The Wang of UTA notes that even if it has not evaluated if the crooks use a generative AI to produce scripts of romance scam, it notes evidence that they use it to produce content for the dating profiles online. “I think it’s something that has already happened, unfortunately,” she says. “The crooks at the moment simply use profiles generated by AI.”
Some criminals in Southeast Asia are already building AI tools in their scam operations, with a United Nations report In October, saying that organized crime efforts “generated personalized scripts to deceive victims while engaging in real time conversations in hundreds of languages”. Google said Business scam emails are generated with AI. And separately, the FBI has noteAI allows criminals to send victims of message faster.
Criminals will use a range of manipulation tactics to trap their victims and build their perceived romantic relationships. This includes asking intimate questions to their potential victims that only a confidence of trust would ask – for example, questions about relationships or the history of meetings. The attackers also build intimacy through a technique known as “Bombing Love”, in which they use terms of mention to try to quickly advance a feeling of connection and proximity. As the Romance scams are progressing, it is very common that attackers begin to say that the victims are their girlfriend or their boyfriend, or even call them “husband” or “woman” as a means of reporting their devotion.
Carter emphasizes that a basic tactic used by romantic crooks is to make their characters of unhappy and vulnerable heart appear. Criminals hiding on dating applications, for example, will sometimes say that they were previously scammed and were suspicious of trusting any other person. This immediately names the elephant in the room and makes it less likely that the person with whom the victim discusses could be a crook.
When it comes to extorting money from their victims, this vulnerability is crucial. “They will do things like explaining that they have a kind of cash problem in their business, not to ask for money, to drop it, then maybe a few weeks later, bring it back again”, explains Carter. At that time, she explains, the manipulated person may want to help and properly offer to send money. The attackers can even go so far, at the beginning, to discuss with the victims and try to dissuade them from sending funds, all to manipulate targets believing that it is not only sure but also important to take a stand and Help someone cares.
“He is never supervised as the attacker who wants money for themselves,” explains Carter. “There is a real link between the language of fraud criminals and the language of domestic attackers and coercive controllers.”
In many cases, criminals find the success of the scam with people who have trouble with feelings of loneliness, explains Brian Mason, constable to the police service of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, who works with victims scams. “Especially with romantic scams, it is very difficult to convince the person that the person they speak with is not in love,” he says.
