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Essays on the Rationality of Online Romance Scammers

Wang, Fangzhou (2023) — Georgia State University

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DOI: 10.57709/35293647 (opens in a new tab)

Type:   Dissertation
Country:   Global
Tags:   Field Experiment, Neutralization, Offender Rationality, Pig Butchering Scams, Romance Scams, Scoping Review, Social Engineering
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Synopsis

            
This dissertation examines online romance scams through a multi-study approach to understand how and why offenders act the way they do in the digital dating arena. The author sets out to map the current literature, test how potential rewards shape scammers’ behavior, and explore the linguistic and logical mechanisms they deploy to obtain money. The overarching aim is to ground policy and prevention efforts in a clearer picture of offender rationality and modus operandi, using offender data and theory-driven analysis rather than sole reliance on victim reports. The first study is a scoping review that surveys qualitative and quantitative research on online romance fraud, emphasizing offender perspectives, victim vulnerabilities, and the sequence of fraudulent operations. It identifies common stages—profile presentation, love-story fabrication, and manipulative tactics—and notes how scammers adapt strategies across cultural contexts, while highlighting gaps such as limited offender data and the need for theory-driven inquiry. The second study uses a randomized experimental design with 94 sequential email exchanges to test how fluctuations in promised rewards influence scammers’ tactics, arguing that fraudsters modify their messages and tactics as reward probability changes. The third study, drawing on the same experimental framework, investigates neutralization techniques and other justificatory accounts that scammers deploy when rewards are involved, linking these patterns to interpersonal deception theory and rational choice. Together, the studies conclude that online romance scammers exhibit rational responding to reward cues, with identifiable linguistic and narrative patterns that shift with incentives. The author notes policy and practice implications, including detection and prevention strategies, while acknowledging limitations such as reliance on certain data sources and the need for broader, theory-driven research in collaboration with law enforcement and industry partners.

          

        
                  

            
Identified Gaps

            
The dissertation identifies limited use of first-hand offender data and rigorous empirical methods to study scammers’ actual behavior, particularly their decision-making and language during interactions with potential victims. It also identifies an incomplete prior scoping review, caused by restricted databases, search terms, and language coverage, and calls for broader evidence from Western and non-Western contexts.

          

        
                  

            
Methods

            
This three-paper dissertation combines a PRISMA-guided scoping review of 35 Chinese- and English-language studies with experiments involving live communications with identified romance scammers. The second paper uses mixed qualitative and quantitative analysis to assess behavioral changes under varying reward cues. The third uses thematic qualitative analysis of offender responses to examine neutralizations and related accounts.

          

        
                  

            
Limitations

            
The dissertation notes that much prior romance-scam research relies on victim interviews, surveys, and secondary data, which may not accurately capture offenders’ authentic behavior. The review itself covers only Chinese- and English-language studies, so relevant work in other languages may be omitted. The supplied text does not provide detailed experimental sample sizes or full results, limiting assessment of experimental generalizability.

          

        
                  

            
Future Work

            
Future research should collect first-hand data from live offender-victim interactions to examine scammers’ rational decision-making, linguistic behavior, and responses to changing rewards. The review also indicates a need for additional quantitative research and broader multilingual evidence beyond Chinese- and English-language studies.

          

              

    
    

        
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