Pamela B. Faber uses cognitive linguistics to understand the mechanisms at work in online romance scams

The professor emerita interacted with more than 150 online scammers over a four-year period, during which she ‘got to know’ 51 US generals, 29 United Nations doctors and 20 oil rig workers, amongst others – all of whom were impostors

Pamela B. Faber, professor emerita ad honorem of the Department of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Granada, has conducted research into online romance scams that combines cognitive linguistics, discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to study how criminals construct false emotional relationships with the aim of extracting money from their victims.

The research is based on more than four years of work and on interactions with over 150 scammers operating on digital platforms under fictitious identities. The scammers claim to represent all manner of professions: supposed US generals stationed in conflict zones, doctors linked to international organisations, oil rig workers, freelance contractors, ship captains and even celebrities. To keep up with them, the professor became “a wealthy widow living in a mansion, with a top-of-the-range luxury car and a chauffeur”, she explains.

Throughout the study, Faber even held conversations with 51 alleged US generals, 29 supposed UN doctors and 20 oil rig workers, to name but a few. As the researcher explains, these profiles tend to share common characteristics: they present themselves as prestigious professionals working in dangerous or high-responsibility environments; they claim to have been widowed or to have gone through a break-up; and they claim to be seeking a stable relationship based on trust and sincerity. But after the romance comes the urgent request for money, accompanied by all manner of excuses. Based on these conversations, the researcher compiled the linguistic corpus LoveFraud03, comprising over two million words drawn from real exchanges. To do this, she used a honeytrap methodology, presenting herself on social media as a wealthy widow – one of the profiles most frequently targeted by this type of criminal organisation.

The results of this work, which are documented in various scientific publications, demonstrate that the success of these scams depends not only on social engineering, but also on the strategic use of language. In one of the publications –The Language of Love Fraud– Faber applies frame semantics and corpus linguistics to study how fraudsters activate cognitive frames associated with love, trust, protection or commitment. The research shows that certain lexical choices can lead victims to overlook syntactic errors, contradictions in narratives or implausible financial requests.

The research has also identified characteristic features of the inner workings of these networks. These include the recurrent use of the term alaye, employed by scammers to recognise one another, as well as the existence of so-called Hustler Kingdoms – informal training centres detected in West Africa – where young apprentices receive specific training to develop deception techniques targeting Western women.

The study has one significant advantage: the collaboration, at a certain stage, of some of the scammers who revealed their techniques. In fact, eleven of the criminals with whom the researcher interacted went on to explicitly acknowledge their fraudulent activity, and three of them subsequently cooperated by providing information on the methods used by these organisations. These confessions provided a more detailed insight into the structure and procedures of an activity that generates millions of euros across various countries around the world.

The economic scale of the phenomenon is considerable. According to data compiled by Faber from official international bodies, losses attributed to romance scams reached 1,300 million dollars in the United States during 2022. In the United Kingdom, victims handed over 88 million pounds sterling that same year, whilst the average loss per victim stands at thousands of euros or dollars, depending on the country.

The project’s media impact has also extended beyond the academic sphere. Faber’s personal experience of interacting with dozens of fake suitors was featured in the article Granny Bites Back –La abuela contraataca–, published by the British magazine That’s Life!. In it, she recounts some of the most striking episodes from an investigation that allowed her to observe the workings of this global fraud industry from the inside.