An Informative List of Sociopaths and Their Methods
Lovefraud Blog » Blog Archive » Sociopaths and credit cards
The above link is to the expanded version of the following list with the author's experiences. This website is full of stories, resources, and just plain common sense to use when dealing with all the different 'paths' that one might come across.
One of the best ways to combat a sociopath is to turn their game on themselves. Usually, they are so wrapped up in their con that they won't suspect, or even credit you with the intelligence, that you are able to outsmart them. In dealing with the sociopath in our lives, she predictably tries at every opportunity to 'ruin' me. She mentions my blog to those from whom she wishes to gain sympathy. This mistake has led to the only breaks for us in dealing with her. It led one of her targets to contact the LEGAL father of her children so that they could be reunited with their father after six years and being told he was dead. It also lead to contact between myself and many of her past targets so that a timeline could be laid out of what she did, to whom, and when. There are still gaps, but they are fast filling in.
Anyway, here is the list of the ways a sociopath will worm their way into your life and take whatever you have.
1. Sociopaths specifically go after people with money and/or credit. The first step, of course, is to pick the right target. If sociopaths are looking for a sugar daddy or sugar momma, they first need to make sure sugar is available.
Now, this doesn’t mean the target must have millions in accessible cash, although I do know of one case in which that was a requirement. A sociopath will target someone who has:
- a job
- access to credit
- a home, which can be tapped for a home equity loan
- retirement savings
- family members with money
If sociopaths have access to credit reports, they won’t be deterred by the mere fact that pulling a credit report without the subject’s permission is illegal.
2. Sociopaths initially create an impression of substance, success and financial responsibility.
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Right now, our sociopath is trolling for a new target. She's freshly employed part time and has now begun talking about 'getting MY kids back". She would only make this comment if she had a target with the means to help her achieve this goal. She has worked in the insurance industry and still has contacts that will run credit checks (and even provide her with fraudulent credit reports for herself) on any target. The court records in this case detail how our con-artist, while on pre-trial release, married for the second time in two years (seventh time over all) and immediately began using the new alias, as well as a local business man's identity, to paint a picture of wealth and means and a character of substance to get herself, her new husband, and her children into a $2,000 a month home on the beach in Maine, rented from the daughter of the owner, the rent being the payment for the owner's care in a nursing facility. This target immediately assumed the identity of a relative of the owner, convinced her probation officer that she needed to care for this elderly relative herself. With the cooperation of the probation officer, a duped real estate agent, and the aforementioned business man's credit/identity, our con-artist created her final scheme before being locked up for a year in federal prison. Now that she has completed the jail term, she is on supervised -probation (parole) and is constantly finding new ways to get around the 'home detention' monitoring device she is forced to wear. There is nothing to stop her from going to the local library and getting on the internet to which she is forbidden access at home. The 'home' is actually the home of 'federal custodians' who have been partners and beneficiaries of her scams in the past. The couple enjoyed a wedding paid for on the credit of the nanny the sociopath scammed that ended up putting her in jail. Apparently the sociopath had already fleeced the family of the woman half of this couple and the sociopath paid for her wedding as a way to shut her up and gain her cooperation. Shortly after her incarceration, court documents show that the sociopath, true to her pattern, filed a restraining order against the woman saying she wanted nothing to do with her. This was because she had learned from one of her children of the woman's affair with her husband, while still living in the fraudulently obtained home, while she was incarcerated. She eventually relented, choosing to believe the con-artist she trained over her own son's story that he actually SAW the affair take place! She even attempted to discredit the child by saying 'Watch him. His lies are believable, he was taught by inmate XX-XXXXX. referring to herself. This was her attempt at damage control, selling out her own son as a liar to protect the plan she had in place for residence after her release. Otherwise, she would have been in a halfway house, with much closer monitoring.
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3. Sociopaths quickly create bonds of trust with the target. That’s where the word “con” comes from-the sociopaths are running a con game, or confidence game, establishing confidence in the target. This can be done several ways, depending on the nature of the relationship.
Sweetheart scams are probably the easiest. The sociopath love bombs the target, with flowery language, gifts and constant attention. When the target falls for it, he or she feels both love and trust-how could you not trust someone that you love? If the two people are intimate, chemical changes in the brain make the trust bond grow even stronger. (See last week’s article, Getting over that amazing ‘chemistry.’)
Sometimes sociopaths borrow trust through association. For example, they may join a religious community, and present themselves as a solid member of the group, or even a spiritual leader. Thousands of wannabes fraudulently claim to be military heroes, and trade off the high esteem with which most people hold those who serve in the military. My ex-husband claimed that he served 35 years in the military, which made him seem honorable. He never served a day.
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Our sociopath has used the above method to good success several times over. Her longest marriage, which we call her 'attempt at rehabilitation' was with a man who turned a blind eye to her past and ignored her ways too long, finding himself saddled with over 300k in debt in a California bankruptcy case, to which the con-artist never admitted. It is our belief that this particular omission has not yet made it to the attention of the bankruptcy authorities as she has only tried to file bankruptcy herself to dodge debts she was court ordered to pay. It is our belief that her long term relationship with this man was the result of his less than stellar success in the social arena and her 'love bomb' approach. Unused to such attention, she kept him on the hook as provider for several years, using his good name and his family's name. Even moving to New England where his family's name is prominent in order to pass herself off as a person of means.
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4. Sociopaths promise to pay, and sometimes they actually do pay, at least in the beginning.
If sociopaths perceive that there is nothing left to take, at that point they may quit the charade and say, “F*** you, the debts are in your name, you deal with them.” Of course, by that point, the sociopaths already have their next targets lined up.
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At least twice, our sociopath convinced men to marry her by paying their debts (with someone else's money of course) in the form of fines. She even opened a huge line of credit for one of them, in an attempt to frame HIM for her deeds. She also threatened to rescind the bail she offered one unless he married her. He was denied an annulment because the judge determined he was in full cooperation and knew what he was doing and what marriage means.
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5. Sociopaths create a crisis, and need action right away. They will claim that they must answer immediately, they have to act now or the opportunity will be lost, they’re up against a deadline. Sociopaths do not want their targets to have a chance to think about whether the request makes any sense.
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This is how she scammed one person, convincing him that someone had stolen HER identity and she could no longer pay rent in her name and needed to hire a criminal defense team to 'rescue her' .
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6. Sociopaths use the targets’ own good natures against them. If targets are generous, sociopaths will use the pity play to prey on their generosity. If targets are responsible, the sociopaths will get them to clean up the messes that they create. If targets are skilled in business, the sociopaths will enlist them to join the entrepreneurial dream, be members of the team, until they are carrying the full financial burden.
Whatever qualities and vulnerabilities targets have, the sociopaths find ways to exploit them.
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The target walked into the law office and wrote a check, and then also wrote checks for her rent and bought other items for her and her children because she created the 'crisis' scenario.
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7. Sociopaths badger the targets into giving them what they want.
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My husband, an ex of this sociopath, has many stories of how she would railroad him in to doing things he knew better than to do, often just to shut her up. He knew when he married her he was making a mistake, but did so because of the child...she had trapped him with the oldest trick in the book, a baby.
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8. Sociopaths dig the targets into such deep holes that the only possible escape is through the sociopaths.
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Twice my husband was forced to borrow money (from relatives and from savings) to catch up the normal household bills because she spent any cash she could get her hands on for herself. He recalls giving her the last hundred dollars he had after he lost his job so that she could buy groceries and diapers. She got a $75 manicure for herself, using the rest 'for gas' and forgetting about the diapers, the initial reason for the store run in the first place. She then ran up bills on his credit trying to start her own business while he was out of work.
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9. Sociopaths know the rules.
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They know the rules, or learn about them the hard way because they think they are above any 'rules' other than their own. This sociopath's success began to falter after she was apparently conned herself. Not realizing that the new husband had outstanding debts of his own, and years of back child support, she was quickly caught up in a net too sticky to escape. She still managed to get him into more trouble before he exchanged leniency for cooperation in her case. This shows that the more desperate they become, the more mistakes they are likely to make.
Because she is so desperate to feed her need for things and treatment to which she believes she is entitled (an extreme sense of entitlement is a hallmark of the sociopath) we are waiting for her next screw up. There will probably be more hurdles to overcome, created by her in her attempt to get custody of the children again, but we are ready, and armed with information, more of which comes in daily, about the methods, the mania, and the eventual downfall of our con-artist, sociopath, ex-convict who we hope will be on her way back to prison shortly. Her trial for Bankruptcy fraud has been postponed twice. While she believes she is putting off the inevitable, it gives the authorities all the more time to collect information and history on her twenty year con-artist career.
