I am being catfished right now!

YABU just for saying 'Pidgeon' English it's Pidgin English.

😂. But he’s mine. The tats, the kitten, the cuddly toys. He’s just perfect 🙄

For the sheer crack, tell him you have to help a friend out with a big loan, platonic connection you made (also on-line) who has a sick child and no medical insurance. You might feel the pinch, but it's what your conscience is telling you to do.

I hate scammers. I’ve spent a good few hours stringing them along. My view is whilst I know what they are up to its better they engage with me than someone else who falls for it.

my favourite was the one who needed me to do things on my pc, I told him it was upstairs and could he wait whilst I Did the stuff he asked for. I did a fair bit of tidying, dusting, putting out the bins while popping back and asking him if he was still there and saying things like you won’t go will you as I really need you to help me.

in the end and I got bored and told him I knew exactly what he was up to and I’d been scamming him and he was very rude and I just laughed and he hung up, think it was a good two hours.

Hey girl, I hadn't realised you were stringing him along, you're braver than me, these people scare me. Be careful because they can be nasty, I've seen a few docs on UK TV and it seems there are no lengths. Have your fun and I applaud you, but be careful, these people are soulness criminals. Respect 🤘

No! Poor OP.

Check out the story of Paolo Macchiarini https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/01/celebrity-surgeon-nbc-news-producer-scam

Since then he has been sent to jail. It turns out he was a scientific fraud who operated unethically on patients, as well a romance fraud.

You might want to read the thread. We all know.

Pretty sure OP knows that

Absolutely please don't respond to the "gentleman". It's a total scam and happens all the time. Handsome man, often a US military office, bad spelling and grammar .... at your peril!! He'll be asking for money pretty soon.

This one was in South Africa. Apparently. He's gone now anyway, my total lack of interest must have put him off. 😁

@ChanelNo19EDT , re Tinder Swindler, I was frankly amazed that any evidently reasonably intelligent woman would go off in a private plane with someone she’d only just met!

Just goes to show that normally intelligent people can be unbelievably stupid. Perhaps especially when seduced by what looks like serious money and a ‘jet set’ lifestyle.

Please don’t fight.

There is plenty of widowed American surgeons in Sweden to go around.

😀

If you run a business of any kind though, you need an open profile on Facebook so people can contact you. And these scammers will come through on business pages too (I've got an Author Page, and you would not BELIEVE the number of attempted scammers that hit that one up!)

You can set your privacy settings so that no one (public) can find you on Facebook.

You can also set all your privacy and security settings so very few people can find you at all, and avoid being tagged in friends' photos or posts.

Wow - talk about timing! Just left the thread for a minute to check my emails, and there's one there from the dvla saying my MOT has run out. Unusually for me, I happen to know when my MOT is due but I think a few oriole might fall for this one. Beware folks!

@ItsTapasTime I had that same guy send me a FB friends request earlier this week - I recognise the photo!!

I know a lot of us are here for the amusement factor, but I think it's important that anyone who gets approached like this should blow it open. The more people who read about these scams, the more who see that it's all fake - that their 'love letters and poems' are ripped from a central site, that the stories are all the same, that the photos are stolen - then the more chance there is that people will see a scam before it happens.

People who are scammed tend to feel shamed into keeping quiet about it. So nobody else finds out about 'Derek Michael' who is a surgeon in Iran with one son....

Oh, and it's widowER for a man. A widow is a woman.

These scammers are scum and not very original with their “story”. 🚩Not sure if anyone has read the book Keanu Reeves is not in love with you which is very funny and where the author strings along the scammers and has spoken to women who have been scammed.

Again, I did wonder what those women understood of social media when they were saying: he knew my dad's name, my sister's name - all this private information, so it had to be someone I knew. And I was thinking, it was never private - every person and event in your life was on SM and accessible worldwide to anyone with an internet connection. People don't realise how very public their lives are.

My FB page largely consists of photos of DH, sons, their partners and the grandchildren. I am 79.
Mysteriously I seem to be an object of desire by assorted American high ranked military widowers and retired orthopaedic surgeons.

I agree with you. The laws need to be changed and the SM companies who facilitate these scams by not having tight enough security should be held to account.

I watched that programme last night (Can I Tell You A Secret?) and wondered why when they were first approached by an unknown who 'had a secret' did they keep chatting? Why not just ignore? In his case, I doubt ignoring would have made a scrap of difference - he was maniacal about them and destroying the lives of total strangers. But I did still think - why not block from the start? I'm not victim blaming or shaming. I'm just intrigued how different people react.

In the Guardian article above, she says some of the women who fell for love scams were lawyers, doctors, CEOs. I found this SO hard to believe. How could a high-functioning brain not tell you that there is nothing of substance in this relationship?

“Have you ever have sex ones” 😂🤣

Love this! “Luckily I have a spare house”✨ 🏠✨
Only the wolves are a bit bothersome…

I watched that last noght

this is coming about because of social media. It never ceases to amaze me how much Information that is on a public forum!!! Don’t put shit on any social media platform whatsoever. These people target those.

don’t post photos! Don’t have your real name. Doesn’t matter if it’s locked down. They’ll find it so stop doing it so they can get into your systems.

what he did was the worst cyber stalking ever in the uk. He is one of the only people in the uk with a long sentence. There’s handfuls at that.

you need to stop posting stuff

wgatever you do. Do NOT POST PHOTOS OF YOUR CHILDREN!

I can’t shout this stuff loud enough. Have really complex passwords. All basic stuff but the best advice is don’t put it out there in the first place.