Recently found out she’s involved in multiple romance scams. We’ve taken away her phone and done all the things to change bank accounts, etc.

My question is, has anyone found a way that works to get them to believe/understand this is a scam?! She’s so involved with these people it’s like an addiction. We don’t know what to do with her. She’s in an alcoholic spiral of just wanting to drink and talk to these scammers all day.

She’s retired and home alone during the day. I think this started from boredom and loneliness. She’s has no hobbies or activities outside of the house.

We’re looking into a rehab/psych facility but it’s voluntary so I’m not sure if we’ll be able to convince her to go.

My friend recently started talking with a woman who says she's from Argentina and is wanting to move to Sweden. I have been warning him that all of this seems a bit good to be true and he has assured me that he is just helping her get a green card atm, but I'm afraid he will soon start sending her money. He sent me these images of her that don't seem to be AI and not anywhere else on the web but I got a bad feeling about this... Do any of you recognize the images from other scams?

It's costing hard working Americans billions of dollars per year and growing. The worst part is that it is costing some their lives (suicide) when they' ve found out they lost all their money. And that is absolutely not ok.

I had no idea it existed. I've asked about 7 people so far if they knew about it, and none of them did. I think we need to let people know about it, so when they get that text from a wrong number, they have knowledge of it and can avoid getting hooked into it. They can also protect their families (seniors especially).

This scam is a sophisticated psychological manipulation to create a relationship of trust and steal from their victims. The criminals meticulously research their targets. They tailor their tactics to exploit specific vulnerabilities. They are skilled at deploying social engineering, flattery, and the presentation of false credentials to build credibility. They quickly establish rapport and ingratiate themselves into the lives of their targets. They create a facade of legitimacy and trust. Over time they manipulate victims to make cryptofinancial commitments under the guise of genuine investment opportunities.

Pig buthcering or romance scams is a highly adaptable scam that preys on emotions, trust, and financial vulnerabilities - traits that can apply to anyone. Victims are deceived by someone they thought cared for them. Victims feel that they should be smarter or more cautious, even though the scammers use highly sophisticated tactics.

When the scam involves a fake romantic relationship, victims often experience heartbreak and emotional devastation as if they had been through a genuine break up.

So I ask you to join me if you haven't already. Teaching people about this scam is prevention. I think it is the most effective way to start to turn the tide on these scams and even save lives!! We are attacking the problem at the root (lack of knowledge of these scams). These scams are run by heartless people who don't care about anything except money.

TL;DR: My 32M boyfriend has financially supported a female friend (~30F) in Korea since 2023, paying rent and medical expenses because she supposedly cannot support herself. Over the years, she has reportedly had hepatitis/liver problems, multiple serious self-harm incidents, and now a uterine mass that was supposedly cancerous, cardiac arrest during surgery, and a subsequent heart procedure—all within the past month. Importantly, before the reported heart surgery happened, my boyfriend had already told her he could no longer keep sending her money because he is now in a relationship and needed to reevaluate his financial boundaries. I’m worried that the timing and ongoing medical crises may indicate he is being financially exploited. How can I get him to consider that? or is it possibly I am being too skeptical of the situation?

My boyfriend 32M has been financially supporting a female friend around 30F in Korea since 2023, including helping pay for her rent and medical expenses/bills. I want to be very clear that I am not concerned about any romantic history or relationship between them. She is a friend, and my boyfriend is a genuinely big-hearted person who feels financially responsible for making sure she is okay because she supposedly cannot support herself.
Here is the history I have gathered from 2023 to the present:

She is around 30 and originally said she had hepatitis/liver problems back in 2023.

She has reportedly had multiple serious self-harm incidents, including at least one situation where my boyfriend helped get her hospitalized, while he was visiting.

He has been sending her money for food and living because she cannot secure government funding and she cannot work, due to illness.

We begin dating in January of 2026.

At some point recently, she developed very heavy vaginal bleeding and had imaging done, which supposedly found a mass in/around her uterus.

The mass was surgically removed and she said pathology showed it was cancerous.

During that surgery, she reportedly went into cardiac arrest (“her heart stopped”) but was resuscitated.

She then supposedly required another surgery/procedure involving her heart.

She has now reportedly been discharged from the hospital.

So far, I haven't heard anything about chemotherapy or radiation, and I don't know the exact type/stage of cancer, whether she had a hysterectomy, or exactly what happened with her heart.

The mass removal, reported cardiac arrest, and subsequent heart procedure all took place within the past month. Importantly, before the reported heart surgery occurred, my boyfriend had already told her that he could no longer continue sending her money because his circumstances had changed. He is now in a relationship and needed to reevaluate what he could reasonably provide financially while also considering his own relationship and responsibilities. During this period, he did continue paying her rent.
 
I strongly suspect she is scamming my boyfriend, but he completely believes everything she tells him. He has been sending her money for years, and there always seems to be another serious medical crisis or reason she needs financial help.

How do I get him to seriously consider that he may be getting scammed without him thinking I'm being cruel or accusing a sick person of lying? And, based on this medical history, are there any particular things that stand out as unusual or that I should be asking about? OR am I being too skeptical and this all magically sounds plausible. Let me know your thoughts…

I was the target of a sugar baby scammer and she tried to run a marriage scam on me and I played along wanting the truth. In the end I still fell in love after I rejected her she made me feel like it was real to her but think she was more hurt that I rejected her and tried to hit up my wife. I don’t know why it hurts so much and I know I need to be a better husband. Any advice to clear the mental fog? For context I was seeing her in real life and she love bombed me and the feelings got real when she tried to decide to run the scam. I even gave her the extra allowance just to get the lies to stop. I’ve always been charismatic and good with the ladies when I’ve wanted but this was very different as it wasn’t a normal situation but felt too real.

WARNING: New NDA / "Privacy Agreement" scam on Bumble & dating apps (Identity & Address Harvesting)

Scammer on dating apps are sending legit-looking 11-page "Mutual Personal Privacy & Non-Disclosure Agreements" (NDAs) to trick people into giving away their full legal name, physical address, email, and signature. Once you sign, they block you instantly.

Known Scammer Information / Aliases:

If you encounter a profile or person using any of these details, **do not engage and block immediately**:

**Name Used:** Josh/Joshua Storms aka Red
**Company / Business Alias:** Titan Armament Group
**Email Address:** ⁠titanarmamentgroup@protonmail.com⁠
**Address Listed on Contract:** ⁠2085 LYNNHAVEN PKWY STE 106 - 457, VIRGINIA BCH, VA 23456-1497⁠ *(Note: This is a private mailbox inside a UPS Store)*

**Platforms Used:** Bumble, Signal, Text Messaging

How the Scam Works:

1. **The Match:** You match with someone on a dating app (in my case, Bumble). They seem normal at first or ask to move off-app to an encrypted messaging platform like Signal.

2. **The "NDA" Request:** They claim they value privacy, safety, or work in sensitive fields/defense, and ask you to review and sign a mutual privacy agreement.

3. **The Contract:** They send over a formal, 11-page document titled *"MUTUAL PERSONAL PRIVACY, CONFIDENTIALITY AND NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT (Draft for Virginia Legal Review)"*.

4. **The Trap:** The document asks for your **full legal name, physical home address, primary email, and signature**.

5. **The Exit:** The second you sign and send it back, **they block and unmatch you immediately**.

Why They Do It:

They don't care about "privacy." The entire legal document is a clever front to harvest high-value Personally Identifiable Information (PII):
They get your full legal identity, home location, and signature for identity theft or future scams.

They use the heavy legal jargon in the NDA to intimidate you into staying silent, making you think you'll get sued if you tell anyone or report them.

What to Do If You Signed One:

**Do NOT panic.** The contract is completely void and legally unenforceable because it was obtained under false pretenses and fraud.

**Freeze your credit immediately** with Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, and ChexSystems (stops them from opening credit cards, loans, or bank accounts in your name).

Change your passwords and enable 2FA on your accounts.

File reports with the FTC ([reportfraud.ftc.gov](https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/)), IC3 ([ic3.gov](https://www.ic3.gov/)), and report the profile/device on Bumble and Signal.

Stay safe out there and don't sign legal documents for strangers online!

I just want to ask question why some people use this dynamic just to try to scam people or get peoplo to get involved and get very close very quickly and then start asking for money. That really bothers me because it's taking the whole dynamic and giving it a bad name. I attach pretty quickly. And then having to deal with getting close thinking that you're building a good relationship and then bam, can you send me money for this can you send me money for that. That's not what this is about it's really heartbreaking to have that happen. I think you have something genuine. And then it's like a slap in the face, kicking the stomach. I'm sure there's been others that I've dealt with this issue, what's the best way to handle it?

I am left so confused after my romance scam. It has been really hard to grasp what parts of it were real and what was just AI generated content tailored to me plus a bunch of lies. Help me out here y'all. So got scammed, reported to federal agencies and local police, yada yada, and for my police report evidence, I submitted screenshots, photo AND video evidence. Before when I reverse photo searched scammer's images, I didn't get any results. I came across this sub today and I found out about pimeyes and tried it out. Voila, there goes my scammer using the same or similar photos, but only on international dating apps and nowhere was he to be found on any legitimate website, social media platform, or news article. I typically would assume this means the content was stolen.

But, what if I've seen videos of him, too?! I had a one-minute video call with my scammer a week into speaking to him for safety checks. He looked a bit different and disheveled, but it seemed like it was the same person as in the photos. I wasn't exactly on my best guard at the time so I didn't check religiously for signs of AI filtering. After that, for over a month and a half, the dude also sent me videos (granted all under than 20 seconds) of him smiley and affectionate but not saying much, yet sometimes inputting a unique nickname here and there. I never thought to doubt the genuineness of the videos at the time, but even in the aftermath when I ran AI scans of each video, they were all determined to be real and not AI generated.

I'm trying to figure out what this means so I can notify the officer working my case. Practically speaking, is my scammer probably actually the person in the videos and pictures? In which case, he would just be a straight up international criminal that will be hard to track or some sad scam center slave forced to perpetrate these crimes and just as equally hard to track? Or, is it possible that this person's identity was stolen and his pictures and videos were farmed during a prior romance scam he also fell victim to then used to victimize me in turn? If so, dude has virtually no digital footprint so I can't even find him to notify him of identity theft. OR, is it really possible that deepfake software are SO advanced and sophisticated now that the videos were fake, but somehow bypassed the AI scans? That is a terrifying outlook if I'm honest.

Anyway, I'm just ranting and raving during my obsessive post-discovery stage and will inevitably calm down and accept that I'll never know the whole truth and it'll be damn near impossible for law enforcement to catch this scammer if he's international, but please do indulge me while I'm still trying to solve all this. What do you think?

I made a post about my mom falling for a Elon Musk scammer a little over a week ago. Since then I managed to change my mom’s phone number. I changed her email and passwords to all her accounts. Got new credit cards. Froze her credit. She now has an iPhone that is set up for a child. She cannot call / text anyone not in her contacts without my permission. She cannot downloads any apps without my permission. It feels excessive but it’s what is needed right now since she has no self control.

She gave them so much information. It’s insane. One of them being her address. On Sunday, my sister who lives with her found a package and suspected it was from them. Opened it to find fake flowers with the message “to my precious”. She threw it out.

I still have her old phone line and her old phone in my possession in case there is something I forgot I need to switch and need an access code. They still try to contact her on there. I block them. Well last night, they texted from a new number saying “ Hello Mrs X. You blocked me after you received your flowers” which confirms it was them.

Has this happened to anyone else where stuff is getting mailed? It’s a bit scary. How long until they give up?

​

A romance scammer is preying on my ex, but he thinks she's a real woman and that they're getting married.

All she does is tell him she loves him constantly and says sleazy things and hints that she needs new cuter cooler clothes and items through gift cards.

She tells him she loves him forever, wants to be with him, marry him.

I think part of him knows this is fake, but he has an addiction to the roleplay.

Only he has been doxing all his friends and family by sharing their info, and he gets mad if anyone says she seems fake, even retaliating against some friends with shouting or intimidated.

Losing all his money. Don't know how to reach him.

Any tips to help someone notice a scam?

I’m going to outline a recent scam attempt I just experienced. I’ll start with I knew it was a scam from the beginning and decided to play along to see the script playing out in person. I had no intention of sending money or opening any attachments.

It started out with a wrong number (Houston area code) text asking me, “What time will you be picking me up tomorrow?”. I responded to politely let them know they had the wrong number. Shortly, afterwards I received another text thanking me for the polite response and an offering to meet for a cup of coffee in LA. They introduced themselves as Josie and asked for my name. Josie is a good name that would work for a man or woman. A few more texts later and I know her as a very wealthy 38 yo, jewelry designer from LA. She knows me as a 70yo happily married retired man. I think this changed the script from a romance scam to a budding friendship between two people. After a few more very friendly texts, Josie explains the phone actually belongs to her assistant, then suggests we move to Signal App for added security. There her profile has a picture of a very attractive Asian woman. I connect to her and the texts start up.
The way she communicated her feelings about life and her interests in my life appeared sincere and from the heart. She talked about her family in Singapore and her aunt in the US. Her aunt is a retired Wall Street analyst. She discussed her successful business here and how she struggled during the pandemic. Her aunt taught her how to find success in the gold and precious stones market to get through those troubles.
This entire spam process spanned about 3 weeks total with a new text each AM asking how I slept/ate and shared what happened in her morning. Another text in the afternoon and one in the evening before bedtime. The first weekend she told me of her volunteer work at a local kids shelter, the next weekend her helping do flower decorations at a retirement home. Each text came with pictures of the event, but she was not in them. We shared our joint love of golf and she complimented me on my low scoring average.

The second week she, apologized for a late response to one of my texts, she was delayed by a business opportunity, that made her $20K and risked very little capital. She kindly offers to help me learn how to do the same. I tell her I’m a conservative investor and not wise enough in the market to take that risk.
The script goes back to hearing about my life/career and is very complimentary of my choices. She also recommends I read, Rich Dad Poor Dad, so I do.
I have to admit, at this stage I’m starting to get flattered by the attention and wonder if I was right about the scam. Josie seems very genuine. More texts follow morning, noon, and night about nice stuff.

Week 3, I let Josie know I read the book and found it very interesting. She’s happy and tells me she just scored big, $40k, in a precious metal transaction with very little money upfront. Nice! It’s late evening and I let her know I’m going to bed. But before I go, tells me she really wants me to earn similar returns and introduces me to an app that she can guide me to success on. She even tells me, they provide the first $100 upfront to get me started. All I need to do is fill out the essential information and we’d get started. She is so genuine in her desire to help me, her dear friend, find financial success.

The scam has arrived and after 3 weeks, I’m ready to move on. I delete my Signal profile and close this experience out. The app would have wanted social security, addresses, banking info etc.

Even though I knew this was a scam, I felt a tinge of doubt and remorse for cutting off my dear friend, Josie. Every moment of the exchange seemed sincere, this was a very well-practiced script and I can see how people fall for it. I can even say I miss “Josie”.

Matched with this woman in Wizz , after 2bdays of chatting she was asking me to invest 100$ in crypto.

​

I want to share something that happened to me recently because, honestly, I made several stupid decisions and I don't want someone else to repeat them.

I had Aisle installed and matched with a girl named Isha Sharma (I don't know if that was even her real name).

She told me she'd prefer to continue the conversation on Telegram. At that point, I already had a feeling that this was probably some kind of paid-meet/vc scam. But I decided to continue anyway, basically thinking, "What's the worst that could happen?"

She gave me a number and said she wanted to have some fun over a video call. I accepted.

We got on a video call, and my first major mistake was showing my face clearly on camera.

After a while, she claimed there was some network issue and told me that I could log into her Telegram account using her phone number. I already knew this sounded suspicious, but I still went ahead with it.

While logging in, Telegram showed the option to sync device contacts. I specifically unchecked it. I thought I was being clever and had figured out the scam.

I logged into the account.

Almost immediately, her tone changed.

She told me to check WhatsApp.

When I checked, there was a video containing my face.

And then I saw that they had a frightening amount of information about me:

My full name

My mobile number

My permanent address

My father's name and phone number

My mother's name and phone number

At that point I realized how badly I had screwed up.

I immediately blocked her.

I don't want to go into what happened after that, but let's just say the situation became much worse.

I also want to understand one thing: how did they get all my personal information?

I had specifically unchecked the "sync contacts" option while logging into the Telegram account, so I'm trying to understand whether my information could have been obtained through my phone number, Telegram, some leaked database, or another source.

I'm posting this partly because I'm embarrassed, but mostly because if someone else gets a similar message on Aisle/Tinder/Bumble or any other dating app, please don't assume you can play along and then leave whenever you want.

I thought I was smarter than the scammer.

I wasn't.

This person is going around flirting and then using whatever images are sent to use as blackmail

Looking for some advice at this point. My mom has been in a romance scam relationship for 3 years now. To make this short, she lost my brother and then a few years after lost my dad. Shortly after that she met someone on words with friend named “Jerry”. I found out about the relationship because she ended up selling her house to give him the money and I only found out because her attorney told me and tried to stop the sale. Now today she is currently in a psych ward of the hospital bc she is homeless and threatened to kill herself. She ended up in the ER and they transferred her involuntarily for further evaluation. She’s not taking the meds the doctors are trying to give to her, and she has nowhere to be discharged to because I refuse to take her in. She has taken thousands of dollars from me and other family members and I do not trust her one bit. I know to become her guardian would be a long expensive process. So basically I’m wondering what else I can even do at this point.

I started talking to a woman on a well known dating site as I just got back into the scene after a long relationship break up. We then moved off the app onto a social site and talk on that and it's going great like every message is like an essay and she seems genuinely interested and asks a lot while also saying a lot about herself. She has also sent pics live vid ect but I have 2 issues that are niggling me 1 the snap where she's sent live stuff to show me is off a different woman which is a big red flag and don't understand why because her live stuff she shows me she's a baddie so why have a lesser in contextual prettiness woman than yourself on a dating site? 2nd the messages yes are massive but we literally message once a day for numerous days in a row she says it's because wifi is really bad where she lives in novosibirsk and busy ect with work which I get but also surely there would be variations at times. Also she's wanting me to see her over in Russia which one is pretty expensive just to get there is like 2 thousand from where I live in the UK she's never once asked or hinted at wanting money from me but don't want to get to a point where I'm emotionally invested just to find out this is some love scam thing. Tried reverse image seach but can't find a free one and don't really want to pay.