“The Scam Did Not Affect Me”
A SCARS Institute Scam Victim Recovery Insight
Over the last dozen years, this is a phrase we have heard many times: “The Scam Did Not Affect Me.”
The idea that a relationship scam that doesn’t affect you means it wasn’t a real relationship. Because a real relationship, even a fake one, comes with profound harm.
Let’s look at the logic of this.
Denying the effects of a romance scam can reveal a profound and uncomfortable truth, one that challenges the self-deception people often rely on to protect themselves from emotional pain.
At its core, a genuine relationship is defined by emotional investment, vulnerability, and the intertwining of two lives (even if one of them is fake, the other is real). It is a space where you lower your defenses, share your inner world, and allow another person to have a meaningful impact on your state of being. When that connection is revealed to be a fraud, the emotional fallout isn’t just probable; it’s the definitive proof that something of value was lost.
There is trauma, there is grief, and everything that comes with them.
If you can walk away from a “relationship” with a scammer feeling completely unscathed, indifferent, or merely annoyed, it’s a strong indicator that you were never truly in a relationship to begin with. You were a participant in a transaction, not a partnership. Your engagement might have been based on curiosity, entertainment, or a superficial fantasy, but it lacked the foundational element of real connection: genuine emotional risk. A true relationship requires you to care, and caring inherently opens you up to the possibility of being hurt. The absence of pain upon its collapse suggests the absence of that deep-seated caring.
Consider the mechanics of a romance scam. The scammer’s goal is to manufacture an illusion of intimacy to extract resources, usually money. They are master manipulators, but they are building a facade. For the victim, however, the feelings are real. They invest time, emotional energy, and hope. They imagine a future. That is why the betrayal is so devastating. The pain is a testament to the authenticity of the victim’s feelings and the perceived reality of the bond. The scam itself is a cruel violation of a genuine human need for connection.
Conversely, if you suspected the fraud all along, kept your emotional distance, and were simply playing along or testing the waters, you weren’t in a relationship. You were an observer of a con, perhaps a cynical one. The scammer’s performance didn’t resonate with you on an emotional level because you never granted them access. When the curtain falls, there is no sense of loss because there was nothing to lose. You didn’t share your fears, your dreams, or your vulnerabilities. The connection was a charade you were aware of, and therefore, its dissolution has no more emotional impact than a movie ending.
This is where the act of sending money becomes the most irrefutable evidence. No one sends money to a stranger based on a flimsy, transactional interaction. People send money because they believe they are helping someone they love and trust. The transfer of funds is not a simple transaction; it is an act of faith, a tangible demonstration of the emotional investment that defines a real relationship. It is sent to pay for a loved one’s emergency, to support their dream, or to bridge a temporary gap for a partner you see as your future. If there were no real relationship, there would be no trust, and without trust, there would be no money. The money itself becomes a physical artifact of the bond that existed, at least in the victim’s heart and mind.
Ultimately, the measure of a relationship is found in its echo. The trauma, the grief, the anger, the confusion, and the deep sense of violation that follow a scam are the echoes of a love that was, for you, real. The financial loss, while devastating, is secondary to the emotional one. The profound hurt is a terrible price to pay, but it is also the receipt that proves you once had something genuine (at least for you), something that was tragically stolen from you.
Prof. Tim McGuinness, Ph.D.
February 2026
