I am being catfished right now!

[qualitychat]

I received a friend request on Facebook just now. This is definitely someone catfishing me. He comes from Austin, Texas but has pigeon English. He is a Marine Engineer living in Sweden. He does a very dangerous job. He is a nice looking man, he has sent me a photo. He tragically lost his wife 5 years ago due to medical negligence. Am I wrong in stringing him alone?

Silly you should have said you are in talking to your barrister about the murder case you are going to court for. He could mail you to your jail cell.

IGNORE BLOCK AND REPORT this weirdo. DON'T GIVE ANYYTHING TO HIM AT ALL. DO NOT REPLY in any shape or form. The so-called ''nice looking man'' is either an AI generated image or he's nicked the photo of a genuine man off the internet somewhere.

It's amazing just how many have dead wives, loads of kids, are dirt poor, work in oil rigs/gas/energy/military/navy/pilots, all from Sweden, India, Africa and have moved to Texas, have absolutely appalling spelling and grammar, can barely ''speak'' English, are desperately lonely, want you to become their new wife and mother of their kids, they can ONLY message you on WhatsApp, Google+ or Telegraph ''as my highly dangerous job in top secret military only allows me to use those sites''. So if that's the case, how comes they're on FB/Twitter/Instagram?!

Then the next thing you know they want you to send or set up for them passports, want you to send money, bank details, want sexual photos of you and want to send them to you.

On Instagram my Profile photo was a hard boiled egg complete with shell as I swap them each month and I had within about 1/2 hour of posting the egg I received a private message from some blokey in Africa saying he likes my photo. ''u look loike a veri gorjus glamrus laidee i luv ur jet blak wavi hare un deep brown eyez wot model agunsy u cume from u have a purfic smile my family wuld b greatly honoured 2 have u as my wif and muthur of my cildrun cume to africa, i will mari u' IT'S AN EGG!

Please, qualitychat, don't waste your time with these freaks, they're all scammers who really don't give a toss for you.

I’ve had a few of these! DD begs me to engage and have some fun but I just cba 😂 so I ignore and delete.

My DH does this. He doesn't even drive.

I nearly fell for it once as they caught me about a week after I had been in an accident but because I'm fundamentally honest (unlike the caller), I refused to claim for an injury I didn't have.

It's pidgin English. "Some guy from Africa", seriously?
I'm not Nigerian but I live there atm. It's a whole country with a lot more going on than bloody romance scams.
Yeah, I know no-one said it isn't but I get a shitty vibe from this whole thread.

@qualitychat Haha, that's hilarious. It's been lifted from the website 1001loveletters dotcom. I googled the quote and it's come up on several sites 😂😂

Hmmm sounds like they used juju on her. The scammers use black magic and rituals to scam people. God help us

But you could be missing out on the love of your life if he really is genuine… 😂

I've had them do the "Please can we be friends, message me" a few times via the small dog charity Facebook group (it's an open group, because it's about trying to rehome dogs) recently. They're always v good-looking "Americans" with dodgy English. I tend to respond with gifs.

I think the OP worked this out before she started the thread. 😉

I agree. You could have asked for bail money 😂

Can I ask why? The locations of these scammers (who work in teams) are often in one or other African country.

They RUIN people's lives - absolutely RUIN them, taking them for every penny they have and often persuading them into debt.

I had one of these last year who I kept going for weeks. He was, apparently, local to me but I knew immediately he was a cat fish. He couldnt meet up with me because he was sent to Iraq at the last minute on a secret mission as he worked for the MOD.

He saved a child from a kidnapping, terrorists were shot and as a thank you Mr Scammer was, wait for it, given a big box of gold bars! Obviously he couldn't take these home as he didn't trust anyone so he asked to send them to me! I said I didnt think that was a good idea so he said he'd have to risk it and bring them home himself. The next I heard he was in jail in Iran! Still had his phone though! I queried why he was suddenly in a different country and one that was also in the opposite direction of 'home'.

I can't understand why they think these absurd stories work - and equally can't understand why people would fall such ridiculous absurd stores. Kept me entertained for a while though!

I love stringing along those guys who ring saying your PC is knackered and they will fix it for a fee. Had one on 45 min then said "hope you know I've just trolled you" As someone said, they have less time to call others then. "Is windows open" "Just one and can feel a draft" Keep them on whilst you go to the loo or make a coffee.

I’m starting to feel deprived that I never get any of these!

I love getting a scammer. It's quite entertaining. It's always the same story.

Working somewhere but live somewhere else. A widow. Dangerous job. A couple of phones kids. Never any chase just a straight oh your so beautiful, I want to marry you blah blah blah.

They think we are stupid.

And they are everywhere. I have had them on Instagram, tik tok, even words with friends which is a scrabble game! I have had loads on that actually.

I feel bad for the real Swedish oil engineer widows. Must be bloody impossible to get a date!

There's a man on YT that scams the scammers over the phone.he hacks into their computer while they think they're in his bank account.look it up its funny.

Hubby gets them on Fb from America. He's so handsome they say. She's a widow and then comes a pic in messenger of these massive boobs."All yours soon honey" "Always wanted to visit London" LOL. . Then he blocks her but not straight away. We have a laugh and I type some replies....

My dsis’s poor autistic step son has been well and truly shafted by these type of scammers.
His dad only found out a few months ago.
This is the profile pic they used. As a shy 28 year old with learning disabilities he thought his luck was well and truly in.
Sadly, it transpires that over the last few years he has sent over £20k to these people.
Even though all his friends and family keep telling him it’s a major scam he refuses to believe them, he still thinks she will come over from the States (where she is apparently based, poor and lonely!) and come visit him. He even went to our local airport to wait for her one weekend.

This profile pic is apparently of some well know adult industry ‘star’ but they continue to use it to suck vulnerable people in.

I bloody hate these people.

Thousands of British women DO fall for these cons, there's a daytime BBC programme called something like "Not for love or money" and it's all about the people who have been scammed. Every case is a middle aged/elderly woman being romanced by an American who is currently in Saudi/Syria/Africa who has to raise funds for tax/customs duties/new tools for his oil rig. The amount of money these women lose is staggering and even when the hosts of the show confront them with hard evidence like stolen pictures, or even a video call with the person whose idfentity has been faked, they won't believe it.

Don't feel sorry for these scammers at all.

@Lassiata please don’t turn this isn’t something it isn’t.

Some posters are just pointing out where these people say they are from, and I do get the point you’re trying to make but it’s not happening here.

OMG hubby had that pic too. Most are very pretty girls. One sent a vid of her topless doing her morning exercises. LOL. She was Texan but working in a top secret military job in Ireland so could easily pop over to see him.

I ask them for money before they play that card, its a fine line of time - but strangely when I give them my sob story - which I work up to slowly, they disappear - they never ever fall for it....

but it keeps them busy for about a week

But this simply isnt true. It probably feels like it to you because thats the client group you work with and of course that client group are certainly vulnerable to exploitation of course, but if you ask the police, they will tell you that people from all walks of life get scammed.

Watch the Tinder Swindler (I think it's on netflix). He got literally hundreds of women in multiple different countries to give him money and none of them had cognitive deficits. They were all highly educated, very attractive, young, intelligent women with professional jobs- thats the exact type of woman he targeted. He was a narcissist and very good at sniffing out people's emotional weaknesses (which all of us have) and then exploiting that to the max. Expert manipulators don't jump in immediately with requests for money, they do it slowly over time using the art of persuasion and seduction and it's the whole boiling frog analogy thats at play. People didnt even realise they were being conned because he eased them into it so convincingly. In fact, some of them couldn't even believe it at first even when presented it with the evidence as he was that convincing.