Know the tells · 02
The camera is always broken
The camera is broken. The connection out here is terrible. Company security rules forbid video. It's not a good time — but soon, my love, soon. Weeks pass; you have hours of conversation and not one second of live footage.
The pattern
Any single excuse is plausible — real people do have broken cameras. The tell is the pattern: every path to seeing this person live fails, always with a reason, and the reasons rotate. The FTC lists the perpetual inability to meet or video-chat as a core feature of romance scams, and the FBI's guidance says the same about requests to verify identity that never quite succeed.
Why the camera never works
Because the face doesn't match. The profile photos are stolen from a real person or generated by AI, and the voice on a call wouldn't match the persona either. A video call is the single cheapest way to collapse a fake identity — which is exactly why it must always be impossible. Deepfake live video exists but remains rare and glitchy at the scale scam operations run; the economics favor excuses.
What to do
- · Reverse image search their photos (Google Lens or TinEye). Stolen photos are the fastest tell of all.
- · Ask for something no script can fake: a photo holding today's date on paper, or a short voice note saying your name and the day. Make it easy and specific.
- · Count, don't judge: one refusal means little. Write down each excuse — the third one is data, not bad luck.
- · Hold the line before anything else escalates — especially before money enters the plot.
Weeks in and still no live video?
Sixteen questions, every one cited, scored in your browser — nothing stored.
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