You're not the kind of person who would ever fall for a "relationship scammer" on the Internet, of course, so you might wonder whether anyone actually sends tens of thousands of dollars in gifts to a romantic partner they have met only online. The answer is: yes, yes they would. And it happens far more often—and involves far more money—than you might suspect.

Case in point: back in 2005, in the great state of California, a woman named Paula met a "man" named Jesse while participating in an online discussion forum around the show Deadwood. Paula fell in love. Hard. But "Jesse" wasn't a man; she was apparently a woman named Janna, who lived in Batavia, Illinois—just up the road from me and right next to the Fermilab research complex.

This led, eventually, to a lawsuit. Here's how an Illinois appeals court summed up the complex claims that Paula made in the case. (Pardon the length, but it's needed to convey the full-on bizarreness of what happened.)

Plaintiff [Paula] and “Jesse” began an on-line romantic relationship that lasted until July 2006. In addition to e-mails, “Jesse” and plaintiff exchanged personal photos, handwritten letters, and gifts. They even spoke regularly on the telephone; plaintiff alleged that defendant used a voice-altering device to disguise her female voice. Defendant [Janna], under her own name, also maintained a relationship with plaintiff during this period. In addition, defendant created a universe of approximately 20 fictional on-line characters involved with “Jesse,” including an ex-wife, a son, various family members, a therapist, and friends living in the United States and abroad. These characters communicated with plaintiff from separate and distinct e-mail accounts and even sent photos, handwritten mail, and packages from different states and foreign countries. Plaintiff sent gifts worth over $10,000 to defendant, “Jesse,” and various other characters. Plaintiff purchased round-trip airline tickets from Burbank, California, to Denver, Colorado, in September 2005 to meet “Jesse” in person. However, “Jesse” cancelled the plans. Shortly thereafter, defendant communicated to plaintiff that “Jesse” had attempted suicide. This caused plaintiff “great emotional distress,” and plaintiff began seeing a therapist, with bills totaling more than $5,000. “Jesse” and plaintiff continued their relationship and, in April 2006, decided to move in together in “Jesse’s” Colorado home. Plaintiff spent approximately $700 preparing for the anticipated July move. However, in July, plaintiff was informed by “Jesse’s” sister “Alice” that “Jesse” had died of liver cancer. Defendant, posing as the other fictional characters, sent plaintiff letters of condolence. Plaintiff entered a deep depression, experiencing headaches, exhaustion, inability to sleep, and inability to focus on job-related tasks. She also contracted a recurring infection known as MRSA (multidrug resistant staphylococcus aureus) because her immune system was so weakened. Even after “Jesse’s” death, defendant stayed in touch with plaintiff, communicating with her on a daily basis for the next seven months. Plaintiff met defendant in Colorado to see some of “Jesse’s” favorite places, then drove to New Mexico to visit other “Jesse”-related sites. During that trip, defendant gave plaintiff a letter that “Jesse” had written in which he professed his love for plaintiff and set out his “dying wishes.” In February 2007, defendant visited plaintiff in California. Plaintiff spent $1,000 preparing her home for defendant, buying an inflatable bed and linens and installing a handrail and sliding chair, along with other “medical bath assist devices” in her bathroom. During this trip, some of plaintiff’s actual friends discovered the fictional nature of the universe of people that defendant had created, and they confronted defendant. Defendant admitted on videotape that she had put plaintiff through an “emotional ringer [sic]” for “maybe a year and a half.” Plaintiff continued to see a therapist to deal with the emotional aftermath of the false statements regarding the existence of the fictional characters, and her therapy bills continued to accumulate. Her “affected mental state” also had resulted in lost earnings.

Paula sued in Illinois for fraud; the judges split. One noted that "[t]he reality of the Internet age is that an online individual may not always be—and indeed frequently is not—who or what he or she purports to be. The plaintiff’s reliance on the defendant’s alleged misrepresentations, in deciding to spend $10,000 on Christmas gifts for people who allegedly lived in another state and whom she had never met, was not justifiable." As Chicago lawyer Evan Brown put it, "In so many words, the judge seemed to be saying that plaintiff was too gullible to have the benefit of this legal claim."

The motivations for this incredible charade aren't clear, though they appear to have involved more than a desire for money. But whatever the reasons behind such ruses, thousands of Americans now complain about them to the FBI every year; many more probably go unrecorded.

In the new 2011 annual report (PDF) from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), the Center notes that "romance scams" are one of the top five online frauds. Women get scammed this way twice as often as men, and victims are most often "over 40 years old, divorced or widowed, disabled and often elderly," says IC3. In 2011, 5,663 people complained that they had been defrauded to the tune of of $50.4 million by those who they had fallen for online.

(For comparison, common "auto-auction fraud" through sites like Craigslist generated only 4,066 complaints with a dollar value of $8.3 million in 2011.)

That's an average of 15 "Internet romance" complaints per day, with each complaint averaging $8,900. Scammers have always used romance to prey on others—just ask Dickens' Miss Havisham. But the Internet makes it simple.