So your friend hasn't actually met this woman? He doesn't have any physical proof that anything she has said, or anything that her 'relatives' have said is in any way, shape or form true, even though it may have sounded the most plausible story? Webchat (Zoom/Skype)?
Here are some 'classic' signs of a groomer/scam set-up.
- You are approached by a stranger via phone, email, letter, instant messaging, social networking websites, dating websites or chatrooms and they ask you personal questions during what they want you to believe is casual conversation.
- If you have met a groomer via an online dating service they will tell you they have strong feelings for you very early in the ‘relationship’.
- The groomer offers up fake personal information during your conversations in order to gain your trust. They may claim to be in the same situation as you or share similar interests.
- They may even speak of fake unfortunate events which have befallen them in order to make you feel like helping them.
- After a period of communicating for days, weeks or months the scammer will request money, gifts, personal, financial or credit card details or some other form of assistance to help them out of their current 'situation'.
Now in this instance, I think there are two possibilities:
1. Either everything she has told your friend is 100% true, and she genuinely needs help.
2. Everything she has told your friend is either a lie or a partial truth (perhaps her mother did die a few years ago), and she is playing a long game scam where she gets your friend in a position where he trusts her because she's been 'true to her word' about something small and insignificant.
If it helps, get your friend to write down a 2 column table of everything she's ether said or claimed about her life, and then what evidence he has that any of it is true.
Sometimes, when you see it written down it becomes obvious.
