Shelby was looking for love online and decided to swipe through matches on Plenty of Fish (POF). However, her experience on POF has not been the greatest since she has had to deal with numerous scammers. Regardless, she decides to this day to keep trying since she had a previous relationship on the app POF that lasted for four years. Even though it didn’t work out, she knows that there is still hope for love online and that not everyone is an online romance scammer.
She can spot scammers now pretty quickly since they are pretty quick to tell you that they have feelings for you and love you. They also make sure to fill your inbox with compliments to gain your trust so that you don’t become suspicious about their actions.
Scammers are also known to send roses and fake diamond rings from Amazon to their victims. They do this so that victims will let their guard down and trust that the scammers love them. Once they trust the scammers, they will be more willing to give them money for whatever they are asking for.
When she was talking to the first guy she met on POF, she became suspicious as to what his intentions were. Because of this, she decided to look up his images on reverse image search and saw that he had many photos on many different platforms. She even saw a result that stated that he came back as a soldier who died seven years ago.
She sent the copy of her findings to the guy she was talking to and asked him what was going on. He swore to her that it was him and that someone stole his identity. He begged her to trust him and to continue on with the relationship with him.
He also wanted her to form a relationship with his daughter, who was supposedly attending a boarding school in Canada while he was fighting a war in Syria. He asked Shelby if she could help him get his child a cell phone, and never asked her for money straight-up. It was always about getting his daughter items that were valuable to help them out.
She then met her second online romance scammer, who called himself Chris, when she was in a vulnerable place. They were talking for a month, and she let him know that she was looking into relocating to Colorado. He then proposed the idea that if she was going to Colorado that he should go with her. He sent her a copy of his bank statements to show that he had up to $9 million to spend on a home. While she trusted that he was telling the truth about moving in with her and his funds, she still had doubts and would journal about them.
She started to seriously look at houses for Chris and her, and Chris really wanted to help her. Because he claimed he wanted to help her, he asked for her bank account information. In return, he provided her with a copy of his drivers’ license and items from his bank account showing her how much money he had. Thinking that he was a real person that wanted to be with her, she gave him her bank account information.
Along with this, she accidentally sent Chris a copy of her business letterhead that had her address and her phone number on it. She gave him her email address, and with it, he was able to look up her leaked information from a data breach to find her social security number.
A scammer’s job is to fool their victims into believing that they are real by texting you every day for 4-5 hours a day. If they can make $10,000 off of one person, that’s a lot of money in Africa where can live comfortably off of $250 a month. They treat this as their job so much so that they call their victims their clients. They give you compliments to make you feel like they actually do want to be with you forever and that they are going to fill the void in your life.
“They make you talk about things that you would only talk about with your significant other. They are really good at what they do,” Shelby states.
She feels absolutely disgusted that these scammers were betraying her since she thought she was helping them in an honorable way. To verify that the person she is talking to now is a real person, she is starting to talk to him on the phone.
To better her future from this experience, she is focusing on starting a new business and trying to launch it. Everything she has made has good reviews so far, so she hopes it will work well for her. She is hoping that she can share a life with the person she is talking to, and hopes he isn’t scamming her. She hopes that she can have a successful business and a successful relationship with someone who is real.
If you think you’re dealing with an online romance scammer or have had your pictures stolen, Social Catfish is here to help you!
If you want to be a part of our next YouTube video or blog post and share your story, now is your chance. You can educate the audience about what you have gone through and make sure no one else goes through the same thing. All you need to do is email ShareMyStory@socialcatfish.com, and we will get back to you with more details.
You can also reverse search any information you have on the cargo scammer to see who it is you’ve really been talking to. If you have their name, email address, phone number, social media username, or image you can search it up in our search bar to see if there is more information on the suspected online romance scammer you are talking to.
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