ScamsNOW!
The SCARS Institute Magazine about Scam Victims-Survivors, Scams, Fraud & Cybercrime
Hope & The “Pig Pen” Syndrome – on ScamsNOW.com
A Different Take On The Happenstance Of Scams
By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc. – Originally published on RomanceScamsNOW.com September 2018 – moved and updated 2023
Was It All About Hope? For Many Scam Victims, Was Just Bad Luck That They Were Scammed?
“Shit Happens” Is The Old Saying! Sometimes it happens a lot and doesn’t stop. Is it bad luck? Did you ever think you might be making impulsive decisions? That clinging to false hope might have been one of the many root causes for what happened.
Some people believe in the Karmic Wheel, but while that may influence luck on a long-term scale, it probably is not the cause of becoming involved in a relationship scam. But hope – especially false hope, might be a real contributor.
The Cause Is What We Call The “Pig Pen Syndrome.”
“Pig-Pen” is a secondary character in the Peanuts comic strip © by Charles M. Schulz. He is best known as the little boy with a cloud of dirt that constantly follows him.
Do you always have a dark cloud over your head? At least since you were scammed?
Some scam survivors stay trapped in their victimhood and continue to make decisions impulsively, rather than taking the time to learn how to slow down and let the logical part of their mind make the decisions,
It Is All Psychological!
When something bad happens, people tend to shut down. After their first scam ends they may be in shock or desperation and fear. Either way, these are not mindsets that help to avoid additional risks and new scams.
Newer victims are poorly equipped to avoid risks, they stop taking precautions and also stop their own positive mentality. This, in turn, tends to invite more problems due to the lack of avoidance, the lack of concern, and the lack of care.
Decisions become much more emotional. Small events cause larger emotional reactions that ripple through their life, creating other larger waves, that create others and so on. Of course, the triggers come from the trauma that the victim experienced, but without support and care, they can escalate.
Each event is not dampened, but rather amplified, because the victim’s emotional state doesn’t see it as the isolated thing it is – a trigger – instead, it is all part of the “universe hates you.”
Events feel like they carry on from one into another, instead of just being momentary problems to be solved and forgotten.
Eventually, the victim’s own emotional exhaustion tends to drain the possible reactions from their life, and it can begin to separate them again, creating the opportunity for HOPE – false hope.
But HOPE is very infectious. It breeds. It is also intoxicating if scam victims let it be. That is a part of the vulnerabilities that caused the opportunity for the scam originally.
Hope is like the glass of wine people have at dinner – just one glass and they are feeling fine. Two glasses become three and four, and then they fall and break the glass and cut themself.
Some people abuse hope and live in fantasies – we call that denial, using it like a drug. Most take one glass (ok, sometimes two) but know their limit. Some never learn this or forget this while in control of the drug – meaning false hope or denial.
Once they have overdosed on hope and had terrible things happen as a result, they need to learn and understand the power of this false unrealistic hope and the magical thinking that accompanies it.
Every scam victim needs to recover from their scam. and learn the reasons why the scam happened. Learn about the many contributing factors that created their vulnerabilities that were so expertly exploited by the criminals. In other words, how to break the cycle of bad luck and the dark cloud that hangs over their head.
Recovery is about learning and adjusting their worldview, and with it getting rid of false hopes and beliefs or they will again be the “Pig Pen” out on the street living a life of misery, with that dark cloud hanging over their head.
Hope
Hope is one of those curious miracle drugs. It can help anyone find the strength they need to make it through the worst of times, but hope can also turn dark when it becomes a fantasy or becomes denial that holds back reality. And it easily leads to places where evil lives.
The answer is to be realistic in your hope. Enjoy hope with wide eyes instead of blinders! See the positives that can come from recovering after a scam happens, rather than living in and continuing to despair, holding on to false hope, and denial.
Be hopeful and not hopeless, just do not let hope control your life as it did before and during the scam!
Confirmed original by plagiarismdetector.net
SCARS Resources:
- For New Victims of Relationship Scams newvictim.AgainstScams.org
- Subscribe to SCARS Newsletter newsletter.againstscams.org
- Sign up for SCARS professional support & recovery groups, visit support.AgainstScams.org
- Find competent trauma counselors or therapists, visit counseling.AgainstScams.org
- Become a SCARS Member and get free counseling benefits, visit membership.AgainstScams.org
- Report each and every crime, learn how to at reporting.AgainstScams.org
- Learn more about Scams & Scammers at RomanceScamsNOW.com and ScamsNOW.com
- Global Cyber Alliance ACT Cybersecurity Tool Website: Actionable Cybersecurity Tools (ACT) (globalcyberalliance.org)
- Self-Help Books for Scam Victims are at shop.AgainstScams.org
- Donate to SCARS and help us help others at donate.AgainstScams.org
- Worldwide Crisis Hotlines: International Suicide Hotlines – OpenCounseling : OpenCounseling
- Campaign To End Scam Victim Blaming – 2024 (scamsnow.com)
More:
- What Really Are Vulnerabilities That Lead To Scams? (scamsnow.com)
- Magical Thinking – How Biased & Delusional Thinking Enslaves Scam Victims (scamsnow.com)
- Scam Victims And The Reactivity Loop (scamsnow.com)
- Projection And Scam Victims (scamsnow.com)
- The Psychology of Scams (romancescamsnow.com)
- Recovering From Scams (romancescamsnow.com)
- “Pig-Pen” | Peanuts Wiki | Fandom
-/ 30 /-
What do you think about this?
Please share your thoughts in a comment below!
More ScamsNOW.com Articles
-/ 30 /-
What do you think about this?
Please share your thoughts in a comment above!
SCARS LINKS: AgainstScams.org RomanceScamsNOW.com ContraEstafas.org ScammerPhotos.com Anyscam.com ScamsNOW.com
reporting.AgainstScams.org support.AgainstScams.org membership.AgainstScams.org donate.AgainstScams.org shop.AgainstScams.org
youtube.AgainstScams.org linkedin.AgainstScams.org facebook.AgainstScams.org
TABLE OF CONTENTS
META
MOST POPULAR COMMENTED ARTICLES
POPULAR ARTICLES
WHAT PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT
LATEST SITE COMMENTS
See Comments for this Article at the Bottom of the Page
on Cruel Or Indifferent To Suffering – What Scammers Do And Why It Is So Important For Scam Victims To Understand – 2024: “We are truly sorry that you encounters hateful people, but WE are very proud to know you!” Apr 24, 21:07
on Helping Scam Victims To See Through Authority Bias To Expose The Scammers And Fraudsters For What They Are – 2024: “I love this in-the-moment thinking. The above questions could help in so many situations, bank-related and not. The pause needed…” Apr 24, 18:40
on Glimmers of Light – the Positive Side of Experience for Scam Victims – 2025: “Glimmers – each of us can and should find such things in our lives that give us some joy, help…” Apr 24, 14:29
on Cruel Or Indifferent To Suffering – What Scammers Do And Why It Is So Important For Scam Victims To Understand – 2024: “I am Asian American. I suffered discrimination since emigrated to the USA in the late ‘70s. I’ve had human fecal…” Apr 24, 12:38
on The Scout Mindset And Scam Victims: “Very informative article that helps me to see how my thinking is a bit more Scout versus Soldier. But there…” Apr 24, 10:12
on Understanding the Right Priorities – Another View of New Scam Victims’ Challenges – 2024: “In my case, not knowing about scams, the kind of people and manipulation that I dealed with, not knowing how…” Apr 22, 20:43
on A Reflection on Christ’s Suffering and Radical Acceptance of the Worst Possible Outcome – 2025: “A strong message, especially at this time of Easter!” Apr 19, 23:16
on A Small Drop Of Insight About Victims’ Trauma: “This lesson was very impactful for me. I have experiences these short-circuit flashbacks and it does bring back the trauma.…” Apr 19, 16:05
on What is Karma – Not From an Eastern Perspective But From a Psychological Point of View – 2025: “This is so informative! It is absolutely what I see daily and it is a trap anyone can fall into…” Apr 19, 15:43
Important Information for New Scam Victims
Please visit www.ScamVictimsSupport.org – a SCARS Website for New Scam Victims & Sextortion Victims
SCARS Institute now offers a free recovery program at www.SCARSeducation.org
Please visit www.ScamPsychology.org – to more fully understand the psychological concepts involved in scams and scam victim recovery
If you are looking for local trauma counselors, please visit counseling.AgainstScams.org
If you need to speak with someone now, you can dial 988 or find phone numbers for crisis hotlines all around the world here: www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines
Statement About Victim Blaming
Some of our articles discuss various aspects of victims. This is both about better understanding victims (the science of victimology) and their behaviors and psychology. This helps us to educate victims/survivors about why these crimes happened and not to blame themselves, better develop recovery programs, and help victims avoid scams in the future. At times, this may sound like blaming the victim, but it does not blame scam victims; we are simply explaining the hows and whys of the experience victims have.
These articles, about the Psychology of Scams or Victim Psychology – meaning that all humans have psychological or cognitive characteristics in common that can either be exploited or work against us – help us all to understand the unique challenges victims face before, during, and after scams, fraud, or cybercrimes. These sometimes talk about some of the vulnerabilities the scammers exploit. Victims rarely have control of them or are even aware of them, until something like a scam happens, and then they can learn how their mind works and how to overcome these mechanisms.
Articles like these help victims and others understand these processes and how to help prevent them from being exploited again or to help them recover more easily by understanding their post-scam behaviors. Learn more about the Psychology of Scams at www.ScamPsychology.org
SCARS INSTITUTE RESOURCES:
IF YOU HAVE BEEN VICTIMIZED BY A SCAM OR CYBERCRIME
♦ If you are a victim of scams, go to www.ScamVictimsSupport.org for real knowledge and help
♦ Enroll in SCARS Scam Survivor’s School now at www.SCARSeducation.org
♦ To report criminals, visit https://reporting.AgainstScams.org – we will NEVER give your data to money recovery companies like some do!
♦ Sign up for our free support & recovery help by https://support.AgainstScams.org
♦ Join our WhatsApp Chat Group at: https://chat.whatsapp.com/BPDSYlkdHBbDBg8gfTGb02
♦ Follow us on X: https://x.com/RomanceScamsNow
♦ Follow us and find our podcasts, webinars, and helpful videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RomancescamsNowcom
♦ SCARS Institute Songs for Victim-Survivors: https://www.youtube.com/playlist…
♦ See SCARS Institute Scam Victim Self-Help Books at https://shop.AgainstScams.org
♦ Learn about the Psychology of Scams at www.ScamPsychology.org
♦ Dig deeper into the reality of scams, fraud, and cybercrime at www.ScamsNOW.com and www.RomanceScamsNOW.com
♦ Scam Survivor’s Stories: www.ScamSurvivorStories.org
♦ For Scam Victim Advocates visit www.ScamVictimsAdvocates.org
♦ See more scammer photos on www.ScammerPhotos.com
You can also find the SCARS Institute on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and TruthSocial
Psychology Disclaimer:
All articles about psychology and the human brain on this website are for information & education only
The information provided in this and other SCARS articles are intended for educational and self-help purposes only and should not be construed as a substitute for professional therapy or counseling.
Note about Mindfulness: Mindfulness practices have the potential to create psychological distress for some individuals. Please consult a mental health professional or experienced meditation instructor for guidance should you encounter difficulties.
While any self-help techniques outlined herein may be beneficial for scam victims seeking to recover from their experience and move towards recovery, it is important to consult with a qualified mental health professional before initiating any course of action. Each individual’s experience and needs are unique, and what works for one person may not be suitable for another.
Additionally, any approach may not be appropriate for individuals with certain pre-existing mental health conditions or trauma histories. It is advisable to seek guidance from a licensed therapist or counselor who can provide personalized support, guidance, and treatment tailored to your specific needs.
If you are experiencing significant distress or emotional difficulties related to a scam or other traumatic event, please consult your doctor or mental health provider for appropriate care and support.
Also read our SCARS Institute Statement about Professional Care for Scam Victims – click here
If you are in crisis, feeling desperate, or in despair, please call 988 or your local crisis hotline.
More ScamsNOW.com Articles
A Question of Trust
At the SCARS Institute, we invite you to do your own research on the topics we speak about and publish. Our team investigates the subject being discussed, especially when it comes to understanding the scam victims-survivors’ experience. You can do Google searches, but in many cases, you will have to wade through scientific papers and studies. However, remember that biases and perspectives matter and influence the outcome. Regardless, we encourage you to explore these topics as thoroughly as you can for your own awareness.
Continuous pity parties will get you nowhere. But I am hoping to have plenty of recovery celebrations.