What's the game?

[Austerus]

I've seen the kinds of profiles you're talking about on various sites, including CollarMe. While I don't want to generalize, when some posters might be sincere and ignorant, they look for the most part to me like standard issue internet relationship long cons. Spend some time getting to know somebody, and then start soaking them for gifts and cash. Eventually it can work up to getting a credit card or several hundred (or thousand) dollars for travel expenses to come and visit. Of course the visit will never materialize, things go wrong, etc.

This kind of scam is pretty standard on international dating websites. It works pretty well because a lot of men who are looking for relationships online are lonely and desperate, have unrealistic views of what (Asian/Russian/submissive/whatever) women are, and are going to WANT to believe that the blossoming relationship is real. It works especially well with international (and I would imagine BDSM) relationships because the men are thinking of themselves as more powerful/intelligent/sophisticated than the women they are chasing, and are not going to want to admit to themselves that they're being played. So they work pretty hard to justify all the bullshit and the slow bleed.

The thing about this kind of game is that a person can keep several of them going at a time. If the conner lives outside the US in the developing world then the money scammed can actually represent a pretty significant revenue stream.

[leo9]

I've seen the kinds of profiles you're talking about on various sites, including CollarMe. While I don't want to generalize, when some posters might be sincere and ignorant, they look for the most part to me like standard issue internet relationship long cons. Spend some time getting to know somebody, and then start soaking them for gifts and cash. Eventually it can work up to getting a credit card or several hundred (or thousand) dollars for travel expenses to come and visit. Of course the visit will never materialize, things go wrong, etc.

This kind of scam is pretty standard on international dating websites. It works pretty well because a lot of men who are looking for relationships online are lonely and desperate, have unrealistic views of what (Asian/Russian/submissive/whatever) women are, and are going to WANT to believe that the blossoming relationship is real. It works especially well with international (and I would imagine BDSM) relationships because the men are thinking of themselves as more powerful/intelligent/sophisticated than the women they are chasing, and are not going to want to admit to themselves that they're being played. So they work pretty hard to justify all the bullshit and the slow bleed.

The thing about this kind of game is that a person can keep several of them going at a time. If the conner lives outside the US in the developing world then the money scammed can actually represent a pretty significant revenue stream.

That's the sort of thing I was guessing at. The stock texts suggest either a central organiser coaching a number of women, or, if it never gets to the point of r/l meetings, a lone operator with about the same command of English as the average Nigerian scammer.

"But you must learn to know such scandals of the age, or else you will be marvelously mistook." - Shakespeare