Scam Compliance and Nonsexual Grooming: A Scoping Review of Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence

In scam compliance research, grooming for financial exploitation is often unexplored or undefined. The purpose of this scoping review was to provide a comprehensive overview of the etiology of nonsexual grooming in relational scams, focusing on definitions and frameworks, perpetrator behaviors, victim warning signs, and study methods, design, and discipline. A scoping review was performed on literature published between 2012 and 2025 in the following academic databases: Scopus, PubMed, Google Scholar, ProQuest, and SAGE. The search was conducted for all scam-related literature regarding financial grooming, with key terms including definitions, predictors, persuasion techniques, perpetrator and/or victim perspectives, susceptibility, theories and/or models, and warning signs. Studies were included if they investigated financial grooming in online cases of romance fraud, investment fraud, or romance baiting. Scams that did not involve grooming, that is, phishing scams or face-to-face schemes, were excluded. This review found no scam-specific definition of grooming that encompassed all relational scams. Most studies reported on grooming behaviors and techniques typically observed in romance scams, with few studies investigating investment fraud and romance baiting. Victim warning signs were mentioned minimally and often in the context of domestic violence. Researchers in criminology using qualitative methods dominate the field of scam compliance, and although several studies drew upon cyberpsychological concepts, there was no explicit mention of cyberpsychology as a discipline. In conclusion, there is a need for an evidence-informed, clearer discourse on financial grooming, with cyberpsychology being in a unique position to address this gap in scam compliance research.