Stolen Images
Scammers post profiles, using stolen photographs of attractive women (or men), asking for men (or women) to contact them. Letters are exchanged between the scammer and victim until the scammer feels they have groomed the victim enough to ask for money. This might be for requests for airplane tickets, medical expenses, education expenses etc. There is usually the promise that the fictitious character will one day join the victim in the victim's country. The scam usually ends when the victim realizes they are being scammed and/or stops sending money. Victims can be highly traumatized by this and are often very embarrassed and ashamed when they learn they have become a victim of a scam and that the romance is a farce.
Read more about this topic: Romance Scam
Famous quotes containing the words stolen and/or images:
“People of substance may sin without being exposed for their stolen pleasure; but servants and the poorer sort of women have seldom an opportunity of concealing a big belly, or at least the consequences of it.”
—Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733)
“It is not the literal past, the “facts” of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.”
—Brian Friel (b. 1929)