The only time my mother mentioned her romance scams to me was when we were in her car, driving to her bank.
We had gotten into a big argument just a few hours earlier. I had discovered an account she was keeping secret, and when I asked her about it, she snapped at me and told me to leave her alone.
Now, as we approached the bank, her attitude was different. We were sitting at a traffic light when, out of nowhere, she started saying how there were things in her life she wasn’t proud of. “Things” I might find out about after she died.
I could tell by the way her voice trailed off that she wanted me to reply, but I wasn’t sure what to say. There’s no manual on how to talk to your mom when you discover she’s been the victim of an eight-year-long fraud. Should I play dumb and ask her to elaborate? Should I press her for details? Or should I say I know all about the three fake boyfriends, the 51 wire transfers, and the $800 thousand in stolen money?
“Don’t worry,” she said when she sensed my discomfort. “I didn’t do anything illegal. There are just some things I regret, and I don’t want you worrying about them when I’m gone.”
I told her it was OK; she didn’t owe me an explanation. I was about to say more, but then the light turned green, the traffic move forward, and the topic got dropped.
She died of esophageal cancer a few weeks after.
It’s been almost three years since that conversation, and I still wonder if I made the right choice in not pushing her to talk. There was so much I wanted to ask my mom in the weeks after my sister and I stumbled onto her romance scams, but she was under so much strain from her cancer diagnosis and we worried if we confronted her, she might think we’re the bad guys.
So, instead, we said nothing. We continued to care for her despite our anger and frustration, and in the end, she died thinking her secret was safe.
Because of that decision, though, we never got to hear the story of how our mother got scammed by three separate men. All we got were fragments of it, told to us by her accountant and bankers, as well as some records we found in her garage.
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Of course, I was aware that scams like this were growing more common, but it never occurred to me that one could happen to her. My mom didn’t seem like a typical scam victim. She was smart. She was educated—a Ph.D. marriage and family therapist. She was tech savvy. Her doctors all said she was a “young” 72.
As the weeks went by, it bothered me that no one would tell me why this happened. The police weren’t investigating. The banks were ghosting me. It was as if everyone just wanted to brush my mother’s case under a rug.
I realized, if I was ever going to get the answers I wanted, I would have to investigate the scams myself.
Six months after my mother died, I began reading through her files. There weren’t many—she deleted most of them. But there was enough for me to piece together the sequence of events.
But this just led to more questions: Why did she not tell me about the men she was dating? How did she not see the red flags? And why did she continue to send the scammers money even after she knew their stories were fake?
None of it made sense. I needed to talk to more people.
I spent the next several months interviewing many of my mother’s clients, friends, financial advisors, and business associates. I spoke with my siblings, my childhood neighbors, even the woman who once groomed our dogs. Out of all these conversations, I started to develop a theory about my mom. That maybe the reason she got scammed was because she was too gullible and needy. Maybe she was just too blinded by love.
But then I met a fraud researcher, Dr. Martina Dove, and I realized I was looking at the problem all wrong.
For years Dove has studied the impact of scams, publishing a book about the topic. When I called her up to tell her my theory, I got two sentences out before she cut me off.
She told me that by focusing on my mom’s behavior, I was making the same mistake our society often makes when it comes to understanding rape. It took us forever to realize that it doesn’t matter what a rape victim wears or how much alcohol they’ve had to drink. What matters is that someone assaulted them.
Dove explained that we need to adopt a similar attitude toward fraud. But to do that, we first need to change how we talk about scams, beginning with the language we use.
We wouldn’t say that a bank “lost” money or that it “fell” for a robbery. We’d say robbers stole from the bank. But when it comes to scams, we lose that perspective. We put all our focus on the victim’s actions, which creates a narrative in our minds that this kind of misfortune “could never happen to me.”
As soon as Dove told me this, I knew she was right. This whole time I had been fixated on discovering what my mom did wrong that I completely lost sight of the fact that none of it would have happened if someone hadn’t conned her.
That small shift in perspective changed everything for me. Instead of noticing all the red flags my mother missed, now all I saw were the lies told to her by people who were experts at deception. I saw how the scammers buttered her up with words she was hungry for, waiting weeks before asking for money. Then, when they did finally ask for it, it was always for some credible emergency: a bill needed to get paid, a flight got canceled, someone got hit by a car.
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Before long, I started talking to other experts. I met an English criminologist, Dr. Elisabeth Carter, who explained the role manipulation plays in building victims’ trust, drawing the comparison between these crimes and domestic abuse cases. (Carter’s research on the language scammers use has been a key factor in changing how British law enforcement now handles fraud.)
I also learned how scammers turn victims into money mules, coercing them into becoming accessories to their crimes. I even began speaking with victims themselves. Many just like my mom.
I started meeting with fraud victims in February 2023 through an online support group. Hardly a week goes by now where I don’t hear someone say how embarrassed they are to walk into their bank or how the police won’t file a report because it’s their fault for giving away their money.
And I hear the word suicide a lot. More times than I wish to count.
It’s bad enough these people have had their savings stolen or that their credit’s been destroyed or that they owe thousands in taxes because their scams emptied their IRAs, but now on top of all that damage, they have to carry the stigma of being a scam victim around. Many have lost relationships because of their frauds. Some have gotten divorced. Others have family members who won’t speak to them. Their lives are ruined, but instead of showing compassion, we treat them like they’re the criminals.
Is it any wonder, then, why so few come forward?
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates that only about 6% of fraud victims ever report their losses. That means that the $12.5 billion that was reported to the FBI in 2023 due to romance scams, tech support scams, investment scams, imposter scams, and the like is actually way higher—more than $158 billion, the FTC says.
Think about that for a second. The total amount of money stolen each year due to fraud is more than all the money Meta makes. It’s more than what Comcast or Target makes. In fact, if every dollar scammers stole went to an actual business, it would rank 21st on the Fortune 500 list.
That is a frightening statistic, and it should set off alarm bells in Congress and every legislature nationwide. The fact that it hasn’t yet suggests that, deep down, even our lawmakers think that scam victims are partially to blame.
Look, I get it. I used to think this way myself. There’s just one problem with it. In the two years since I started talking with fraud victims, I’ve met college professors, software engineers, business executives, military veterans, finance people, young people, old people, even a retired FBI agent who got scammed. Not a single one of them is stupid. Not a single one saw it coming. Not even my therapist mom.
We need to be able to admit to ourselves that scams can and do happen to anyone, regardless of where we live, how educated we are, or what choices we make. This is especially true today. The scams that are currently siphoning billions from our economy are vastly more sophisticated than the low-tech emails claiming we’ve inherited a fortune from some long-lost aunt. Now they involve elaborate schemes and arcane cryptocurrencies, and are run by teams in offices who spend months grooming victims, inventing backstories, and creating websites while the rest of us go about our unsuspecting lives.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, they can now clone voices using AI.
If we’re ever going to stop these crimes from happening, we need to stop blaming people for the actions of criminals and start treating them like victims of a crime. Maybe then more victims will come forward. Maybe then our lawmakers will enact smarter laws and our banks and social media companies will do more to protect the public. Maybe then we’ll provide more resources to victims, more mental health services, more compassion and support.
Until we do, the number of lives getting ruined is only going to grow, until eventually every one of us has a story like my mom’s.
Sadly, my mother died without ever letting go of the grief she carried. I saw the toll it took on her, which is why I’m convinced the scams killed her just as much as the cancer did.
But if she was still alive, I know what I would say. That it’s not her fault she got scammed. She didn’t “lose” any money. It was stolen from her.
And I’m sorry.
