Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman.
Earlier this month six men were extradited from South Africa for allegedly conning more than 100 U.S. women out of more than $6 million. According to the FBI, the men were members of a large organized crime ring that sometimes crafted and maintained elaborate romantic relationships to defraud their targets.
The idea of someone using romance to con you isn’t new; it’s practically a tale as old as time. But the Internet made it possible to implement these schemes from the other side of the globe. Thanks to the ubiquitous nature of online socializing and dating, it no longer sounds inherently fishy to fall for someone you’ve yet to meet in person.
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Fangzhou Wang is an assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Texas at Arlington who studies online financial crimes. She says that now AI is the latest technological advance that’s making romance cons harder to spot—and easier to scale.
Thank you so much for coming on to talk with us today.
Fangzhou Wang: Thank you for inviting me.
Feltman: So how did you get interested in studying romance scams?
Wang: So initially when I get into the field of online scams, so my research actually broadly focuses on online financial crimes and how technology actually creates new opportunities for the offenders to target and exploit the victims in cyberspace. And over time, my work has somehow expanded from what I study in the Ph.D. into, you know, online scam more generally, particularly, you know, [the] human side of those scams. So how scammers actually use persuasion, trust and deception to influence people’s decisions. So this kind of, you know, progression of my research, you know, naturally lead me to online romance scam because this is very interesting scam and how people actually tricking the victims on dating apps, where in the same time financial exploitations is oftentimes built around this kind of, you know, interpersonal, loving relationships.
And more recently, I have also studied, you know, a little bit regarding to the aftermath of the scam, where you have money mules, money launderers and, you know, broader networks that actually help move those illicit funds. And in more recent years, I began to focus in on, you know, how online scam or online financial crime impacting, you know, different populations, specifically elderly population, which could be one of the most vulnerable populations in the societies.
So that is how my research actually progressed, you know, moving from online financial crime, online scam, to romance scam and, more recently to, like, money mules or scams against elderly populations and ultimately, you know, of course, leading me to understanding a more broader, you know, psycho-eco systems that may impact the victims and also the societies as general.
Feltman: Well, to take a step back, could you tell our listeners, a little bit about what kind of scams are, are out there these days that you’re studying?
Wang: Well, the current scam I’m currently studying is, of course, the first one is online romance scam, and the second one I focus most heavily on is going to be the Bitcoin scam, meaning that, how scammers actually utilizing Bitcoins or broader, you know, cryptocurrency systems to elicit, you know, fund from the victims, and how those scams can potentially impacting both the victims and societies.
And aside from the general online scams, I have been also studying, you know, a little bit regarding to cyberstalking and also cyberbullying as well, especially those against teenagers and also minors. And in addition, with regarding to a more broader, you know, abusive nature of cyberspace potentially, I also study a little bit regarding to “sextortion” and also a little bit regarding to, you know, how image-based sexual abuse can potentially be penetrated online and against, you know, different victims from different age groups.
Feltman: Could you give us some examples of common romance scams that we’ve been seeing lately?
Wang: Well, lately, ’cause, you know, online romance scam in general, you know, the scammers are trying to use fake identities to persuade the victims into giving up their monies by building a trusted relationships in the firsthand. So that is a very common online romance scam that we have been knowing in the societies. But however, in recent years, I wanna say online romance scam has been industrialized in a more Bitcoin or investment-based trusted scams that [are] happening online. Specifically, when the scammers are building trust with you first, and then the scammers are enticing you or luring you to go on fraudulent investment platforms where the scammers will tell the victims that, “oh, we need to build a wonderful future together. And in order to do so, we need to do the investment, or we need to invest on these platforms and accumulate our assets all together.” But in return, the victims will find out the scammers are actually building up the fake platforms by themselves to lure the victims to invest on. So in the end of the day, the victims are actually just investing their own money by putting the money just directly into the scammers’ pockets. So that is how the romance scam are gradually developing from simply just using persuasive cues into the scammers are industrialized their operations by building, like, an entrepreneur around their operations by, you know, luring the victims into the investment apps before, you know, they actually exploiting them voluntarily in some ways.
Feltman: So we’re not talking about, you know, somebody messaging you online and talking you into sending them some amount of money. We’re talking about, you know, big operations where they’re forming, in some cases, really, like, long-term online relationships with you. You know, there’s an entire operation then funneling you into giving them money in what seems like a business decision.
Wang: Exactly. I wanna more emphasize the online romance scam nowadays is developing more like an organized crime or more likely to be a white-collar crime, if you wanna say it more generally. So instead of just a petty crimes that impacting only a smaller portion of the victims, but, you know, the victims around the globe are impacted by this kind of scam. And we do not know exactly where majority of the scammers are coming from, but we just know they stay anonymized, they stay organized, they stay in a group and trying to get into as many victims’ mind as they can or even their bank account.
Feltman: So how do you go about studying romance scams?
Wang: So one area of my work actually examine how romance scam operates, so that is going to be the one central things I’m currently studying on. So I have been studying, you know, scam communications and offender strategies to understand how scammers actually use staged processes to construct identities, initiate, you know, relationships, build trust, and eventually, you know, transition into what I called a financial request or financial crisis. So this, kind of, help us to think about, you know, romance scam as a staged processes instead of just like one single deceptive messages, and then the victims just give out money. So it’s not like this way.
And most recently, I have been studying, you know, how we can actually prevent romance scam before the victimization even occurs. So one of my most recent projects [is] actually trying to dive further into the persuasion strategies used by the scammers, how the persuasion actually works into enticing the victims to fall into those crises. So the basic idea is very similar to a vaccine, if I use this example. So instead of, you know, simply telling people how scam actually exist, so we expose potential users or potential victims to weakened example of the persuasive strategies of the scammers that they could potentially be using during the scamming process and explain how those strategies actually work. So the goal is, of course, to cut the connection or cut the persuasion cues in the first place before the victims fall into the bigger traps. So the goal is, of course, to help people to recognize that or resist to those techniques when they encounter in a real relationships.
Some of my recent works also examine, you know, the role of AI in those scams, especially generative AIs. So they can potentially make it easier for the scammers to produce, you know, convincing messages—because nowadays, if we get a chance to interview an offenders in cyberspace, they’d probably be like, “We won’t be [writing] those prescam scripts by ourselves. We use generative AI to generate realistic images to target more people in the societies.” So, and they also use AI to generate those images and identities.
And of course, at the same time, our research also [asks] whether people can be trained or recognize manipulation regardless of whether deceptive content was created by [a] human or AI and which type of cue is more persuasive to the potential victims or the general crowd.
Feltman: What are your findings, tell us, about how people can avoid these scams and spot them?
Wang: Well, I wanna say, all of my research that I just described in the previous questions, they are all in progress. But what is actually surprising me is, you know, how difficult it can be to translate, you know, general scam awareness into actual resistance. Because people, when they hear about online scam or romance scam, they may even be able to list, right, those clear and obvious warning signs. But recognizing a red flag in those [in the] abstract is very different than actually being able to tell them in the actual conversations when they are having [them] with the scammers. And somehow, even though with those awareness already preexisted in their mind, they can still be very susceptible to those persuasions. So this is one reasons that, you know, a lot of scam awareness, so-called trainings, can be less effective than they actually think they can [be]. Because a lot of time, you know, the scammers, they will read our papers as well. So they will adapt their strategies as well, simultaneously, when our researchers and our societies begin to progressing against those scams. So that is one central findings of my research.
And another interesting one, from my prevention research, is that, you know, simply creating a sense of threat or fear does not necessarily appear to be the most important mechanism for protecting people—because we do not want to, you know, entice a fear from the victims without actually telling them what the scam is actually about. [This] does not reduce their online activities or sometimes may have more adverse effects on how they actually talk to people online. So what seems especially important for me is that developing people’s motivation and ability to resist the persuasion is more important than enticing just, you know, the simple fear—because that kind of mentality suggests prevention messages should go beyond just saying, “Romance scam are dangerous,” right? So they should teach people what manipulation and persuasion looks like in the actual conversations and what to do when they actually encounter those red flags.
Feltman: And what are some of the red flags that people should be looking out for?
Wang: From a researcher’s standpoint, I think, the first one is not going to be the broken grammar again—because, a lot of [the] time, when people are saying, “Oh, the scammers are using a broken English, or they are using a fragmented sentencing when they are chatting with you, it’s the sign of a scammer,” [but] nowadays scammers are now, they are using AI to generate, you know, sentences. So of course, the grammar is gonna be great. It’s awesome. It’s just like a native, speakers when talking to the victims.
But I wanna say the most important sign I want everyone to notice [is the] use of images and the videos—because you want the person talking to you online [to] show their behavior is consistent, meaning that the images and the videos needs to be always consistent, telling the stories. But, however, it’s very hard in today’s world as well because the deepfakes can always help the scammers to create whatever images and videos they want to create, even in a consistent ways. So although I wanna say it is a red flag, but in some other ways it’s, you know, the scammers, if they really invest into the scam, they probably can overcome this challenge as well.
And the third red flag I wanna mention is whether they will have a video chat or voice chat with you in a live settings. This is a common red flag that I always recommend people to do when they are trying to, you know, talking to strangers online, especially for a prolonged period of times. But, however, [on the] other hand, things always come with double-edged sword, right? Because with the deepfakes and AIs, the scammers can just embed a deepfake, um, software into their video chatting platforms, and then they can change their face, change their voice. So I wanna say, overall, in general, it’s just very hard to actually, like, completely eliminate the opportunities to encounter scams online, especially on the dating apps.
So I wanna say: always have somebody around you, so you can always talk, talk to them when you see anything [that] might be raising your red flags. Do not keep yourself in a bubble without talking to your friends or your families or your classmates, right? So always let people around you, like, really care about you. Tell them what is going on in these conversations, what’s actually raising your suspicions, and they might be the perfect individual that can help you to tell if it is a scam or give you more advice on how to talk to strangers on the platforms. So that’s my suggestions.
Feltman: Yeah. Well, and it sounds like, unfortunately we’re at a point technologically where no matter how real the relationship feels and no matter how much evidence you think you’ve acquired that it’s real, maybe if someone you’ve only ever spoken to virtually asks you for money, that should just always be a red flag, unfortunately. Maybe in the 1 percent of situations where that is someone who genuinely loves you asking for money, maybe they just need to be let down. [Laughs.]
Wang: Exactly. Another thing I think [is] it is also very important that the prevention does not always place [the] responsibility on the victims’ families alone. The dating apps, the social media companies, financial institutions, and the law enforcement also have important roles to play. So we should not simply just asking the victims, “How you can become better at detecting scam by yourselves online?” but ask, you know, how the platforms or how the general societies can make those scams harder to carry out in the first place.
Feltman: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for coming on to, uh, talk to us about this.
Wang: Thank you so much for inviting me.
Feltman: That’s all for today’s episode. We’ll be back on Friday to chat with the Internet’s favorite food foraging expert: Alexis Nikole Nelson.
Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Allison Rodgers and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Marielle Issa and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.
For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. See you next time!
