“What action should l take?”: Help-seeking behaviours of those targeted by romance fraud
Open accessAbstract
Fraud uses deception to obtain a financial reward from its victim. There are strong negative stereotypes and victim blaming discourses towards fraud victims, with research indicating that fraud victims are unlikely to report incidents for many reasons, including a high degree of shame and stigmatisation. In this way, it can be assumed that fraud victims are averse to seeking help in the aftermath of an incident. Drawing from romance fraud reports lodged with Scamwatch (an Australian online reporting portal for fraud) between 1 July 2018 and 31 July 2019, this article examines the help-seeking behaviours of those targeted by romance fraud. The analysis found a variety of explicit and implicit help-seeking behaviours, encompassing both personal justice and altruistic reasons. The analysis demonstrates that despite the victim blaming that exists, this did not always act as a barrier to reporting or requesting help. Overall, this article challenges some of the perceived aversity to help-seeking behaviour of fraud victims. It also provides a foundation for improving responses and support to those who actively engage in help-seeking behaviour.
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Victim blaming deepens the harmful consequences of online romance scams and raises the threshold for victims to report their experiences to the police or other authorities.
“This phenomenon of victim blaming—not only placing responsibility on the victim for what happened but also questioning their judgment—deepens the harmful consequences of the scam and raises the threshold for victims to report their experiences to the police or other authorities (Meikle & Cross, 2024).”
From Love as Bait: A Scoping Review and Crime Script Analysis of Online Romance Scams (2026) · cites this paper as Meikle & Cross, 2024
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- Authors
- Meikle, W., & Cross, C.
- Affiliations
- Queensland University of Technology (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Cross, Cassandra
- ORCID
- Cross, Cassandra
- Venue
- Journal of Economic Criminology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2024-03
- Volume
- 3
- Pages
- 100054
- ISSN
- 2949-7914 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4391543512
- Cited by
- 22
- References
- 56
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 5
- FWCI
- 8.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Economic Criminology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Cybercrime and Law Enforcement Studies
- Social Sciences › Law › Criminal Justice and Penology
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies
- Keywords
- romance fraud, help-seeking, fraud victims, victim blaming, stigmatization, fraud reporting, online dating fraud, victim support, personal justice, altruism
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