won’t support adding local investigators, would you support a revenge advertising campaign against the host countries? Make it clear to the greater world that Ghana and Nigeria (and others) are cesspools of scammers? Surprisingly, tourism is a major source of income to all of them – imagine the damage such a campaign could have on that! We could have a 100 times impact on their national revenue from tourism.

If you will not personally take a stake in what is happening, then all WE (meaning RomanceScamsNow.com) can do is use our budget to it’s maximum benefit, as we do. But at least we produce results (unlike a hundred other websites), and most victims do nothing.

Sorry If that is too brutal for some. We are not a charity, we are an organization on a mission, and we meet our objectives every day. We are very disenchanted with the support of victims in general, but we continue without anyone’s thanks, and with constant abuse.

We see thousands of victims every year and know that we could do more with more support. But that support just isn’t there, so we are frustrated by the prevailing attitudes.

As an example, almost 1% of our likes unlike us each week, yet we have more views and traffic than any other website or anti-scammer Facebook page, so we must be doing something right. People just want to pretend that they don’t have a dog in this fight.

We will continue to work to enforce the law as best we are able, and you don’t have to do anything to support us. We are truly grateful for the people that have our back, both our parent organization, and our few supporters here (you know who you are). To you we say you are all heroes!

To the rest, ask yourself ONE THING:

“Am I the reason the scammers are winning?”

You just might be!

STOP BEING VICTIMS AND FIGHT BACK!

A LIKE ON A FACEBOOK PAGE OR A POST IN A GROUP MAY MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER, BUT DOES NO REAL DAMAGE TO THE SCAMMERS.

REPORT EVERY SCAM

VOLUNTEER YOUR TIME TO HELP

STAY ON TOP OF LOCAL POLICE

POST ANTI-TOURISM MESSAGES ON TRAVEL WEBSITES

SEND EMAILS TO EACH COUNTRY’S EMBASSIES AND CONSULS

STOP ACTING ENTITLED

FOR GOD’S SAKE DO SOMETHING!

Sincerely,
Romance Scams Now Managing Editor.