An expert told us exactly why smart women fall for celebrity dating scams.

Imagine receiving a direct message from Brad Pitt declaring his love for you? Would you believe it's really him, or immediately suspect a scam?

For one French woman, this fantasy became a million-dollar nightmare. The 53-year-old interior designer lost her life savings—approximately US$1.4 million—to scammers using AI-generated images of Pitt, including photos of him in a hospital bed supposedly needing money for cancer treatment.

She's not alone. Just last week, an Argentine woman lost $13,000 to scammers posing as George Clooney, who claimed he needed funds to divorce his wife, Amal.

Watch: SBS Insight on Financial Scams. Post continues below.

Carly Dober, a Psychologist from the Australian Association of Psychologists, told Mamamia's daily news podcast The Quicky that these scams are highly effective for specific reasons.

"They're so effective because the scammers invest a lot of time, energy and resources into their product or their grift. The actual scam itself picks on psychological and behavioural traits that make a lot of us quite vulnerable to believing this," Dober explained.

Surprisingly, it's not who you might expect falling for these scams.

"What's actually shocking is that well-educated older women in their 40s or 50s are the key demographic that are most likely to be targeted and fall victim to this kind of scam. So again, I think that a lot of us are vulnerable, but that is the largest demographic we've seen."

"I think celebrity and that lifestyle offers us a bit of escapism, right? We've grown up a lot of the time with these public-facing individuals. They offer a sense of distance from our lives, excitement, and the fact that we could be chosen is so seductive.

"The fact that we could be special enough to catch the eye of someone like Brad Pitt or Tom Hardy, that's amazing. And so then again, if you have a Tom Hardy deep fake, who's saying your name, getting to know you—and again, to the untrained eye, these things are very convincing. I can, unfortunately, only see these getting more and more prolific as time goes by, which is quite scary."

The AI fake images of Brad Pitt in hospital the scammer sent to Anne. Image: X/@AlertesInfos

The perfect emotional storm.

"For a lot of people who are vulnerable to falling for these romance scams, they have a romanticised idea of love or relationships. So they believe in true love. They believe in fairy tales more than the average person," Dober explained.

"They also might have more of an addictive personality type or disposition than the average person, which means that they're chasing that high, that dopamine fix, that excitement. They also have higher levels of emotional instability at times, plus an unhoned skill of critical analysis. It can all be a perfect storm."

Life transitions can also create vulnerability. "For people who might be divorced, might be lonely, their friendships might change, their children might have grown up, they've got more free time again. They're thinking of the last 20, 30, 40 years of their life. There are certain emotional states that can leave any of us vulnerable to believing lies, or being hoodwinked, which is also quite scary as well."

Compassion, not judgment.

A lot of us at this point might be thinking, how could you possibly have fallen for this? How could you possibly think that George Clooney needed $20,000 from you to divorce his wife and run off into the sunset with you?

While many might wonder how someone could fall for such schemes, Dober urges compassion.

"Maybe they've had a spate of really bad luck, really poor relationships, so they're just feeling desperate or hopeful that this could be something positive for them. And I totally understand people asking 'How can you fall for that? Are you serious?' But again, try not to think of yourself, because maybe you're a bit more street smart," she said.

"Not everyone has had the same experiences that you or I have had, and so I think lean in with compassion. A lot of scam victims actually don't come forward because they are so humiliated and so ashamed. So the ones that do come forward, I hope we can provide a bit of compassion, because this is a really vulnerable spot for them to be in."

The consequences of these scams extend far beyond financial loss.

"These scammers, they can butter up this person, sometimes for years, and develop a real relationship, just the identity or the person is not who the victim thought it was," Dober said.

"Thousands and thousands of dollars, sometimes their super, sometimes a mortgage on their house. The financial drawbacks of that can be horrific. Their family or friends might shun or shame them. Their children might not wish to talk to them anymore,"

"They might feel incredibly stressed about their retirement plans, and so that can lead to a whole host of physical and mental health complications."

You can listen to the full interview with Dr Dober on The Quicky. Post continues below.

"There's the shame and embarrassment, which can again lead them to self-isolate, potentially to self-medicate with different substances. There can be depression, anxiety and sometimes betrayal and trauma can lead to things like post-traumatic stress disorder, where their personality might change fundamentally, and they don't believe anything that people might say to them," she said.

"So it's really difficult to understate how disastrous and how harmful these scams are."

Feature Image: 'George Clooney': Meta AI / 'Brad Pitt' Instagram @businessbulls.in