Despite having a popular Twitter account , followers and growing , with the sole purpose of exposing romance scammers, Becky Holmes says she still gets contacted by hopeful, hapless fraudsters. In fact, she was contacted just 15 minutes before our interview.
What Becky does is two-fold: She exposes the often-hilarious exchanges with romance scammers , some of whom claim to be celebrities, and, more recently, provides a forum in which people can share their experiences and learn more about this increasingly common form of fraud. The conversation is clearly needed. Although the book itself only took nine months to write, the aim of helping people and raising awareness of the dangers of social media fraud began when Becky first joined Twitter now X in They all said the same thing and were all from very similar looking men.
I began posting the exchanges on Twitter a few months later, and people found them funny and were laughing and we were all having a good time. In this interview, we discuss the different ways in which romance scammers tend to target men and women, the delicate balance in presenting information in a relatable, digestible format that does not undermine the danger and impact, and much more. However, I was in a very coercively controlled relationship at one point, and the parallels between what victims of romance fraud go through and victims of coercive control are very similar.
So, I became kind of a sounding board for a few people and felt a responsibility. Most had reported to Action Fraud but not heard anything back, so were in a very isolated place. I started realizing what a huge subject it was and how underreported it was, and it became like a passion project.
No, I get messages on Instagram, on Twitter, and dating sites are, of course, rife with them. Whatever platform it is, the one thing they immediately want to do is to take you to WhatsApp or Google Chat. I have a separate Google Chat account where I have these exchanges. Although I never view stats as wholly reliable, statistically, romance fraud targets men and women equally. I want to stress that not all women are approached with the promise of romance and men with the promise of sex, but more men do tend to be victims of sextortion.
