Now, the 53-year-old woman’s one hope of finding love later in life – the Internet – has turned against her in a cruel way. For the past year, Melinda has helplessly watched as her mom has slowly fallen for a long-distance, online lover who clearly is scamming her. Initially the man, who gave his name as Michael and said he was in Texas, played the part of desperate lover, typing sweet nothings into a chat room and pledging a happy-ever-after life – beautiful homes, cars, luxurious trips. Soon, though, he said he was sent on an emergency trip to Nigeria. Then came a curious request: Michael said he needed $500 so he could leave the country and visit the family in Pennsylvania. Melinda’s mom wired the money to Africa. Then came another request, and another. In all, Melinda thinks her mom wired nearly $10,000 to Michael, each time thinking the payment would enable her lover to visit or help him escape a dire situation. The romance has so financially drained the family that Melinda and her mom have been threatened with foreclosure. Still, Melinda said, her mom continues to wire money to Michael.

“My mother and I have been in many fights about Michael and her sending him money, but she just tells me that I do not want her to be in love or happy,” she said. To this day, Melinda has been unable to find the magic words that might pierce the denial and deception her mom is suffering from. “I am just at a loss for words.”

Msnbc.com has agreed to protect Melinda’s identity, while Melinda has provided a detailed timeline of the year-long tale of seduction, betrayal and family frustration in the hope it may prevent others from being victimized.

As in the real world, the abused lover is often the last to know, said another online love victim, Barb Sluppick. After she fell for an online dupe, Sluppick started a support group for victims called RomanceScams.org. Today, the site has 44,000 members and has tallied more than $11 million lost by victims.

Web lover scams cut especially deep, she said, because they are so easy to commit. The con artists are often in Nigeria, and many maintain relationships with multiple women. By the time victims find their way to RomanceScams.org, they often discover an archive of woman who have received the same photographs and story lines from their con artists.

Since Sluppick started the site five years ago, it has been featured on numerous national television shows, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” But the exposure hasn’t alleviated the problem. In fact, she believes the number of victims is continuing to rise – and their stories are becoming more dramatic. One victim Sluppick helped recently had cashed in his retirement fund and sent a con artist more than $1 million during a year-long seduction. Another victim was so engrossed in conversation with her con artist – who continually told her to ignore pleas of family members – that she ignored her own mother’s cries for help during a heart attack. She discovered her mom, dead, several hours later.

Jim Arlt is a special agent devoted to elder scams with the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. He’s heard ever more heart-wrenching stories.

“Here in Minnesota we had a woman who believed she had met someone online, then discovered he wasn’t who he said he was, and after realizing she had given away all her money to this person, she committed suicide and left a note saying why,” Arlt said. He described the problem of elder scams, and romance scams in particular, as “growing exponentially.”

“There’s no focused effort to address it,” he said.

Naturally, most victims are extremely reluctant to admit they’ve been scammed or to publicly speak about the incident, Sluppick said. She has dealt with many family members, like Melinda, who are desperate to break the illusion that controls the victim.

“It can be very, very, very difficult to get them to see what's going on. The scammer works really, really hard to make the victim dependent on them,” she said. “It’s mind control. It's brainwashing. … They create a bond that is very hard to break.”

One common technique: The scammer tries to consume all of the victim’s time with constant chat-room banter, with the goal of isolating the victim from their families and friends. To that end, scammers often work in teams -- four or five different scam artists will trade off sweet-talking the victim, just to keep him or her busy.

“Many times, after a victim realizes what’s going on, they’ll say, ‘Wow, it seems like he just couldn’t spell very well that day, or he seemed to talk very differently,” Sluppick said.
Older, single women are a frequent target, but victims come from all ages, and the gender split is about even, Sluppick said. Women are more likely to admit they’ve been scammed, but older men are more likely to lose big when seduced by what appears to be a beautiful 23-year-old woman.

But one trait all the victims have in common: They are lonely and the criminals satisfy a desperate need to be listened to. In fact, the need is so great that some victims are reluctant to give up the relationship even after the mirage is broken.