Skip to main content

Neutralizations, Altercasting, and Online Romance Fraud Victimizations

Dickinson, T. ; Wang, F. (2023) — Deviant Behavior

View Original Source (opens in a new tab)

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
Citation tools
Download RIS Download BibTeX 


              
              

            

          

        


      

      

    

        
Transparency

        
Evidence and review status

        
This page contains AI-generated content. No human content review or subject-matter-expert review is recorded.

    


    

                    

                
Source basis

                

                    Downloaded PDF
                

            

                    

                
AI-generated page content

                

                    Yes
                

            

                    

                
Automated checks

                

                    Passed
                

            

                    

                
Administrative approval

                

                    Yes
                

            

                    

                
Human content review

                

                    Not recorded
                

            

                    

                
Subject-matter-expert review

                

                    Not recorded
                

            

            


    

        
            How this was prepared
        
        

                            

                    
Source basis

                    

                    
RSRC downloaded and privately stored a copy of the paper for internal analysis. The PDF is not offered to viewers from this page.


                                            
    
                                                            
  • 
                                    PDF added to RSRC:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                    

                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
AI-generated page content

                    

                    
AI-generated research notes displayed on this page: Synopsis, Identified gaps, Methods, Limitations, Future work. The paper itself is not described as AI-generated.


                                            
    
                                                            
  • 
                                    Document analysis recorded:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                            
  • 
                                    Page record updated:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                    

                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
Automated checks

                    

                    
The current, source-bound synopsis passed the recorded versioned publication checks.


                                            
    
                                                            
  • 
                                    Checks completed:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                    

                    
                                            

                            
                                View passed checks (3)
                            
                            
    
                                                                    
  • Length, completeness, repetition, refusal, boilerplate, and active-markup screening
    • 
                                                                    
  • Numerical claims checked against the available source text
    • 
                                                                    
  • English-source lexical grounding check
    • 
                                                            

                        

                                        

                

                            

                    
Administrative approval

                    

                    
The record is approved for public display, but a complete historical administrator action is not recorded.


                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
Human content review

                    

                    
No human review is recorded for the AI-generated content displayed on this page.


                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
Subject-matter-expert review

                    

                    
RSRC has not recorded review of this content by a subject-matter or methods expert.


                    
                                        

                

                    

    


    

        Review-state definitions

        Found a possible error?
        Request a correction.
    



    



              

        
                  

            
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.

          

              

    
    

        
Related Research Insights

        

            See how this publication connects to RSRC's living evidence syntheses through current citations and research-topic mapping.