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Neutralizations, Altercasting, and Online Romance Fraud Victimizations

Timothy Dickinson ; Fangzhou Wang (2023) — Deviant Behavior

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DOI: 10.1080/01639625.2023.2263610 (opens in a new tab)

Type:   Journal Article
Country:   United States
Tags:   Altercasting, Email Exchanges, Email Experiment, Grooming, Neutralization, Neutralizations, Offender Strategies, Qualitative Analysis, Romance Scammers, Romance Scams, Thematic Analysis, Victim Blaming
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Synopsis

            
Researchers conducted a qualitative thematic analysis of standardized email exchanges with 87 alleged active online romance fraudsters. They scraped 607 email addresses reported in 2022 on Stop-scammers.com, contacted active addresses while posing as a potential victim, and randomly varied a nominal financial reward (none, $1, or $10). The authors conclude that offenders can offer neutralizations to victims as tools for facilitating interpersonal crimes. The study identified four overlapping strategies: appeals to vicarious necessity, intimate relationship, denial of susceptibility, and religious identity. The researchers could not verify whether different email addresses represented the same fraudster, risking contamination.

          

        
                  

            
Identified Gaps

            
The study addresses an explicit gap: whether offenders provide neutralizations to potential victims to altercast their identities and facilitate victimization. It also addresses the understudied relationship between neutralization and altercasting in offender–victim interactions. The discussion identifies a further gap concerning whether child sexual predators use neutralizations to altercast victims into participating in abuse or not reporting it.

          

        
                  

            
Methods

            
Researchers conducted a qualitative thematic analysis of standardized email exchanges with 87 alleged active online romance fraudsters. They scraped 607 email addresses reported in 2022 on Stop-scammers.com, contacted active addresses while posing as a potential victim, and randomly varied a nominal financial reward (none, $1, or $10). As no meaningful between-group differences emerged, responses were analyzed together. Two authors independently coded emails in NVivo into thematic domains and found no thematic differences between their analyses.

          

        
                  

            
Limitations

            
The researchers could not verify whether different email addresses represented the same fraudster, risking contamination. Some addresses may have been wrongly listed on the source website, undermining credibility. Initial or subsequent emails may not have reached fraudsters, including because of spam filtering. Generalizability is uncertain because the website provided only alleged female fraudsters; findings involving male victims and female offenders may differ for male offenders and female victims.

          

        
                  

            
Future Work

            
Future research should address duplicate identities, erroneous listings, message-delivery failure, and uncertain generalizability to male personas. The authors also suggest examining whether child sexual predators offer victims neutralizations for participation or non-reporting, identifying common neutralizations, and teaching them to potential victims and significant others. They recommend disseminating findings to families, friends, social services, law enforcement, and the public to reduce victim-blaming responses.

          

              

    
    

        
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