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The living evidence base for romance scam research

Find the studies, inspect the evidence, understand what is known, and see the questions that still need answers.

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Research corpus at a glance

Approved publications
214
Living syntheses
10
Quality-cleared synopses
212
Corpus updated

How RSRC Uses AI

AI helps RSRC organize and summarize research. Outputs may contain errors; verify findings in the linked original source.

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Research Insights

Corpus-level findings that connect evidence across multiple publications and make uncertainties and research gaps visible.

Living Evidence Synthesis

Attack Methods and Offender Strategies

Attack Methods and Offender Strategies: How offenders identify, approach, groom, deceive, and exploit targets

Across the reviewed evidence, relationship‑based online frauds most commonly follow a staged progression from an attractive or fabricated profile to sustained grooming and then to a late‑stage financial extraction. Comparative profile and stage‑model studies document this sequenc...

Publications:
32
Evidence statements:
339
Read the living evidence synthesis
Living Evidence Synthesis

Prevention and Intervention

Prevention and Intervention for Romance-Linked Scams: Evidence Synthesis

The reviewed corpus supports a multi-component set of prevention and intervention proposals across public education, platform-side and financial-sector detection, immersive/interactive education prototypes, geographically targeted outreach, and tailored supports for high-need gro...

Publications:
19
Evidence statements:
95
Read the living evidence synthesis

Research Library

Recently curated publications

Individual studies and reports recently added to the approved collection.

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LOVE SCAMS ISSUES IN MALAYSIA: HOW TO OVERCOME IT FROM AN ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE

The publication examines love scams in Malaysia and evaluates potential remedies from an Islamic perspective. Its stated aim is to identify factors driving the phenomenon, the impacts on victims and families, and Islamic...

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‘Should’ve known better’: Using Lerner’s Belief in a Just World to understand ho...

This article investigates how Lerner’s Belief in a Just World (BJW) helps explain how professionals within the Fraud Justice Network (FJN) perceive victims of online romance and investment fraud. Drawing on qualitative i...

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Lovextortion: Persuasion strategies in romance cybercrime

This publication analyzes online romance scams, focusing on how persuaders cultivate trust and elicit financial compliance from victims. The study uses a corpus of authentic English-language messages and template texts f...

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Essays on the Rationality of Online Romance Scammers

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...

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Catching the catfish: Exploring gender and the Dark Tetrad of personality as pre...

This study examines whether gender and the Dark Tetrad of personality (psychopathy, sadism, Machiavellianism, and narcissism) predict catfishing perpetration, a form of online deception. Framed by an evolutionary cheater...

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The Perfect Match: How Artificial Intelligence Is Industrializing Romance Fraud

The publication examines how artificial intelligence is transforming romance fraud by moving scams from episodic, small-scale operations to scalable, algorithmically driven enterprises. It distinguishes two main genres:...

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From swipe to swindle: a narrative review of research on older adult victims of...

This narrative review examines research on romance fraud affecting older adults (defined as 55 and older) and synthesizes empirical findings from eight studies published between 2017 and 2024. Its purpose is to understan...

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About RSRC

Built to make romance scam research usable

Founded by LD Herrera, PhD, RSRC organizes romance scam scholarship into a searchable public library and living evidence syntheses for researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and the public.

Learn about RSRC and its founder