(NewsNation) — In 2021, Americans lost a record $547 million to romance scams. A company called SocialCatfish is hoping to change that.
The online dating investigation service recently got their hands on a Nigerian romance scammer training manual titled “How to Make White Woman Fall in Love with you From Online Chat.”
It’s a 40-page playbook broken up into chapters about how to research, approach and woo unsuspecting American women.
SocialCatfish founder David McClellan told NewsNation’s “Banfield” that ex-scammers have come forward to help them.
“A few times throughout the year, we get access to these playbooks and we get access to the scammers that break down exactly how the scams work,” McClellan said.
The scammers are using Grammarly and Google translate so the messages are written out extremely well.
How to avoid these scams:
- Do a reverse search
- No meeting, no money
- Don’t accept cryptocurrency
- No military, oil rig, overseas worker
- Bad grammar, don’t engage
SocialCatfish also has a YouTube channel that further explains how these scams work.