Can someone explain the scam where girls from Ghana send letters and photos looking to start a relationship?

: Can someone explain the scam where girls from Ghana send letters and photos looking to start a relationship?
I have received multiple letters and photos from attractive young women in Ghana looking to begin a relationship and describing their attributes. I have not responded, but am curious about the source of this scam and how i can get off the list.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Alan M
This is called a Love scam

It is invariably lads (not ladies) sending the emails although they will sometimes use female members of their family to assist with phone calls etc.
The photos are usually pulled from the Internet.

The scam works by the ‘lady’ building up (usually quite rapidly) a bond with the victim (usually) through an emotional approach, backed of course by the photos. Sometimes they may use straight forward begging (school fees / hospital fees etc)

They will stress their desire to come and meet you but there is always a problem which needs your $ $ $ to overcome.
They’ll need a new passport – kerching! $ $
It’ll need a visa – kerching! $ $
They haven’t got the air fare – kerching! $ $
Oh! My dear sweet mother has just been hit by a runaway car / bus / elephant… can you pay the hospital fees? – kerching! $ $
and so on.

This will persist until the victim finally realises it’s a scam or until they have no more money.

Such scams are very common and because they use emotion as a catch, can be very difficult for the victim to break out of.

I’m afraid that avoiding them is very difficult.
I would guess that they have approached you in a ‘matchmaking’ site – these are invariably free to join / register and scammers make the most of this.

There is little you can do – reporting the user ID of the scammer will get the profile closed down, but the scammer will usually have more than one profile ready to use and as he has used as false name to set the profile up, he is not going to be traced.

Most approaches are “instant love” / “I want to have your babies” and no genuine contact would ever use this method. Scammers are always up against time as the more time a scam takes to get going, the more chance there is of the victim being told / realising it’s a scam.
Once netted and the $ $ have been sent, they have a little more time to sit back and fleece the victim

Luck.