Testimonies. Debts, shame, emotional dependence … victims of online sentimental scam tell the trap in which they fell


Complaints for online sentimental scam have multiplied in recent years. This scourge, nourished by solitude and the digital fracture, rely on increasingly sophisticated manipulation techniques.

“If my friends knew, they would say that I am crazy”Madeleine breath*, the trembling voice. At 65, she carries the silent weight of a sentimental scam from which she struggles to recover: more than 240,000 euros flights, fifteen years of credit on her back, the shame of having believed in it and the tenacious hope, despite everything, that one day, the man she believes for almost eight years toque. This character, invented from scratch, is a “grazer”: a crook who traps his victims via the Internet, often on social networks.

Many French people are victims of these feelings with feelings each year. Contacted by Franceinfo, the Directorate General of the National Police evokes “About 3,400 declarations” Validated in 2024, including 3,300 for damage less than 50,000 euros. The number of complaints filed is “Stable or even slightly increase”But the police specify that this figure “Do not understand a very large number of victims who do not dare to file a complaint (…) by shame or because they are still in denial”.

Behind the rare mediatized cases, like that of Anne, convinced to exchange with Brad Pitt and relieved of 830,000 euros, or Marie-JoséParty to join “a grazer” in Côte d’Ivoire in June, hide thousands of one -way love stories, devoured by lying and buried under the debts.

In the case of Madeleine, it is a simple message on Facebook which triggers everything in September 2017. An invitation from a certain “Marc”, which claims to be born in Caen, hold a shop of spare parts in Thionville and have two children. She still lives with her husband, a man who does not address her “Almost never the floor”. Awarded “dead marriage”The exchanges with Marc are deep and full of tenderness. Very quickly, she can no longer do without it. “He told me that we would go walking in the forest with hand in hand, that I would learn to his daughter to cook while he would tinker, that we would go to Disneyland”Madeleine chosen, nostalgic.

“We talked every night, 9:30 p.m. until 2 am, sometimes more.”

Madeleine*, 65, victim of a grazer

in franceinfo

A month later, on the eve of their first meeting, Marc announces an unforeseen start for Côte d’Ivoire. A trip of a few days, to settle a family inheritance, from which it will never come back. Instead, requests for money arise, always more pressing. For papers, a notary, an emergency operation, nursery costs, children’s gifts … Madeleine pays. Once. Twice. Ten times. Until losing more than 200,000 euros, according to his calculations. “I had to make a group of credits, I took it for fifteen years … I feel guilty of what I did, but I was so sure that we were going to lead to something …”Sighs the retired secretary, who claims to receive 2,000 euros per month.

Extracts from conversation between Madeleine and Marc, in 2025. (Anonymized screenshots)

Extracts from conversation between Madeleine and Marc, in 2025. (Capture of anonymis cran)

Still today, a year after her husband’s death of generalized cancer – an ordeal that has “Open your eyes” -, the sixty -something man continues to receive messages from this alleged Marc. She blocked her on several social networks, but he always ends up finding a way to contact her, she deplores.

Claude, 57, also thought he had found a link that would give meaning to his life. For several years, he has been swimming in solitude: no family, no child, no entourage. “It’s absolute nothingness around me, I have no loved one.” It is in this context that he enrolled, in 2023, on a dating site, where he began a conversation with “Béatrice”, who presents himself as living in Ghana. A soft voice, tender words, beautiful photos and this detail, which makes him lower his guard: “At the beginning, she tells me something that I like a lot: ‘Be careful on this site, there may be scams’“He says, with bitter laugh.

After intimate exchanges, some daring shots, a first transfer of 150 euros is sent on Christmas. Then, the financial transactions are multiplying: marriage project, documents to be provided, fictitious lawyer to pay, plane tickets … After a year, the hoax changes in the absurd: a message teaches him that Béatrice was arrested at Brussels airport, in possession of gold lights. A deposit is required. This time, he decides to check the information directly from Belgian customs. Claude then understands that Béatrice does not exist.

“It’s like a big punch in the face at that time.”

Claude*, 57, victim of a grazer

in franceinfo

False documents, coarse inconsistencies, the constant impossibility of a Visio … everything is lighting. “I say to myself: you’re really an idiot, you got it like a blue.” Claude understands that he has lost more than 10,000 euros. He filed a complaint in December 2024 on The Thésée Platform and from the Ghana police. For the time being, he had no return. The silence of the administration, in mirror of that of Béatrice, completes to isolate her. “I will not find this money, I spared it to get married, for the day it would be the right one”he slips, disillusioned.

Online scammers know how to create desirable future, apprehending their prey with false promises. For Marlène Dulaurans, mistress of conferences in cybercriminology, these scams thrive on a desire for sharing and tenderness. What the scammers sell is “An extraordinarily well -built narrative” AND “Very reassuring” For vulnerable people. This discourse finds a particular echo in older generations, often helpless in the face of digital codes.

“We opened the Pandora’s box to them, we encouraged them to go, and now that there are drifts, they have no manual to preserve them!”

Marlène Dulaurans, lecturer in cybercriminology

in franceinfo

A trap in which Fanny’s father*sank, an ideal victim: widower, isolated, confused to the Internet. “After my mother’s death in 2018, he discovered this universe and plunged”sighs the forties. It has been five years that his father, 81, fell into online sentimental scams. Five years that she extinguished fires from a distance and she lives to the rhythm of the e-mails to be monitored, bank readings to decode, and false promises to flush out.

“I look at his emails every day, to see if they try to contact him.”

Fanny*, 47, daughter of a victim

in franceinfo

Her father, a former senior manager, lost more than 300,000 euros in fictitious relationships with women who do not exist, she says. “It was the police who called me the first time. He was banned banking, suspected of money laundering”explains Fanny. Electricity contract, identity document, RIB … He had sent all these pieces in photo to his alleged companion, allowing scammers to open several fraudulent accounts to his name in online banks. His daughter files a complaint in the summer of 2020 for identity theft.

Since then, she has been trying to help him by confronting him. He denies, dodges, gets angry and threatens to cut the bridges when she evokes curatorship. “For me, it’s horrible. If he knew I have access to his emails, he wouldn’t talk to me anymore.” Fanny even planned to recreate a harmless love story from scratch, by offering writers to pay them so that they send his father to false love mails. None accepted. So she continues, alone, to try to anticipate the next relapse. “Sometimes I find myself thinking: why is my mother who died and not him? And I blame myselfshe whispers. It’s endless. I live with a sword of Damocles above my head, asking me when he goes back to date. “

Each of these stories is based on a well -oiled mechanics. Nathalie Granier, cybersychologist and behavioral analyst, first quotes “the mirror effect”: “The crook takes up the words, values, ideas of the person opposite”, she decrypts. To this mechanism is added that of love bombinga strategy that consists of “Drunk the victim in a flow of attention, compliments, love”. Once “The spider has woven its canvas”, The emotional link “will take precedence over factual inconsistencies”, continues the specialist.

“We are in an emotional addiction phenomenon. There are peaks of oxytocin, then a lack. It’s like a drug.”

Nathalie Granier, cyberpsychologist

in franceinfo

According to her, personalities “that work with emotional intensity” are more exposed to this type of scam. She cites in particular “Those with anxious attachment, idealists, impulsive, emotional dependents and empathetic”. But no one is safe. “Myself, I work on that 24 hours a day and I can be fooled!” Moreover, “Weaning can be long, with relapses”warns the specialist. The victim will radiate, doubt, want to lock himself on himself, until “Transform shame into lucidity” and, from there, “Being able to reconstruct the esteem of itself”.

Sometimes the reconstruction path also involves the need for justice. But crossing the door of a police station can already represent a test. “Victims come out in tears from the gendarmeries”relates Jocelyn Ziegler, lawyer specializing in these scams. “Sometimes we refuse their complaint, which is illegal. They sometimes ask them inappropriate questions, which strengthens guilt ‘he deplores.

So, to save its customers a new violence, the firm writes complaints itself and sends them to the prosecution. But even once this stage is crossed, the road remains uncertain. “The criminal component is barely 15 to 20% of success”warns the lawyer.

“We rarely recover money from the crooks. Our main lever for action is the banks.”

Jocelyn Ziegler, lawyer

in franceinfo

Because when a customer suddenly sends large sums abroad, his bank is supposed to contact him to make him sign a liability discharge. “If she doesn’t do it, we can attack her for breach of her duty of vigilance”Pointe Jocelyn Ziegler.

At the anti-cybercrime (OFAC) office, we advance small steps to try to find the identity of the scammers. “Once the complaint has been filed, we require messaging, IP addresses. But Twitter no longer responds to our requisitions and VPNs often refuse to collaborate”, exhibits one of the officials of this special unit.

“The prioritization of business is done according to the damage: the higher the losses, the more the file goes back in our battery.”

A cyber -tender within the OFAC

in franceinfo

In these files, money is a precious common thread. “We follow the financial flows, and this is often what is most convincing. Sometimes it transit in cryptocurrency, but it remains traceable”says the specialist. These surveys, which take “of the months”Cross the courts and continents: the grazers nestle where the authorities are absent or overwhelmed. “In Africa, grazers often target the ‘Tout-Venant’. In Israel, where the cases are more and more numerous, they target richer prey. “

Especially since the crooks continue to innovate. Their playground evolves, boosted by artificial intelligence (AI). False faces, synthetic voices, fictitious identities … AI offers them tailor -made weapons. Faced with her, the victims, already weakened, have only their common sense to defend themselves. “We will have to do everything. The bigger it’s big, the more it goes”Slide the cybrencant. And to warn: “With must be depthThe phenomenon may worsen. “

* The first name has been changed.



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