They pose as celebrities or rich entrepreneurs and make their victims believe they are in love: love scams are a million-dollar business. The author Sarah Kuttner witnessed such a betrayal with her mother – and couldn’t get any further with the facts.
Suppose you have a single, somewhat lonely mother who suddenly falls in love. She blossoms inside, as is the case with people who are newly in love, and you would be consumed with envy if you resented her. Only the new friend is not the nice gentleman from the neighborhood, but the Scottish actor Sam Heughan, known for his leading role in the US fantasy series Outlander.
At some point this alleged Sam Heughan, who your mother knows from Facebook and with whom she only communicates via chat messages, urgently needs money. Her mother sends what he demands, and he sends love back, until the next emergency. And while your mother is holding on to that love, you’re probably wondering how on earth you could be so naive, so stupid, to fall for a love scammer.
Kuttner warns against love scamming.
(Foto: picture alliance / Eventpress)
That was also the first reaction of the TV presenter and author Sarah Kuttner. Because the mother who was in love with this actor’s profile picture was hers. She died last year. Kuttner then wrote a book, “Mama & Sam”. Mother and daughter have no name in it. So Kuttner leaves open what is true and what is fiction; a lot of things probably happened that way. A processing novel that at the same time warns against the perfidy of an increasingly widespread scam: love scamming.
“Your heart is completely empty and sad”
Table of Contents
Perfidious also because the fraud, which is obvious to outsiders, finds fertile ground among those affected. “Your heart is completely empty and sad, and then suddenly this love scammer comes around the corner,” says Kuttner in an interview with ntv.de. The perpetrators, also known as romance scammers, follow a pattern that can also be found in “Mama & Sam”: They pose as celebrities or people in respected professions and contact potential victims via social media or dating apps.
If someone bites, the perpetrators resort to manipulation techniques such as love bombing, i.e. showering someone with love after a short time. Once an emotional bond is established between perpetrator and victim, scammers begin asking for money, often with a story about an acute emergency. They exert pressure and threaten to break off contact or even commit suicide. Many victims find it difficult to say no in such a situation.
Police figures show that this is no longer a fringe phenomenon. Last year, 433 cases with a total loss of 5.6 million euros were reported to the Berlin State Criminal Police Office alone. There are similar numbers from other federal states. And the number of unreported cases is probably significantly higher. Many victims don’t go to the police because they are too ashamed.
First reaction is crucial
When the protagonist in the book finds out about her mother’s internet love, she reacts with a mixture of incomprehension and rational argumentation. An obvious human reflex that later turned out to be a big mistake, says Kuttner. “You think that proof has to be enough. But that doesn’t help, it just makes the victim feel even more stupid.”
According to the author, it is precisely this first reaction that is crucial. “If you’re newly in love, you want to let yourself be known. If you’re not believed, that’s the perfect moment for the love scammer to say: They’re just jealous.” The result: those affected isolate themselves from their environment and instead immerse themselves ever deeper in an illusory world of chat messages.
In “Mama & Sam” there are thousands of messages that the protagonist uses to reconstruct her mother’s last, withdrawn months. According to Kutter, they are the real chats between her mother and the fake Sam Heughan. They testify to a deep need for love on the one hand and a sinister ruthlessness on the other.
Chat history from “Mama & Sam”: The perpetrators apply emotional pressure.
(Photo: S. Fischer Verlage)
The mother continually struggles with herself, asks questions and confronts her counterpart with inconsistencies. But then she pushes her doubts aside, allows herself to be convinced otherwise or lulled by expressions of love. Every time illusion wins over reason.
Manipulation via message.
(Photo: S. Fischer Verlage)
“It’s like drugs”
Once money has flowed, as much as possible is often squeezed out of the victims. The mother gives the fraudster her ID details, searches the shops in her city for Apple vouchers, whose codes she is supposed to photograph, borrows money and takes out loans. Over time, she not only loses all her assets, she ends up heavily in debt.
Kuttner believes that many victims have a premonition but suppress it. “It’s like drugs: everyone knows they can kill you, but they also fill a hole and can make you incredibly happy for the moment.” Love as self-medication, the flattering message as an addictive dopamine rush.
So how do you react? Kuttner recommends an initially counterintuitive approach: “The scammer wants to push the relatives out, so don’t let yourself be pushed out. Just listen, be there, remain loving,” she says. And you also have to be a bit of an ass. “Let us show you news, take screenshots, secretly collect evidence like a little detective and eventually go to the police.”
Police: be “fundamentally suspicious”.
The Berlin police give similar advice: “Please refrain from judging those affected by such scams and remain alert when friends or acquaintances describe similar experiences.” She also advises people to be “basically suspicious” of contact requests from the Internet. Older people in particular find it difficult to find their way in an online world flooded with fakes.
Victims of such acts should definitely go to the police. Even if the prospects of clarification are slim. In the vast majority of cases, the perpetrators are based abroad, often in West Africa. In Kuttner’s book, the protagonist imagines how a love scammer team in Ghana plays on the victims. In their imaginations, they send AI-generated expressions of love or Photoshop selfies in shifts, alternately starting online arguments and making up again.
“My mother was, in quotes, lucky to die believing she had a prominent boyfriend,” says Kuttner. “Although I am quite sure that she also died as a result of the love scam, which took an incredible toll on her physically and mentally.”
Even if the fraud is discovered, love scammers leave their victims in ruins. “They lose their true love, they lose all their money, they lose their family,” says Kuttner. Particularly then, attributions of blame are wrong. “You have to be there and maybe just say, ‘I love you’.”