Welcome Aloneinco,
I'm going to assume the intent of your question is honest interest rather than an attempt to insult victims of romance scams.
Obviously not every woman on a dating site falls victim to a romance scam. But as you have probably realized, it's not intelligence or education that determines whether a person will become hooked in a scam (many men are pulled into romance scams too.)
It's actually a really complex topic, but I will look at one specific question and make a few general observations:
Why would a woman bother communicating with a man who didn't live near her/"worked abroad", or whatever, or never spoke to in person?
A couple of weeks ago, I set up a new profile on a large dating site in order to view the details of a scammer. The profile was for a 50 year old woman in the midwestern US. Because a photo was required to see the details I was looking for, I used a photo that represented an "average" woman--certainly not highly attractive. I left the account logged in while I worked on other things. There were no other details at all--no hobbies, interests, marital status, family info, nothing. But in a short period, my character was approached with a slew of messages from men of all ages and all over the world (including a few claiming to be local). Their characters ranged from international business man to four-star general. They ranged from "interested in knowing more about me" to "swept away by my profile" (yeah, right.)
Having dealt with scammers for many years, it was incredibly easy to pick out the African English, the cut-and-paste of the profiles, and even the characteristics of a scammer approach. But being a baiter also, of course I can't help but respond, to get enough info to list them as scammers (if they aren't already listed--many were).
So one of the first things I did was respond to many of the men who had chosen locations further away by simply saying that I'm not interested in a long-distance relationship.
The responses? A couple backed off (though I have no doubt that they just approached me under one of their other scam profiles that was closer to my claimed home--in fact, at least one of them simply changed locations on their profile, assuming I wouldn't notice.)
But many did not back off.
-One claiming to be in South Africa immediately told me he was there on assignment, and would be back to the states next week.
-The military men were conveniently nearing retirement, so they would soon be heading home.
-A few tried to take control, basically overrule me, and make me feel guilty, declaring that distance shouldn't matter, only love matters, blah, blah, blah. When I said I was unwilling to relocate, the men quickly declared that they were ready and willing to relocate for love. One even declared he was in love with me on his third message (this does not work with my personality--the only thing that would make me want is a restraining order!)
-One (who was claiming to be in Alaska) immediately pooh-poohed my concerns and declared that "travel within the US is easy" and then went on to provide a list of countries that he had "worked" in, to show he was some big businessman who traveled internationally.
Many intelligent women would accept these explanations, perhaps even feel guilty because they were convinced they were not being open-minded. Others new to online dating would see the high response rate, and the number of men at a distance, and be led to believe that these longer distance relationships are the norm, especially when the man is reassuring them that travel is not an issue.
Over a period of 2 weeks (after 2 weeks a scammer reported my profile, probably because he connected a report with it, and my profile was deleted. Sadly I have no doubt the dating site kept the scammer profile.) my character was approached by around 25 men. At least 20 of them were scammers. The other 5 I simply deleted, but that was just because I had my hands full and there was a (slim) chance they might be real. There were no approaches that I was confident were real--so the scammer response rate was somewhere between 80 and 100% The dating site also fed into the scam, by deleting profiles without notifying contacts. One four-star general who approached me was deleted after he had sent his yahoo ID and a chat request. I noticed, because his chat message disappeared. But if a victim had already gone into chat on yahoo with him, she would continue, oblivious to the fact that he had been identified as a scammer.
If you are unfamiliar with these dating scams and how they work, and you believe you are on a reputable dating site, it is pretty unfathomable to think that ALL of these approaches are scams. For starters, you would have a little more faith in the dating site, and believe that they would have tighter controls to protect their members, so they wouldn't let so many bogus profiles in. You might eliminate the ones who are over-the-top, and continue with the ones who seem more normal, or if you are really craving romance, you might do the opposite (what is over-the-top to one person may be romantic to another.) But chances are, if you don't know what to look for, or are not highly cynical, someone will slip through the cracks.
And if he is an experienced scammer, he will create the illusion of a real relationship before he moves to the next step.
