> ROMANCE PREDATORS
says Monica Whitty, a psychologist and
professor at the University of Leicester
in England. Such connections can be
“more intimate than a face-to-face relationship…People self-disclose a lot more
information than they normally would.”
Although romantic predators target
every demographic, from 20-somethings to women in their ‘30s, Nikolas
Savage, an agent with the FBI, says the
majority of victims appear to be somewhat older women in their 40s and 50s
and they tend to be the ones who lose
the most money.
But other analysts aren’t entirely certain
about the demographics of romantic scams
because only a portion of the victimized
population is willing to come forward and
HUFFINGTON
06.24.12
discuss their plights or to take legal action.
Whitty recently studied 466 romance scam
victims from a sample of around 1,200
online daters and found that older women
weren’t any more likely to fall for predators. In general, the victims she encountered had one overlapping characteristic,
and it wasn’t their age or their gender.
“Romantic beliefs,” are the common
trait, says Whitty. “The people who believe that there is an ideal perfect person
out there are the people who are more
prone to being victims of the scam.”
For her part, Bourgeois, who is 41, says
she recognizes all of this about herself.
“I watch romance movies a lot, and
I would say that I would like to have
something like that. Maybe that’s not
realistic, but I believe in romance, I really do,” she says. “And I believe in love
at first sight.”
THE NIGERIAN CONNECTION
Mary Wheaton, a divorced, 51-year-old
from Grand Rapids, Mich., is a woman
of faith, and one night, though she still
can’t say why, she felt compelled to click
on a Match.com advertisement that
popped up on her computer screen.
Wheaton soon connected with a man
named Terry Donald Slyd. In the very
first message Slyd sent her on Match.
com, Wheaton says, he suggested the
two talk on IM instead.
“Within three days, he already was