Beware the Rom Con

skipro33 said:
Loneliness is a terrible affliction and people are desperate for companionship. I had a co-worker, very unattractive bachelor, poorly dressed, hygiene, etc. but a brilliant mind. Top of his field in electronics. Has his name on several patents, etc. He met a girl in a nudie bar who fell in love with him. He gave away untold thousands of dollars to her before he came to his senses. At least she was real, not just e-mails. He eventually did find someone and married. They recently moved to Seattle where she's managed his fortune quite well and they both will live happily ever after.
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Nudie bar. Haha
 
Women often receive warnings about protecting themselves at the mall and in dark parking lots, etc. This is the first warning I have seen for men. I wanted to pass it on in case you haven't heard about it. A 'heads up' for those men who may be regular customers at Lowe's, Home Depot, Costco, Publix, B.J.'s, or even Wal-Mart. This one caught me totally by surprise. Over the last month I became a victim of a clever scam while out shopping. Simply going out to get supplies has turned out to be quite traumatic. Don't be naive enough to think it couldn't happen to you or your friends.
Here's how the scam works;
Two nice looking, college-age girls will come over to your car or truck as you are packing your purchases into your vehicle. They both start wiping your windshield with a rag and Windex, with their breasts almost falling out of their skimpy T-shirts. (It's impossible not to look). When you thank them and offer them a tip, they say 'No' but instead ask for a ride to McDonald's.
You agree and they climb into the vehicle. On the way, they start undressing. Then one of them starts crawling all over you, while the other one steals your wallet.
I had my wallet stolen JULY 4th, 9th, 10th, twice on the 15th, again on the 17th, 20th, 24th, and the 29th. Also AUGUST 1st, 4th, 8th, twice on the 12th &13th, and very likely again this upcoming weekend.
So tell your friends to be careful. What a horrible way to take advantage of us older men. Warn your friends to be vigilant.
Wal-Mart has wallets on sale for $2.99 each. I found even cheaper ones for $.99 at the Dollar Store and bought them out in three of their stores. Also, you never get to eat at McDonald's. I've already lost 11 pounds just running back and forth from Lowe's, to Home Depot, to Wal-Mart.
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calmloki said:
Women often receive warnings about protecting themselves at the mall and in dark parking lots, etc. This is the first warning I have seen for men. I wanted to pass it on in case you haven't heard about it. A 'heads up' for those men who may be regular customers at Lowe's, Home Depot, Costco, Publix, B.J.'s, or even Wal-Mart. This one caught me totally by surprise. Over the last month I became a victim of a clever scam while out shopping. Simply going out to get supplies has turned out to be quite traumatic. Don't be naive enough to think it couldn't happen to you or your friends.
Here's how the scam works;
Two nice looking, college-age girls will come over to your car or truck as you are packing your purchases into your vehicle. They both start wiping your windshield with a rag and Windex, with their breasts almost falling out of their skimpy T-shirts. (It's impossible not to look). When you thank them and offer them a tip, they say 'No' but instead ask for a ride to McDonald's.
You agree and they climb into the vehicle. On the way, they start undressing. Then one of them starts crawling all over you, while the other one steals your wallet.
I had my wallet stolen JULY 4th, 9th, 10th, twice on the 15th, again on the 17th, 20th, 24th, and the 29th. Also AUGUST 1st, 4th, 8th, twice on the 12th &13th, and very likely again this upcoming weekend.
So tell your friends to be careful. What a horrible way to take advantage of us older men. Warn your friends to be vigilant.
Wal-Mart has wallets on sale for $2.99 each. I found even cheaper ones for $.99 at the Dollar Store and bought them out in three of their stores. Also, you never get to eat at McDonald's. I've already lost 11 pounds just running back and forth from Lowe's, to Home Depot, to Wal-Mart.
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^ It's public service announcements like this that keep me coming back to this forum day after day after day after...
 
I cannot understand why this sort of thing only happens to men. I say, it's their own fault for going out without a woman to protect them!

calmloki said:
Women often receive warnings about protecting themselves at the mall and in dark parking lots, etc. This is the first warning I have seen for men. I wanted to pass it on in case you haven't heard about it. A 'heads up' for those men who may be regular customers at Lowe's, Home Depot, Costco, Publix, B.J.'s, or even Wal-Mart. This one caught me totally by surprise. Over the last month I became a victim of a clever scam while out shopping. Simply going out to get supplies has turned out to be quite traumatic. Don't be naive enough to think it couldn't happen to you or your friends.
Here's how the scam works;
Two nice looking, college-age girls will come over to your car or truck as you are packing your purchases into your vehicle. They both start wiping your windshield with a rag and Windex, with their breasts almost falling out of their skimpy T-shirts. (It's impossible not to look). When you thank them and offer them a tip, they say 'No' but instead ask for a ride to McDonald's.
You agree and they climb into the vehicle. On the way, they start undressing. Then one of them starts crawling all over you, while the other one steals your wallet.
I had my wallet stolen JULY 4th, 9th, 10th, twice on the 15th, again on the 17th, 20th, 24th, and the 29th. Also AUGUST 1st, 4th, 8th, twice on the 12th &13th, and very likely again this upcoming weekend.
So tell your friends to be careful. What a horrible way to take advantage of us older men. Warn your friends to be vigilant.
Wal-Mart has wallets on sale for $2.99 each. I found even cheaper ones for $.99 at the Dollar Store and bought them out in three of their stores. Also, you never get to eat at McDonald's. I've already lost 11 pounds just running back and forth from Lowe's, to Home Depot, to Wal-Mart.
Post navigation
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DW and I were both widowed, and we were active in the same grief recovery site. Well, she developed an interest in me due to my travels. She had a feeling I was too good to be true. She apparently ran some checks on me to see if I was real. Smart lady!
And now for the rest of the story.... Well, she always wanted to travel, so did I.We were married on Santorini in 2007.

At this point we have slowed down after 12 years, 41 countries, 51 trips, 500 travel days and 17 cruises.
Life is good!

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jazz4cash said:
I saw this story on 48Hours. It ended tragically with much more than financial loss. A young Marine murdered. This is a long read or 49 min video of the episode:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hou...angers-leads-to-murder-of-an-innocent-marine/

Here’ a more concise version from the local paper:

https://pilotonline.com/news/local/crime/article_3f5a8764-6f56-5b35-9abc-01cf5dedf9b2.html
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Oddly, the woman that encouraged the Marine to murder lived on: Kill Devil Hills :facepalm:

Strangely she didn't claim the devil made her do it. ;)
 
FIYes said:
I had an acquaintance, an older man, who would correspond with characters online who were supposedly attractive women. I wouldn’t necessarily assume that even the gender of these characters was true. Anyway, he would end up sending them money to help out with the various crisis they were having. I think that on some level he realized he was being scammed but he was very lonely. It was a sad situation.
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Sad, and amazing it still continues today, people getting scammed to send money to folks they have never met...

It amounts to an incredible amount of money, millions and millions every year. FTC says it was $201 Million from Americans last year

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/what-you-need-know-about-romance-scams
 
Nemo2 said:
I may have referred to this before...perhaps years ago:

Around 1970 a con artist scammed money from a bunch of 'younger' women in the Toronto Airport area. He'd hit an airport bar, tell his mark-of-the-day that his private jet was up on blocks for unforeseen repairs.

Greed, (on their part), took over, and he pocketed varying amounts of their money.

When arrested he was visited in jail by a local reporter who said (in essence) "You're nothing special, why would these women fall for it?"

Con man replied "Because they want to".
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Yep, because they want to. This woman wanted this scammer to be the real deal, probably desperately. So he became real in her eyes. I hope she learned a lot from this experience.
 
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O2Bfree said:
He kept pressing her about the gift, finally arousing her suspicion. She did some online sluething and was actually able to find the guy's photo under a different name. It was sad to see her realize what was happening.
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"It's bad enough when they steal your money, but these guys steal your heart" - Vinny Antonelli
 
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I knew a fellow who was sending money to his "fiance" in Nigeria. Her mother had cancer, etc. They met on a Christian singles website.

He is so happy he is finally in love.

He washes dishes in a restaurant and can't afford to send away chunks of his small savings. It's very sad. He gets insulted when people urge him to have someone check on this gal.
 
Poor soul. It doesn't sound like he could afford to go to Nigeria to meet "her," even if he truly believes this person is for real. It's almost as if he is lonely enough to pay someone to be his pen-pal.

The thing is, there are probably other lonely people out there who want the same thing, and would correspond regularly for free.

gretah said:
I knew a fellow who was sending money to his "fiance" in Nigeria. Her mother had cancer, etc. They met on a Christian singles website.

He is so happy he is finally in love.

He washes dishes in a restaurant and can't afford to send away chunks of his small savings. It's very sad. He gets insulted when people urge him to have someone check on this gal.
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REWahoo said:
^ It's public service announcements like this that keep me coming back to this forum day after day after day after...
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Our friend Calmloki's public warning is not complete until he shares the exact stores where it happened to him. I am sure most of us have not had this happen to us. And we all know where to buy cheap wallets, and to stuff them with expired credit cards.
 
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tmm99 said:
Yep, because they want to. This woman wanted this scammer to be the real deal, probably desperately. So he became real in her eyes. I hope she learned a lot from this experience.
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In the example I cited the scammer was relying on the cupidity, (as opposed to the apparent stupidity exhibited in other cases), of his marks......they were eager to `lend` him money because they thought they`d landed a live one and could benefit a thousandfold.
 
gretah said:
I knew a fellow who was sending money to his "fiance" in Nigeria. Her mother had cancer, etc. They met on a Christian singles website.

He is so happy he is finally in love.

He washes dishes in a restaurant and can't afford to send away chunks of his small savings. It's very sad. He gets insulted when people urge him to have someone check on this gal.
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Since his girlfriend probably sent a photo, a person can now do a search by photo, to see if the same photo shows up with different names. If he was willing to share the photo.
 
Nemo2 said:
In the example I cited the scammer was relying on the cupidity, (as opposed to the apparent stupidity exhibited in other cases), of his marks......they were eager to `lend` him money because they thought they`d landed a live one and could benefit a thousandfold.
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Well, this woman too saw $$ signs pasted on this dream guy. Greed and loneliness combined made her want to believe this guy was for real. I hate to say it, but I have no respect for people who are blinded by someone else's money. What the guy did was obviously criminal, but people like that keep on doing what they do because there are people who are eager to 'lend' money to make money off them, like this woman.

I have a friend who gave some unknown guy $20K (well, her daughter was dating him at the time, so not a complete stranger, but they were only going out for a short time at that point) because he said that he was in with a bunch of rich investors for some housing development and that the money they invest for this development would double in 2 years or less. She had no details on which housing development she was investing her money in from what I could tell. I tried to stop her, but she didn't want to listen. Possiblity of doubling her money in 2 years was way too attractive and blinded her. I should have felt bad for her, but I didn't.

I do feel bad for the dishwasher supposedly dating a woman in Nigeria.
 
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tmm99 said:
he said that he was in with a bunch of rich investors for some housing development and that the money they invest for this development would double in 2 years or less.
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A number of years back I watched a quasi documentary recreating a scam, (set in B.C. I believe, but I can`t be sure).......small, affluent, farming community as I recall.....conman attended a church service...was first to the door and got chatting to the minister.

As people filed out, the minister shook hands with them, as did the scammer.....gave him the appearance of legitimacy......and so it began....'out of country housing development'...."We just need a little more money to overcome unseen delays"...etc, etc.

They eventually learned a lesson, but nobody initially had the 'smarts' to say "Yeah, right".
 
W2R said:
The woman in the article is just dumb as a rock, IMO. I mean, for Pete's sake! This is the 21st century, not Mayberry RFD, and one has to be at least marginally aware that the world is full of scam artists if you really want to invite them into your life.

The FIRST date I ever had with Frank after meeting him on a dating site (back in 2000), before I even gave him my real name (or address, or other contact information), I set down my rules and expectations and told him that I would not ever "mix our money" at all. That eliminated scams like this right off the bat, 10 seconds after we met.

Now, 20 years later, we still don't mix our money. He pays for his expenses and investments, I pay for mine. We live next door to each other and spend lots of time together, but do not share living expenses at all. He is the love of my life, but like me, he is a logical person and sees the wisdom in being financially independent and not leeching off one another. He is a retired engineer and can figure out his personal finances as well as I can figure out mine. We're not mathematically illiterate.

We are both too old to start over in life, and (being reasonable people) we have no desires or plans to share our nest eggs with anybody at this stage in life. How hard is it to figure things like this out? DUH! :duh:

This is about the level of intelligence that it might take to not walk through the roughest part of central Detroit (or New Orleans, for that matter) at 2 AM alone, carrying your life savings. Honestly I am just shocked that anyone would do what this woman in the article did, in this day and age.
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I enjoyed reading your history because I always felt and thought that the best thing to preserve a matrimony was: SEPARATE ROOMS which includes of course SEPARATE FINANCES too. As you say, it's so simple and SO doable that I can't understand all those eager women (some men too) giving it all (blindly) on first encounter! Besides these 2 main reasons for this lifestyle, there are other numerous smaller and larger reasons for this separation lifestyle. :)
 
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I met DH online. Googled him, but his name is generic, so didn't find anything. The first time we met in person I subtly checked the name on the credit card he used to make sure it was the name he'd told me. The first time he left his wallet laying around, I checked his ID to make sure everything was what he told me (I've had a lot of men online especially lie about their age). DH knows all of this; I told him after I trusted him and we had a good laugh about it. Sadly these types of things are necessary.
 
Amethyst said:
I have been catfished on FB several times by (to my analytical eye) obviously fake male profiles. "Friend" requests, a few gushy private messages about how they couldn't resist my kind, sweet, pretty face.

I believe it's rather common. It is probably a carpet-bomb approach: scan FB for profiles of women who appear to be in late middle age or early old age; send out standard hook; see if any of the old dears bite.
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Google Images is a big help- I've found actual articles on a couple of the guys whose images were stolen by scammers who wanted to be "friends" with me. There must be some way for people to know who just changed their marital status on FB and who just signed up for Match. I changed from Married to Single when I got into a new relationship 2 years after DH died- I figured "Widowed" would really bring out the predators. I still got invites form drop-dead gorgeous guys who live several states away, had no other friends and had just put up a profile.

On Match I got the "I saw your profile (or my friend saw your profile), I like your smile, my paid account is about to expire, please contact me at this phone number..." messages. I reported them all. I'd included details of my travels in my profile because I wanted to meet men with similar interests but was well aware that pictures of me in India and Costa Rica also screamed, This woman has disposable income".
 
Rosedala said:
I enjoyed reading your history because I always felt and thought that the best thing to preserve a matrimony was: SEPARATE ROOMS which includes of course SEPARATE FINANCES too. As you say, it's so simple and SO doable that I can't understand all those eager women (some men too) giving it all (blindly) on first encounter! Besides these 2 main reasons for this lifestyle, there are other numerous smaller and larger reasons for this separation lifestyle. :)
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Separate rooms? No thanks. My BFF has a separate room from her DH due to his snoring/sleep apnea. I couldn’t do it. We always end the night snuggling when one of us rolls away we know who is falling asleep first. I wouldn’t want to sleep alone!

We got married when I was 50 second marriage for me. Thank goodness I had known him for years the few dates I went on post divorce via internet dating really soared me to dating. Like can you get to know me a little before you try to shove your tongue down my throat? Still gives me the willies 10 years later!
 
Memories keep popping up here: Online, before I met DW, a (supposed) woman in Europe contacted me; nice pic with a list of her 'accomplishments'......'she' said she'd just returned home after being interviewed on the radio.....told her that I was incapable of even tuning my radio in.

C'est tout.....never heard back...too many (other) fryable fish.
 
Back in the 80s I put an ad in the dating section of a local classifieds paper. Each day for two weeks I got a small stack of letters from guys looking to meet someone. The most enticing letter was from a fellow in prison who promised divine love and devotion and signed off with "champagne wishes and caviar dreams". At least he was honest about being in prison.

Things haven't changed, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is!
 
I guess I am too distrustful of folks in real life to succumb to these online scams. :) I had enough experiences with women who went from no interested to high interest in me after they saw my new car, or found out what university I graduated from, and assumed that with my job I had money to spend on them. A big red flag for me is anyone I am becoming friends with suddenly asking me to "help them out" with money. Call me cheap. :)

I have posted her before about a friend of DW's who is very beautiful and with whom I have common interests and taste. She went through a horrific situation with her first husband that resulted in divorce. When she decided to start dating again she went the online dating route, and DW and I became, as she said, her "protective angels". In retrospect it was a humorous situation She would ask me to evaluate pictures she planned to put in her profile to get my blunt male perspective. When she did agree to meet a few in person they were all shocked that she looked exactly like her pictures. We even "shadowed" her on several of her initial in-person meetings. More than once we rescued her from them, including a wild one that could have become a stalking situation.

She did meet her husband through that service, he was one of the honest ones who matched his profile. But she had to crawl through a lot of others to find him, and was grateful for DW and I being available to give her a "reality check" through the process.
 
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