Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
romance scams
deception cues
online dating
victim experience
mobile-mediated interaction
When Suspicion Becomes Detection. Folk Deception Cues and Detection Strategies in Online Dating Romance Scams
🤖 AI Summary
Romantic scams in online dating remain particularly covert in contexts with limited legal and social support, and little is known about how victims identify and respond to such deception. This study addresses this gap through semi-structured in-depth interviews with 24 Iranian victims, employing thematic analysis to uncover their proactive, iterative strategies for detecting suspicious cues during mobile-based interactions and verifying partners’ identities across platforms. Challenging the prevailing stereotype of passive victimhood, the research advances a user-driven perspective on deception detection and articulates a repertoire of folk indicators and self-devised coping mechanisms. These findings offer empirical grounding and design implications for developing anti-scam mobile applications that support users in recognizing, resisting, and recovering from romantic fraud.
📝 Abstract
The growth of mobile dating platforms has coincided with a rise in romance scams, in which offenders construct convincing personas to defraud users. While research on romance scams is expanding, victims lived experiences of recognizing and responding to deception in mobile-mediated interactions remain insufficiently understood. To address this gap, we conducted indepth interviews with 24 victims of online dating romance scams in Iran, where legal, social, and cultural constraints limit formal support. Our analysis identifies suspicion cues and the investigative strategies victims use to verify identities across platforms. We show that victims are not passive recipients of deception but engage in active, iterative detection practices under significant emotional, social, and relational pressure. Based on these findings, we contribute empirically grounded insights into deception cues and user driven detection work, and we discuss implications for the design of mobile technologies that better support users in identifying, resisting, and recovering from romance scams. Content Warning, This paper discusses sexual violence
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
romance scams
suspicion cues
user-driven detection
mobile dating platforms
deception detection
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