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Living Evidence Synthesis

Revision history

Grooming and Trust Development

Approved public versions are listed newest first. Drafts, unsuccessful generation attempts, and versions not yet published through this Research Insight are excluded.

Approved public versions

  1. Version 12

    Automated evidence-grounded revision attempt 2. Initial version: complete replacement synthesis created to incorporate preserved, audited passages and to remove or narrow assertions flagged by the audit. Preserved passages reproduced verbatim with their required evidence IDs. Adjustments made to avoid unsupported claims from the audit: removed explicit statement that offender‑side ethnographic research is broadly limited (not directly evidenced), removed any methodological prescription asserting...

    • Publications: 25 (+2)
    • Evidence statements: 100 (+1)
    • Cited sources: 25 (+2)

    Sources added: A Research on False Pragmatic Identity Construction in Telecom Network Dating Scam; Pig Butchering in Cybersecurity: A Modern Social Engineering Threat; The cyber-industrialization of catfishing and romance fraud; “Why did I fall for it?” Exploring internet fraud susceptibility in the pig butchering scam.

    Sources removed: Distort, Extort, Deceive and Exploit: Exploring the Inner Workings of a Romance Fraud; “They just say how stupid I was for being conned”. Cyberscams and acquired brain injury: A qualitative exploration of the lived experience of survivors and close others.

  2. Version 11

    Automated evidence-grounded revision attempt 1. Initial version.

    • Publications: 23 (+4)
    • Evidence statements: 99 (+18)
    • Cited sources: 23 (+4)

    Sources added: Distort, Extort, Deceive and Exploit: Exploring the Inner Workings of a Romance Fraud; Neutralizations, Altercasting, and Online Romance Fraud Victimizations; Unveiling the Patterns of Romance Scams in South Korea; “They just say how stupid I was for being conned”. Cyberscams and acquired brain injury: A qualitative exploration of the lived experience of survivors and close others.

  3. Version 10

    Initial version: synthesizes the reviewed evidence corpus on grooming and trust development in online romance fraud, drawing on qualitative stage models, corpus linguistics, offender and victim studies, and recent systematic and scoping reviews. No prior version comparisons are available.

    • Publications: 19 (-8)
    • Evidence statements: 81 (-37)
    • Cited sources: 19 (-8)

    Sources added: Modus Operandi and Blockchain Analysis of Romance Scams: Cryptocurrency-Driven Victimization; The online dating romance scam: causes and consequences of victimhood; “I knew it was a scam”: Understanding the triggers for recognizing romance fraud.

    Sources removed: Analysis of "Pig-Butchering Scam" Type of Network Fraud from the Legal Perspective; A scoping review of online romance scams: Conceptual construction and comparative analysis; Distort, Extort, Deceive and Exploit: Exploring the Inner Workings of a Romance Fraud; Leveraging Naive Bayesian Machine Learning for Detecting Pig Butchering Scams: A Cybersecurity Social Engineering Perspective in Africa; and 7 more.

  4. Version 9

    Automated evidence-grounded revision attempt 2. Initial version.

    • Publications: 27 (-14)
    • Evidence statements: 118 (-46)
    • Cited sources: 27 (-14)

    Sources removed: Does age matter? Examining seniors’ experiences of romance fraud; Law Enforcement Against Perpetrators Of Romance Fraud In Cyberspace; Mental Health Impacts of Cybercrime; Modus Operandi and Blockchain Analysis of Romance Scams: Cryptocurrency-Driven Victimization; and 10 more.

  5. Version 8

    Automated evidence-grounded revision attempt 1. Initial version: complete synthesis compiled from the supplied reviewed evidence records. No prior-version edits were applied; this is the first version produced from the provided evidence.

    • Publications: 41 (+2)
    • Evidence statements: 164 (+12)
    • Cited sources: 41 (+2)

    Sources added: Analysis of "Pig-Butchering Scam" Type of Network Fraud from the Legal Perspective; Law Enforcement Against Perpetrators Of Romance Fraud In Cyberspace; Mental Health Impacts of Cybercrime; Modus Operandi and Blockchain Analysis of Romance Scams: Cryptocurrency-Driven Victimization; and 5 more.

    Sources removed: A Research on False Pragmatic Identity Construction in Telecom Network Dating Scam; Do You Love Me? Psychological Characteristics of Romance Scam Victims; El timo del amor. Estafas eróticas realizadas por mujeres en Costa Rica entre 1970 y 1990 publicadas en el periódico La República; Individual differences in susceptibility to online influence: A theoretical review; and 3 more.

  6. Version 7

    Initial version: this is the first synthesis produced for the controlled topic. It consolidates evidence from stage models, corpus/discourse analyses, scoping/systematic reviews, offender interviews, and forensic case work represented in the supplied reviewed evidence. No prior synthesis version was provided for comparison.

    • Publications: 39 (+10)
    • Evidence statements: 152 (+26)
    • Cited sources: 39 (+10)

    Sources added: A Research on False Pragmatic Identity Construction in Telecom Network Dating Scam; A scoping review of online romance scams: Conceptual construction and comparative analysis; Distort, Extort, Deceive and Exploit: Exploring the Inner Workings of a Romance Fraud; Does age matter? Examining seniors’ experiences of romance fraud; and 18 more.

    Sources removed: Amor, dependencia y aislamiento: El impacto psicológico del romance scam; Cyber Romance Scam Victimization Analysis using Routine Activity Theory Versus Apriori Algorithm; Epistolary Affect and Romance Scams: Letter from an Unknown Woman; Examining fifty cases of convicted online romance fraud offenders; and 8 more.

  7. Version 6

    Automated evidence-grounded revision attempt 1. This is the initial version of the synthesis. It consolidates core and cross-cutting evidence on grooming, trust-building signals, and the transition to financial manipulation, drawing on the specified reviews and primary studies. No prior version changes are recorded.

    • Publications: 29 (-107)
    • Evidence statements: 126 (-268)
    • Cited sources: 29 (-107)

    Sources removed: A crime script perspective on mapping the entry, continuation, and exit pathways of online romance fraud; Addressing Cyberscams and Acquired Brain Injury (“I Desperately Need to Know What to Do”): Qualitative Exploration of Clinicians’ and Service Providers’ Perspectives; A Juridical Review of Love Scam Crimes from the Perspective of Criminal Law and the Electronic Information and Transactions Law in Indonesia; Analysis of "Pig-Butchering Scam" Type of Network Fraud from the Legal Perspective; and 103 more.

  8. Version 5

    This is the initial version of the synthesis. No previous version existed for direct material changes. Citations reflect the full set of reviewed records used to support the synthesized claims.

    • Publications: 136 (+45)
    • Evidence statements: 394 (+186)
    • Cited sources: 136 (+120)

    Sources added: A crime script perspective on mapping the entry, continuation, and exit pathways of online romance fraud; Addressing Cyberscams and Acquired Brain Injury (“I Desperately Need to Know What to Do”): Qualitative Exploration of Clinicians’ and Service Providers’ Perspectives; A Juridical Review of Love Scam Crimes from the Perspective of Criminal Law and the Electronic Information and Transactions Law in Indonesia; Amor, dependencia y aislamiento: El impacto psicológico del romance scam; and 116 more.

    The approved evidence set changed while the cited-source list remained the same.

  9. Version 4

    Initial version; this synthesis compiles the supplied reviewed evidence to outline how grooming and trust develop in romance scams, identify core mechanisms, and discuss methodological patterns, limitations, and research gaps. No material evidence changes from a prior version are provided in the supplied records.

    • Cited sources: 16 (+7)

    Sources added: Analysis of a Cryptocurrency Investment Scam: Pig Butchering; Distort, Extort, Deceive and Exploit: Exploring the Inner Workings of a Romance Fraud; Emotional and financial costs of online dating scam: A phenomenological narrative of the experiences of victims of Nigerian romance fraudsters; Epistolary Affect and Romance Scams: Letter from an Unknown Woman; and 4 more.

    Sources removed: Devices of Textual Illusion: Victimization in Romance Scam E-Letters.

  10. Version 3

    This is the initial version of the synthesis; no prior version available for material-evidence comparison.

    • Cited sources: 9 (-16)

    Sources removed: A crime script perspective on mapping the entry, continuation, and exit pathways of online romance fraud; Analysis of "Pig-Butchering Scam" Type of Network Fraud from the Legal Perspective; A Sinister Fattening: Dissecting the Tales of Pig Butchering and Other Cryptocurrency Scams; Distort, Extort, Deceive and Exploit: Exploring the Inner Workings of a Romance Fraud; and 12 more.

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