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The prevention of online romance scams using a crime script analysis from the victim’s perspective

Fangzhou Wang ; James D Kelsay (2025) — International Review of Victimology

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DOI: 10.1177/02697580251377100 (opens in a new tab)

Type:   Journal Article
Country:   United States
Tags:   AI-Enabled Fraud, Crime Script Analysis, Cross Cultural, Grooming Tactics, Help Seeking, Measurement, Offender Tactics, Online Fraud, Platform Policy, Platform Safety, Prevention, Romance Scams, Situational Prevention, Social Engineering, Victim Decision Making, Victim Experience, Victim Testimonials
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Synopsis

            
Online romance scams (ORS) have grown in severity, exploiting human vulnerabilities and trust through social engineering, which underscores the need for robust preventive strategies. This study advances the field by developing a victim script through Crime Script Analysis to map the decision-making pathway of victims and to highlight intervention points that could prevent scams. Grounded in a prior comprehensive dataset of verified victim testimonials, the research articulates a detailed script that traces the full arc of ORS from the earliest digital encounters to the culmination of financial exploitation. By charting how offenders’ tactics align with victim responses, the study identifies where interventions could most effectively disrupt scammer strategies. The victim script presented captures the entire trajectory of ORS, outlining how initial contact on online platforms evolves into trust-building and eventual financial extraction. The analysis assesses the correspondence between attacker methods and victim reactions, revealing critical stages at which preventive action can interrupt the scammers’ approach. These stages include points where awareness, scrutiny, or safeguards could alter the outcome, thereby weakening the offenders’ leverage over victims. The findings emphasize that targeted interventions at these junctures have the potential to significantly hinder the progression of the scam. Based on these insights, the study advocates practical measures to reduce harm from ORS. Recommendations include expanding awareness programs, implementing stronger platform security measures, and empowering potential victims through educational outreach, all aimed at reducing the financial and emotional damage inflicted by online romance scams. The proposed approach demonstrates how integrating Crime Script Analysis with verified testimonial data can yield actionable guidance for policymakers, platform operators, and educational initiatives, supporting prevention strategies that adapt to evolving tactics used by offenders.

          

        
                  

            
Identified Gaps

            
The paper identifies limited practical and consistent government/private-sector initiatives against online romance scams and a research gap in understanding the victimization process. Prior scholarship has primarily profiled victim vulnerability or modeled offender operations; no known prior study had developed an ORS script from the victim perspective. The authors also identify a need for offender and guardian scripts and for evaluation of proposed intervention strategies.

          

        
                  

            
Methods

            
The study reanalyzed 52 verified, publicly available victim testimonials previously collected from five romance-scam reporting websites. Reports were selected for detailed, multi-stage narratives; short, context-poor, message-only, or incomplete reports were excluded. Both authors independently recoded all cases in NVivo/thematic content analysis, iteratively refining codes through constant comparison and resolving discrepancies by consensus. The resulting victim-centered crime script maps decisions and intervention opportunities across five stages: initial encounter, peak relationship, turning point, relapse, and moment of truth.

          

        
                  

            
Limitations

            
The study uses only a victim script and lacks offender and guardian perspectives because it had access only to victim data. The underlying anonymous public testimonials did not permit determination of victims’ demographics or locations, and no direct interviews were conducted. Offender methods and prevention needs may change over time. Finally, the proposed intervention points and prevention strategies have not been evaluated for effectiveness.

          

        
                  

            
Future Work

            
Develop offender and guardian scripts using data collected from those perspectives to support comprehensive prevention. Continuously examine changing offender techniques and prevention strategies. Evaluate whether the proposed intervention points and victimization-prevention approaches are effective.

          

              

    
    

        
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