Cyber relationship turned into scam

[alfreak]

So a few weeks ago. Someone sent me a message on Jack'd. He said he's very interested in me. I am in Beijing and he said he's in FL. We talked for a while and he asked for my IM. I thought there's no harm so we did.

Since then we've been talking day and night. We don't talk for long cause of the "time difference". And what we've been discussing is boring: mostly was basic stuff like what's your job, what's it like living in beijing etc. Two weeks in he called out of the blue and said something like I am falling for you and I wanna pay you a visit. In my mind I was like I don't know you that well... But nevertheless I said ok if that's what you want. Before he hung up. He said "I love you" and I froze.

I don't know him enough to address him as an acquaintance let alone boyfriend. Maybe he's raised in a hispanic environment, I thought to myself. That should explain the enthusiasm and the accent.

So he started to buy tickets and apply for visa and stuff. Before his flight he showed me his itinerary and it shows that he's gonna stopover at malaysia. which is odd cause it's not the best route. So the day has come, he was gonna land in beijing. But in the morning I got a call from him. What he said was he brought a lot of cash with him and it's been confiscated by the custom and he needs 400 bucks to pay them to get the cash back.

SCAM, Finally I realized.

In a retrospective view I noticed every sketchy little thing that was off. The accent, sometimes poor grammar, the know nothing about Netflix... All make sense now. And I accept all the bullshit excuses that he's been using. Like one time I tried to facetime him, he declined and said his phone's broken.

At first I thought to myself I'm not hurt cause I don't think I have the "deep connection" he thought we had. But now a few days past by and sometime I'd recall our convos. Mostly boring stuff but it's quite nice to have someone you can talk bullshit and nothing to. I have a lot of friends. But I haven't had someone I feel attached to for a long time.

I should've known it's too good to be true, but at the time I was like: take a chance you stupid ho. I'm not sure how to express this feeling. But the affection lingers, and there's no one to turn to. I tried to explain it to my friends but I just couldn't describe my feelings right. I guess this is what people call false hope. Except in this case the subject doesn't really exist.

So there's my story. Any thoughts?

 

[englad]

Personally I would have picked up on it being a scam at the point he said something along the lines of "I'm falling for you" and "I love you" before actually ever meeting you.

 

[alfreak]

Personally I would have picked up on it being a scam at the point he said something along the lines of "I'm falling for you" and "I love you" before actually ever meeting you.

I should have, but I've managed to find myself some excuses.

 

[englad]

I should have, but I've managed to find myself some excuses.

Your story does though remind me of a couple guys that have contacted me before. Usually through gmail emails and usually from Russia and Ukraine, writing in German. I found a good way of working out how real they were was simply by asking direct questions and seeing if they answered them. They almost always didn't. So I would drop off contact with them after that.

 

[328982]

So a few weeks ago. Someone sent me a message on Jack'd. He said he's very interested in me. I am in Beijing and he said he's in FL. We talked for a while and he asked for my IM. I thought there's no harm so we did.

Since then we've been talking day and night. We don't talk for long cause of the "time difference". And what we've been discussing is boring: mostly was basic stuff like what's your job, what's it like living in beijing etc. Two weeks in he called out of the blue and said something like I am falling for you and I wanna pay you a visit. In my mind I was like I don't know you that well... But nevertheless I said ok if that's what you want. Before he hung up. He said "I love you" and I froze.

I don't know him enough to address him as an acquaintance let alone boyfriend. Maybe he's raised in a hispanic environment, I thought to myself. That should explain the enthusiasm and the accent.

So he started to buy tickets and apply for visa and stuff. Before his flight he showed me his itinerary and it shows that he's gonna stopover at malaysia. which is odd cause it's not the best route. So the day has come, he was gonna land in beijing. But in the morning I got a call from him. What he said was he brought a lot of cash with him and it's been confiscated by the custom and he needs 400 bucks to pay them to get the cash back.

SCAM, Finally I realized.

In a retrospective view I noticed every sketchy little thing that was off. The accent, sometimes poor grammar, the know nothing about Netflix... All make sense now. And I accept all the bullshit excuses that he's been using. Like one time I tried to facetime him, he declined and said his phone's broken.

At first I thought to myself I'm not hurt cause I don't think I have the "deep connection" he thought we had. But now a few days past by and sometime I'd recall our convos. Mostly boring stuff but it's quite nice to have someone you can talk bullshit and nothing to. I have a lot of friends. But I haven't had someone I feel attached to for a long time.

I should've known it's too good to be true, but at the time I was like: take a chance you stupid ho. I'm not sure how to express this feeling. But the affection lingers, and there's no one to turn to. I tried to explain it to my friends but I just couldn't describe my feelings right. I guess this is what people call false hope. Except in this case the subject doesn't really exist.

So there's my story. Any thoughts?

I think you’ve described the feeling very well - almost like a nostalgia for something that didn't exist. It sounds like you suspended disbelief because you are hankering after an everyday attachment. I wonder how you were targeted? And whether the scammer got emotionally involved at all. Maybe a sign that you should make a connection closer to home and with critical faculties on high alert?

 

[alfreak]

I think you’ve described the feeling very well - almost like a nostalgia for something that didn't exist. It sounds like you suspended disbelief because you are hankering after an everyday attachment. I wonder how you were targeted? And whether the scammer got emotionally involved at all. Maybe a sign that you should make a connection closer to home and with critical faculties on high alert?

What you said was 100% right.

I don't know how I was selected. But I figured they must've talked to dozens of people and selected a handful. I'm not sure if there's any real emotion invested but that doesn't concern me anymore.

 

[alfreak]

Your story does though remind me of a couple guys that have contacted me before. Usually through gmail emails and usually from Russia and Ukraine, writing in German. I found a good way of working out how real they were was simply by asking direct questions and seeing if they answered them. They almost always didn't. So I would drop off contact with them after that.

What can I say. It's just another form of negerian prince. I am just stupid

 

[mr9lnch]

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[INCUBUS]

Bahahahahahahahahahahaha!

 

[alfreak]

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Hahahahahahaha I love it.

 

[AlteredEgo]

What can I say. It's just another form of negerian prince. I am just stupid

It is, but you are not stupid. You caught on before you lost anything real. Good for you! Good luck in the future.

 

[long_uncut]

What can I say. It's just another form of negerian prince. I am just stupid

Not stupid. You figured it out and put a stop to it. That's smart.

 

[ItsAll4Kim]

You did better than my late mother in-law. Some douchebag played a similar scam via Our Time. She was laundering money for "him", lord knows how much she lost, but when she passed away she was penniless. We tried so hard to stop it...called the FBI's fraud people (fucking useless), reasoned with her, yelled at her, you name it. She was lonely and "he" paid her some attention for a bigger payoff.

Glad you caught on early enough. Sorry for all the hurt he caused you.

 

[stax 68]

...We tried so hard to stop it...called the FBI's fraud people (fucking useless), reasoned with her, yelled at her, you name it...

Oh..wow..horrible..only thing you could've done was get courts to pronounce her not of sound mind and get control
of her finances.

 

[AlteredEgo]

You did better than my late mother in-law. Some douchebag played a similar scam via Our Time. She was laundering money for "him", lord knows how much she lost, but when she passed away she was penniless. We tried so hard to stop it...called the FBI's fraud people (fucking useless), reasoned with her, yelled at her, you name it. She was lonely and "he" paid her some attention for a bigger payoff.

Glad you caught on early enough. Sorry for all the hurt he caused you.

That's awful! A special place in Hell...

 

[TexanStar]

You did better than my late mother in-law. Some douchebag played a similar scam via Our Time. She was laundering money for "him", lord knows how much she lost, but when she passed away she was penniless. We tried so hard to stop it...called the FBI's fraud people (fucking useless), reasoned with her, yelled at her, you name it. She was lonely and "he" paid her some attention for a bigger payoff.

Glad you caught on early enough. Sorry for all the hurt he caused you.

My mother in law got scammed to the tune of $3000 by one of these guys. @alfreak definitely could've gotten off worse.

 

[alfreak]

You did better than my late mother in-law. Some douchebag played a similar scam via Our Time. She was laundering money for "him", lord knows how much she lost, but when she passed away she was penniless. We tried so hard to stop it...called the FBI's fraud people (fucking useless), reasoned with her, yelled at her, you name it. She was lonely and "he" paid her some attention for a bigger payoff.

Glad you caught on early enough. Sorry for all the hurt he caused you.

My mother in law got scammed to the tune of $3000 by one of these guys. @alfreak definitely could've gotten off worse.

I am so sorry to hear the stories. Loneliness makes people vulnerable. And the best way to end the scam is to cure loneliness, which is very hard.

 

[ItsAll4Kim]

Oh..wow..horrible..only thing you could've done was get courts to pronounce her not of sound mind and get control
of her finances.

We looked into that, because she was clearly a danger to herself. Sorry for a long story.....

But you can't really do that anymore. Yay USA! We have enormous homeless populations of mentally ill people thanks to the laws that lowered the bar for commitment....basically, if she could say her name, what day of the week it is, the name of the President, and draw the outline of a house, she was "competent". And left to her own devices.

She lived in Maine, which has extensive resources for assistance. Mom had suffered a stroke months before, and while somehow her already disabled body was spared, it screwed up her head just enough to remove reasoning and some time issues. She torpedoed her business and was upside down on a big mortgage on her house. Her husband had passed a year prior. We called the State, which sent a social worker to offer help....get her food, medical care, restore power (which means water and sewer) to her house. Pay her taxes. Basically everything. She told him to get out of her house. Twice.

So a 68 year old woman who requires a walker to get around is left, by law, to live on $1,400/mo in a home that's miles from nowhere, has no electricity, water or sewer, or heat, and has a $3,000 monthly nut. We visited as often as we could (we live over 600 miles away) and tried to help, talk her into moving in with us, whatever we could. Nothing. No go.

Then the boyfriend appears. He's an engineer from Georgia working in Cairo, Egypt and can't pay his workers, so he needs her, "his love" to take wire transfers from him and wire the money to him to pay them. Ummmmm, if he can wire to you from there, Mom, why can't he wire to his employees? "He needs my help, he wouldn't do anything wrong." Ugh. So she did what he asked. We alerted her bank, who blocked her from accepting wire transfers. She found another bank somewhere else. We called FBI's wire fraud division and our local office, several times as well as countless emails. NO reply at all.

This went on for about 8 months.

In short, Kim's mother was found dead by local police three days before Christmas. A local clammer on the bay across from the house heard a chirping sound coming from her house. He saw the back bedroom door open...the chirping was a smoke alarm with a dead battery. Outside temperatures were ranging from 10F to 35F. The man called police, who had been doing every-other-day Well Checks on her, and they found her in her bed. We don't know if she intentionally left the door open or not.

 

[185248]

sorry...I just hit fast forward.............and ended up in the land of Morlocks.....gonna have to rewind a bit.....

 

[nice_guy_here]

Sorry, I don't trust any fuckers on the interwebs

Anyone that can't get on a webcam or facetime in this day and age has something to hide in my opinion. I mean everyone has a camera on their laptop, tablet or phone ...