To tell my friend that these men are bullshitting

[bumpertobumper]

I have been out of the dating game for ages, so have been advising my friend based on stuff I have read on here...

She has been friend requested on Facebook by a few random men trying their luck. Recently she has decided ' why not ' and started chatting to a couple over messenger.

Both told her fairly early on that their wife and child have died. One of the men quickly made it clear that he is an arse so she has blocked him, she is still chatting to the second one, he seems nice.

My, mn hardened, instinct is that they are lying and this is a story to gain sympathy and hook women in. Is this a common line that men spin? Or am I being unfair?

I would just point out to her that the odds of being contacted by two widowers who had also lost children at the same time on FB closely approaches zero. Like death by meteor strike odds.

Similar happened to one my mother in law. Widow contacted her. They had a “relationship” for over a year online. He was due to meet her several times but some disaster usually occurred. Anyway over that year, she gave him thousands of pounds for various reasons. It was all a scam! He was complete fiction!

Note that she only told us about this bloke after it was all over and the money was gone. It was a secret up til then!

Oh dear, how awful for your mil.

These guys are both also in adventurous jobs in far flung places

Just smile, nod and grab the popcorn whilst you wait for the "I really need £x to help me out"

Yup, probs a classic scam.

How can anyone be so stupid to think that 2 men in 2 exact same circumstances are for real!?

I am friend requested several times a week by widowed American army officers. There's a lot of them about!

Please try to protect your friend from getting conned no matter how nice he seems. Can’t she use a proper dating site rather than Facebook? I think all men who send you messages on Facebook who you don’t know are going to be dodgy.

OP, Google "Facebook widower scam".

Get her to reverse image search of the profile pic on Google. That normally identifies the fucker as a scam. Had this with my friends rather wealthy step dad

oh that's so funny about the friend requests, allegedly from American Army Officers. I get a couple a month I'd say. And they seem to think that being in the American army is going to be important to some random European. Why would it be? If you believed it that is. So weird.

Read this. She may be so desperate to believe it that she's beyond help, but you should try.

I was just about to suggest Google reverse image search.

They're scams - I get loads of them. They're set up by gangs with the only purpose being to extract money from women. They are extremely nasty people who will comb her friends list, get personal information from her and get nasty (eg blackmail etc) if crossed. She really needs to ditch them and yes you need to be blunt with her - they are adept at piecing together electronic footprints even to the extent of identity theft and so on - it's what they do for a living because they're criminals.

Honestly, have strong words with her. There are all kinds of testimonials online about this kind of stuff - direct her towards that. And get her to sign up to a legitimate dating site if she wants to meet men.

I used to get loads of those messages, normally by men who lost theyre family in some tragic accident..

Never fell for it although i did troll one of them, he seemed nice but was funny hearing some of the BS he came out with, stopped contacting me when i told him i was a penniless homeless person using the pcs at a local charity center, im not but was funny seeing the block incomming

I have had 4 different men trying to chat me up on Facebook over the last few months. And guess what? Each and every one of them told me that their wife had died. Amazing coincidence? Or am I just being cynical?

Oh,just remembered another detail. 3 of them were in the American Military. Apparently.

Deffo reverse image search.

The impersonation of American Army personnel in these scams had gotten so pervasive that the US Army is putting up warnings about it:

Online Romance Scam Information

This might be a useful link to send to anyone who thinks that are chatting with an American soldier.

i had one of these supposed to be a
communications, weapons expert in Afganistan, american widower, two children being looked after by grandparents, i went along with the chat till he asked for money for his phone top up to talk to his commanding officer (yeah right) then i shot him down in flames kept me amused for a couple of weeks flannelling him the way he was trying to flannel me, funny he disappeared when i told him i had no money, don't own any property don't even drive a car

I've had 3 or 4 totally random friend requests from blokes in the last fortnight - all seem to have very similar FB pages. I've ignored all of them but now wonder if I'm missing out on messing with them

I have family in the US Army. The ones serving overseas, particularly in hazardous zones are quite well paid and have all necessities provided. They do not have to pay to request leave and they do not have to pay for their transportation to come home on leave or when they are transfered.

It just makes my blood boil a bit when these scammers claim to serve in the US armed forces and plead poverty or hardship to ask for money. For the record, we take care of our forces.

MissConductUSA I agree with you and think you are right apart from maybe the last sentence when you say you take care of your forces. Until they come home injured leave the military and therefore the healthcare insurance . . . Not saying the UK is any better we have a massive MH crisis which veterans (and others) lives are being destroyed by lack of early intervention and support!
Anyways I don't mean to derail.

It will be a scam I have had a few friend requests from 'widows' very young widows and often in some sort of military uniform or setting. I was wondering if I knew these people to start with then quickly realised it was a scam when we had no friends or locations in common.

Until they come home injured leave the military and therefore the healthcare insurance . . .

Not to derail, but any service member with 24 months service or a medical discharge prior to that qualifies for Veterans Administration benefits, including health care in the VA medical system. There's a VA hospital about 5 miles from where I sit.

VA Benefits

VA Health Care Benefits Eligibility

I get lots of requests from 'American widowed soldiers' too!

And other assorted men who have no friends in common, I just ignore.

I nearly fell for this a few years ago. Until one night I woke up in the early hours and decided to put his name in Google. Bam, there he was, complete with the exact same same photo on a site warning women about being scammed.
Again saying he was a widower living in Finland of all places. I zoomed in on his photo and realised he had used the photo of some good looking man who had an American team bowling top on!