I know it’s a Scammer but I cannot let go

By Bernard G. Vance, Dr.Ed and Dimitria McCreary, RN/MHN

Romance Scams Part 8

The red flags have showed up and waving, the picture is posted under a different name and profile, your letters and poems were copied from another website and the IP address proved that the person you were emailing and chatting with was not where they said they were. But you cannot let go and are looking for anything to hold on to and believe that your love is real and not a scammer and a lie. You are fighting with your heart and mind over who is right and your heart wants to win even thou you see all the evidence in your mind and know that you were being scammed. Why is it so hard to give up and say that you were being taken, lied to and scammed, well there is no one simple answer.

Victims of these scams have said “I just needed to hear his voice again”; “I was looking for some ray of truth to hold on to”; “I know it was a lie but wanted to feel loved”; “I cannot stop myself from trying to contact him”. These are symptoms that show that we were successfully psychologically programed by these pathological criminals. Even when shown the truth, many of the victims are in denial and fight to hold on to the dream created in their heart.

We were all looking for love and companionship, wanting to feel special and cared for by someone, and along come this beautiful and / or handsome person who starts to flatter our egos and build a presence in our mind of someone who really cares about us. This person tells us that we are someone special and would like to build a relationship with us. This is just what we were looking for, hoping for, dreaming about and praying for, to fill the emptiness in our life and make us whole again. Along comes this wonderful person who really treats us special and knows how to say all the right things that set our hearts aglow and our minds at ease all the while these sophisticated pathological criminals are grooming us (their victims) with soft loving words of endearments, gifts, promises of a new, wonderful fulfilling life with the soul aim of befriending & establishing an emotional connection with us.

By using some of the most current and established psychological techniques these predators (Yes they are internet predators) slowly bind our emotions to them and isolate us from many of our safeguards. The scammer knows what we are looking for and need as they research our profiles, Facebook pages, any other social media that we are using. Then they read and analyze our emails and chats to see what our dreams, hopes and wants are so they can prepare a response that meets that need and dream. Here is where our hearts begin to take over, and usurp control from our mind as our heart is telling us that here is finely someone who gets me and really wants what I have been dreaming of and is willing to give it to me.

The problem here is all of this was a lie, just to establish an emotional attachment and ensnaring us in their scheme. There was never any love or emotions on their part, as the scammers are trained to be anything that you need and want, building an illusion in your heart of love, caring and forever. These criminals can and will promise you anything, as they know that it is not real and they will never be held accountable for their actions and promises. Our hearts and emotions take over and established a dream of a wonderful life and love that our mind could not overcome, in a sense we were programed to need and respond to the manipulations of the scammer, long for their approval, promises of love and words of endearment. We rearrange our life for them, so we would always be available to chat with them and isolated ourselves from the rest of the world, do to the fact that we had found our one and only true love and soul mate. When our mind finely reasserts itself and we realize that we were being played and scammed, our heart still will not let go of the dream, fighting to hold on to the smallest chance that it was real. We do not want to feel the loss of a love and will do anything to hold on to it.

Stockholm Syndrome is one of the psychological effect that these criminals understand and foster in their victims by causing the victim to identify with the predator / perpetrator, causing us to find it hard to break free of their hold on us and thus being able to bring us back into their control and schemes several times. We begin to Identify with the scammer and will take their side over our friends and in the face of hard evidence to the contrary.

The want for love and acceptance is very overwhelming and our hearts will do almost anything just to hear that we are loved and special to someone, this can be addicting and very hard to break even when we know that it is a lie. These sophisticated pathological criminals (scammers) are trained to use this first to foster dependency for us to them then to hold us in their grip as they involve us in their scam and / or strip us of our money. Over weeks and sometimes months these criminals have been programing us to respond to them and there manipulations, first by isolating us from our safeguards and friends, then by soft seductive words and letters which stroke our egos and relax our minds to accept a different reality. Words of endearment, poems, love letters, seductive wallpaper, sleep deprivation, isolation (controlling our email contacts, having us take down our websites and profiles) all are techniques used by these scammers to gain control over us and program us to respond to their direction.

Here are some examples that let us know that we have been programed by these criminals.

1. We find that we are upset if we cannot get to our computer and be on line when the scammers wants us to talk with them. (I found myself very irritated and upset with my family when I was out with them out for a dinner in town and could not get back to talk with my love contact (scammer) at the normal time we met each day)

2. We rearrange our day and times to meet the schedule of the scammers, staying up very late or getting up early to meet their time zone.

3. We take down all our dating profiles and quit talking and emailing our other friends and family.

4. At the suggestion of our new love, we move from safe sites to a chat or email site that they can isolate us with.

5. We are spending abnormal hours emailing, chatting or talking to this new love and longing to spend more time with them, neglecting our work and personal needs such as food and sleep.

6. Even when red flags pop up in our mind and our common sense tries to assert itself, we make excuses to justify the inconsistences we are noting such as spelling, grammar, locations, lack of complete answers to our questions and accents that do not match the person we were falling for.

7. Even in undisputable proof that we are being scammed, we look for any little thing to hold on to the chance that they are a real person.

How do we break free from this hold the scammer has on us? It is not easy and will hurt at first as our heart will fight to remain in control, but, if we are to break free and recover we must do the fallowing steps.

First, Break any and all contact with the scammers, Block, Ignore and delete all contacts, email address, social websites and phone numbers that they are or have used.

Second, surround ourselves with a support network of family, friends or a support group who will understand what has happened to us and support us and back us up.

Third, change our routine, get out, clean the house, read a book, walk, work out side, go to the gym or anything else to break up the pattern that was programed into by the scammer.

Fourth, realize we were psychological programed and conditioned to respond to the scammers and were not acting totally on our own free will.

These steps will hurt at first as it will seem as we are going through a divorce or death of a loved one, which will be true in a way as we are experiencing the death of a dream that we had put into our heart. However, each hour and day will slowly bring relief as we realize the control that we were under has been removed and our independence and life is given back. Yes we will go through many emotions, such as grief, anger, hate, and loathing but understand that this is also normal in our recovery.

Whatever you do, do not relent or try and get in contact with the scammer as they will only use that contact to try and reinsert control over you again and continue the scam until you are bled dry of money and no use to them and then discarded as trash. These criminals will use any trick that they can to regain control over you from a barrage of emails, text messages, phone calls, to threating to blackmail you with information you may have told them or pictures you sent to them. These are just techniques used by these criminals to try and gain control of an asset that they are losing and are only empty threats.

Now that you are free, do not relent control of you mind and life, remember that you are in control of the off buttons on all the electronic equipment that they will try to reach you on, Just Block, Ignore and Delete them from your life as you take back control of your life again.

“Do Not Feed the Scammers”

Comments (1)

Chem45666
I have had this happen they try to emotionally blackmail and do other really mean stuff. Your post is exactly on and others had said if they ask for Hangouts or e-mail right away there a 99.99 percent chance that person is a scammer.

Connecting singles should try to route these people out. Have u heard of Geeks for Geeks it went bankrupt for its high cost and allowing scammers back on the site --- they just blocked them. It proved they did not care about there clients just there to make money.

I am glad they went bankrupt.

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