Welcome back to season three finale of the Romance Scam Rebellion. I'd really like your help with something. For the last three seasons, it's been all about romance scams, but there are so many other scams out there just waiting for you. Do you want me to continue focusing on romance scams, or would you like me to cover other types of scams as well? Please let me know in the comments, and that will help me make the decision on what to do in season four. I'll never totally abandon romance scams, but I'm thinking of venturing out because so many other types are rife with the same manipulation tactics as we've been sharing here And look, I know you're busy. You've got a job, a family, responsibilities, 100 things competing for your attention every single day. The last thing you probably want is one more thing to worry about. Believe me, I'm right there with you. Life today is complicated. We focus on what's right in front of us, and we tell ourselves we can't take on one more thing. But let me ask you something. Have you ever heard about the latest scam in the news or online and thought, "That could never happen to me," or, "How could that person have fallen for that?" Or even, "That doesn't apply to me," and you just scroll right past it? If so, you're exactly who I wanna be talking to today. Because even if you believe it could never happen to you, could it happen to your parents, your children, your grandparents, your friends, your neighbors, the people you care most about in this world? There's a scam out there right now designed to exploit almost every person, circumstance, and relationship in our lives. Do you think your loved ones could benefit from understanding these scams that quietly infiltrate our lives every single day? Because almost every victim I've spoken to over the past year said some version of those exact same words, "I never thought it could happen to me." But this mindset underestimates a very real threat. Scammers don't defeat intelligence, they exploit our biology. They'll create urgency. Look, anyone wanting to make a connection is a target. It's in our biological wiring. It's the evidence of why anyone can get scammed. I recently ran across a quote from Winston Churchill, who once said, "I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught." Sounds like a lot of us, right? I've been thinking about that quote a lot lately, and about how uncomfortable it can be to question the things that we believe about ourselves, especially the belief that we alone are somehow immune to scams, that scams only happen to other people. I think most of us enjoy learning new things. What we don't always enjoy are the lessons that challenge the way we see ourselves. And when it comes to scams, that lesson is this: despite our intelligence, our experience and our good judgment, none of us are as immune as we'd like to believe. And maybe that's because somewhere along the way, we've been taught to believe a few things about the world that simply aren't always true. There are stories we tell ourselves about who gets deceived, about who can be trusted, about what love looks like, about who we are. They're the stories that make us safe, but sometimes they're nothing more than fractured fairytales One of the most dangerous myths is this: it could never happen to me. Because underneath that one belief are some others. Good people can spot bad people. Intelligence prevents deception. Love always looks like love. Trust is always rewarded. Bad things happen to other people. Every one of those beliefs can leave us vulnerable. They are the fractured fairy tales we believe about love, trust, and ourselves. Tracy Hall, author of The Last Victim, told me something I'll never forget when I spoke to her just a few months ago. She said that when she saw stories portrayed in the media about romance scam victims, she just couldn't relate. The victims they portrayed didn't look like her. And I felt exactly the same way until I became one. I didn't think that I was vulnerable. I wasn't on any dating sites. I wasn't looking for love. But of course, deep down, I've always wanted to have a lifelong companion. I hadn't been in a relationship for a really long time. Even though I would have been open to it, I just wasn't going to go looking for it. For a long time, I've been so independent and made my own way. I was happy. I have a great family, great friends. I had a great job and the ability to travel, which I love to do. I couldn't see my vulnerability. Can you spot it? The moment you think it could never happen to me isn't the moment you're safest. It's often the time you become most vulnerable. I believe the greatest obstacle to scam prevention isn't a lack of intelligence. It's not education. It's not experience. It's the belief that our intelligence alone will protect us. Over these past three seasons of the Romance Scam Rebellion, I've reflected on my own experience. Plus, I've had the privilege of speaking with other victims, investigators, advocates, prosecutors, and even people who were trafficked into scam compounds and forced to deceive Americans and people from other nations. One thing has become painfully clear. The people most eager to listen are often the ones who have already been targets. They are eager to find answers and to know they're not alone. They're eager to find a way forward. The people I now worry about the most are the ones who aren't interested in listening at all. Maybe not because they don't care, but because they don't believe that this is about them. So if you've ever had that thought, you know, the one that it could never happen to me, you're not alone. I've come to a different way of thinking about this after a year of conversation with these other people, and I don't believe the answer to the problem is intelligence So you might ask, if that's not the answer, then what is? And I think, I think it's about preparedness. And what does preparedness actually look like in practice? Well, think about it. You already know what to do if you find your clothes on fire, right? Yep. You stop, drop, and roll. We teach that to kindergartners, not because fire is common, but because when it happens, there's no time to think. Have you ever been watching a program on TV where someone does get caught on fire and you've thought to yourself, "Stop, drop, and roll"? I have. Panic takes over, and if you haven't already trained your body to respond in a certain way, you won't be able to figure it out in the moment. So we drill it into people before the crisis, so the response becomes automatic. There are so many scenarios we prepare for in our daily lives so that we know what to do in the moment. We sign up for insurance in case of accidents. We wear seat belts. We don't drink and drive. We learn CPR. We learn the Heimlich maneuver in case we see somebody choking. At the airport, we go through security, which is designed to keep us all safe. Every one of these things is simply another way we prepare. If you think about it, there's a million ways we prepare for uncertainty. In a lot of ways, we almost seem to be safety obsessed, until it comes to scams. And why do we treat scams differently? Why do we assume we'll simply figure it out if the time comes? Why do we assume we're smarter than those people whose only job it is is to manipulate us? Why do we believe we don't need to prepare ourselves or the people we love? We don't prepare because we expect disaster today, and we don't prepare because we expect to be scammed today. But we understand preparation can change the outcome. Scam awareness training should be no different than training for anything else. Just like we're trained to have an automatic physical response to fire, we need an automatic pre-decided response to manipulation and urgency. Scams are specifically designed to short-circuit critical thinking in the moment, the same way panic does in a real fire When a stranger creates urgency, that's not the moment you wanna start figuring out what your rules are. You need to decide before that moment comes. So create a plan for yourself and your family. Create a safe word to use in case you need it. If somebody pressures me to act immediately, I'm gonna slow down. If something feels confusing, or if I've been told to keep the conversation secret by someone I've never met, I'm definitely going to tell someone I trust. And if that someone I've never met in person asks for money, even if they give me a really realistic and compelling reason, again, I'm gonna talk to somebody I trust. You need that second opinion. Look, learning how scams work isn't about living in fear. It's no different than fastening a seatbelt before you drive or installing a smoke detector to alert you if there's a fire. We wear seatbelts because we can easily imagine a car accident. We install the smoke detector because we can easily imagine a fire in our home. But so many of us struggle to imagine ourselves becoming victims of fraud, and what we fail to imagine, we often fail to prepare for. Now think of the Internet. So many of us enter without understanding what's waiting there for us. If you've been on social media, you know what a jungle it can be. Most of us would never walk down a dark alley in an unfamiliar city without paying attention to our surroundings and listening to advice from someone we trust. Yet every day we log onto the Internet assuming everyone we encounter is who they claim to be. The Internet is an extraordinary place. It's also where some of the world's most sophisticated criminals are waiting for those who are not prepared. Scam prevention isn't about proving you're smarter than criminals. It's about preparing before they ever come knocking at your door. Awareness is preparedness. So how do you prepare? Be skeptical before you become trusting. Remember that trust is earned, not freely given. When someone creates urgency, you slow down. Give yourself time to pause and think critically. If someone you've never heard of reaches out to you online, tell someone you trust immediately. Don't be tempted to keep this information to yourself Keep up to date on the latest scam techniques. Scammers are always inventing new ways to reach you and your money. Preparedness makes you harder to fool. In this day of AI, you may no longer be able to tell what is fake from what is real. And make preparedness contagious. It's critical to share what you know with your family, your neighbors, your friends, your church group, because when you learn the signs of a scam, you won't just be protecting yourself, you'll be protecting everybody in your orbit. And preparedness isn't just recognizing a scam before it happens. Sometimes it means knowing how to respond when someone you love can't yet see what's happening. I read something recently from psychologist Jasper Lee, who said, "You cannot beat an emotional objection with a logical argument." I think the answer for someone you're concerned about who may be in the middle of a scam might be if they're emotionally invested in what they believe, logic alone is not going to be enough to reach them. But please, don't shame them, don't ridicule, don't immediately try to prove them wrong. Ask questions about what they're feeling right now. Listen intently to what they're telling you. You want to stay connected to them. They need you more than they currently might realize. Doing otherwise will only put them on the defensive and will drive a wedge further between you and what you're trying to accomplish. You need to lead them to a place where they can maybe start to open up and understand what might be happening to them. Your goal is not to win the argument. Your goal is to keep the door open. Maybe a scam won't happen to you, but you don't know if it will happen to someone you love. Awareness that stays in your head protects one person. Awareness that is shared protects a community. But the moment we decide a lesson doesn't apply to us is the moment we refuse to consider it. We can't learn or share what we're unwilling to prepare for. Someone who thinks romance scams happen only to older and lonely people, they stop listening, or who thinks, "I don't date online," stops listening. Someone who thinks, "I'm too smart," stops listening. Not because they're not intelligent But because they've already decided the lesson isn't for them. So again, the greatest obstacle to scam prevention isn't a lack of intelligence, it's the illusion that intelligence makes us immune. That, my friends, is a fractured fairy tale. If this episode made you think of someone, please share this message with them. And until next time, please stay safe.
.png)
