Craziest Catfish of The Week: Man Catfishes Queens, New York Man Out of $70k

By Jen D., March 17, 2016

A lot happens in New York but what happened in Queens takes the Catfish cake!   According to the New York Post, Michael Z. Picciano was 65 years old when he first received a message on February 11, 2013 from someone named “GenuineGuy62”. What Michael didn’t realize is that GeuineGuy62 would eventually scam him out of 70 thousand dollars.

GenuineGuy62 and Michael struck up an online relationship and had an intense month of phone and online communication, when he wired his new love interest $24,000. He believed this was for business expenses and sent the money to “Dennis E. Racer’s” in Addison, Texas and “Edmond Thebeau” in Canada.   Though sending money to multiple names might faze some, poor Michael Picciano was none the wiser and he eventually wired $46,420 to “MacBenson and Associates” in the UK.

What makes someone wire money to a person they haven’t met? Simple, trust. Picciano claims he felt safe and trusted his online friend who he believed was called Bruce Thompson, as Thompson also had an OkCupid profile.
After Picciano wired the second sum of cash, he began to worry and was suspicious enough to use a ‘Scammer Search Site’ like www.socialcatfish.com to catch his Catfish.

Apparently, “Bruce Thompson” had grown lazy and had been using the same phone and email address to defraud more than Michael Picciano. In response, Picciano is suing IAC, which is OkCupid’s parent company, to gain back the cash he lost. He also sued Capital One, for allegedly skipping out on proper wire transfer procedures.

Though the scam was unfortunate, terms of use typically prevent companies from such lawsuits. All of this is a reminder to never, ever, ever wire money to anyone you don’t know and trust implicitly and without a written, legal contract for them paying it back. Before you get too emotionally invested with anyone online, be sure to do some background checking or look at our reverse search.