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Romance scams, or “Prince Charming” scams, are increasing exponentially and sweeping over every continent. From the United States to Australia, from Europe to Asia. It can happen to any woman, even if she’s smart and modern, she can still fall into the network of scammers who organise them by searching social networks for vulnerable people they can exploit.
Romance scams, or “Prince Charming” scams, are increasing exponentially and sweeping over every continent. From the United States to Australia, from Europe to Asia. It can happen to any woman: they’re contacted online on a social networking site by improbable characters who after two days fall in love, and after three ask for a money remittance to solve an unexpected and very serious problem. Among all the extortions made over the Internet, romance scams are the most profitable and safest for the rogues of the web. Apparently simple and repetitive, they can have many different facets to them, because over time the method has evolved and been refined.
The aim is always the same, to extort money from women by focusing on making them fall in love, using cloned photos, plagiarised poems, and fake information. The process may sometimes even be so simple-minded as to immediately reveal the scam, however, as Romance Scams are highly profitable, criminals have refined the system to manage to cheat the targeted person with very high odds of success.
So any woman may come across clumsy flatterers, or rather, encounter skilled weavers of emotions who know how to shape a courtship like a tailor-made garment sewn onto the victim.
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Mirta B. Bono
THE GEESE THAT LAY THE GOLDEN EGGS
Romance Scams that break hearts
and plunder wallets
Original title: “Galline dalle uova d’oro”
Translated by Linda Thody
Copyright© 2017 Mirta B. BonoFirst edition: June 2017 StreetLib Write http://write.streetlib.com English edition 21 /04/2018 Translator: Linda ThodyPublished by: Tektime - www.traduzionelibri.itFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruffeRomanticheTwitter: https://twitter.com/mirta_bono e-mail: [email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any mechanical or electronic means, nor photocopied or recorded, or otherwise disclosed, without the written permission of the publisher.
The geese that lay the golden eggs
For the women who know how to take care of themselves
and those who sooner or later will learn how to do so
Romance scams that break hearts
and plunder wallets
These are true stories. To respect the protagonists’ privacy, in some cases their names have been changed.
The title ‘The geese that lay the golden eggs' was chosen to emphasise the disdain with which scammers manipulate women's feelings to exploit them to their own advantage.
The contents of this book do not claim to be therapeutic but are intended to make women face up to a cruel reality of our times, and through the telling of stories and the dissemination of every possible means of defence, help them protect their hearts, hold on to their wallets and regain their self-esteem.
Romance Scams
Online contacts
No offence, but it’s happened to us all, poor lonely women caught out by an online message which we’ve fallen for, some perhaps more than others. With our heart beating madly for that oh so handsome, charming, passionate man who’s noticed us, fascinated by our face in a photograph; won over by our story, or by the few personal details that the more reserved of us have only hinted at on our Facebook, twitter or other social network profile.
We can’t help it! Us women are romantic, and "friendly” to the point of absurdity. Friendly and willing to believe that finally cupid has smiled down upon us, noticed our most intimate desires for love and let fly his arrow.
It seems like a wonderful sign of fate that such a remarkable man is interested in us, a man in naval or military uniform. With an honest gaze, open smile, profound dark eyes or even light ones, it doesn’t matter. When we fall in love even the colour of the eyes is changeable, it matches the ideal image we carry around inside us. Remember Proust and the colour of the little Gilberte Swann’s eyes, who he meets as a child? He describes them of such a brilliant black as to give back a bright blue light, so that if the little girl had not had such dark eyes - writes Proust - he would not have been in love most particularly with her blue eyes.
It’s the meeting of desire and true likeness that fits our ideal image. The two pieces of a puzzle. What a coincidence! What luck, we think from that first contact with a few polite phrases from the fake American soldier. He’s even the right age for us! Somewhere between fifty and sixty, like so many lonely separated women, or widows, or divorcees, who before this lucky meeting had tried all the Meetics,dating sites, Badoos, where nothing ever came of anything, perhaps because of our aversion to the person who said he was 25 years younger than his real age, or the irremediable faults which led to separations from exes: wives, lovers, girlfriends. When my sister-in-law once asked me why I hadn’t rebuilt my life with a new companion, I told her it’s difficult finding the right person, because as we get older we become more demanding; we do not easily surrender our independence, and the men who approach us have already been left by their woman, probably because they’re flawed.
“Flawed?” replied my sister-in-law and she began laughing out loud repeating “Ah, flawed, flawed... what a description!”
But the same can be said of us too, what’s that got to do with it? On dating sites, we too describe ourselves in our Meetic profile, posting a photo on the net that was taken a few years after our first communion. Then we go to meet the poor guy in the hope that he won’t notice that the person before him looks like the grandmother of the beautiful girl in the photograph. So, what happens in these cases? The more courteous offer a coffee and say goodbye. The others ask you straight out to your face, "Why are you hiding your age? You can’t be forty! You must be at least twenty years older!”
“Well what about you? You’re supposedly only 55?" we might reply and get a brazenly optimistic response. “I’m sixty-four, but I look young for my age!”
Faced with such vanity, what should we do? I think it’s best to just forget about it. Or, out of pure revenge, we could recommend that our friend should at least buy a mirror to furnish his home.
How many Friday night encounters end with an argument, or perhaps a bad-mannered comment from a guy who seems aristocratic enough online, but then turns out to be more accustomed to the sort of company found down at the docks, not setting sail, but loading and unloading.
But let’s not be dramatic. Is the boor of the moment’s language distasteful? Then each of you better go their separate ways. At worst we can just ban him and put the whole story to bed!
Bluffing never pays. Not even a pizza together to make friends is allowed, when you meet on misleading premises. These are the risks of social networking. Moderate risks overall, until recently anyway: a bad impression, a disappointment, a missed invitation to dinner. Nothing more serious.
Romance scams
Nothing like the new trend of online virtual meetings between romantic ladies and lowlifes who set out to deceive mature women, with the single-minded ambition of getting their hands on the little, or large as it may be, nest egg which they imagine a person close to retirement will have set aside. They know all about the leaving bonus carefully hidden away in a safety deposit box, or perhaps even at home behind a tile? They know everything about us! And these sonnavabitches are clever. They use sophisticated techniques as if they really were the gentlemen they claim to be. They pull apart all our plans to defend ourselves against the "bad” guys, as though they were little Lego bricks, because they’re different, different to that loser of our neighbour’s ex-husband who woos us. Their (virtual) strong points are the appeal of a uniform, a distinguished profession, their status as a single man without ties, the adventure of it all, the courage involved, their financial resources. Because after all, we can all do the maths and perhaps even go online to see how much an American naval officer earns, or an Australian airman, or an English captain on ocean-going ships.
But we let our hearts rule our heads and as unsuspecting, romantic, dreamy women we don’t realise that they’re really very different to us. They’re not westerners but they do everything to seem as if they are. They learn how to act to turn a woman’s head. They watch lots of films, read romantic novels, and textbooks on how to conquer a woman. They pick up phrases, pleasantries, similes, which win the hearts of middle-aged women, even careful and intelligent ones. In fact, according to a statistical study, it seems the intelligence factor is always at a high level in these scammed women1. Ghanaians, Nigerians or Malaysians, no matter where they’re from, the scammers use every tool the globalised world offers them to get to know the psychology, the dreams, the way of thinking of a western woman. Moreover, it’s by no means rare that the handsome man writing to us from the other side of the world is really another woman. Probably younger than us, but most definitely cunning and skilful. A professional organiser of Romance Scams, the sophisticated and lucrative love-affair scams.
Some stories of women scammed on the web
An example of some of the phrases copied and pasted when contacting women online:
«I miss you so much, you’re necessary for my heart and soul. You’re my day, my night, my moon, my sun. You’re the one and only queen of my heart. I really miss you, my days are getting sadder and sadder».
Melania
What does a still young and attractive woman from Rimini lack, to persuade her, in a delusion of love, to transfer payments for 24 thousand euros into a stranger’s account?
Melania2 is 40 years old, she lives in one of Italy’s most 'open-minded' cities, the most famous holiday resort in Europe; culturally vibrant, visited by tourists, conference participants, businessmen, artists of all kinds and ages. Does Rimini perhaps lack opportunities? I wouldn’t think so. Yet Melania finds her romantic love on the web; but it’s a romance scam, a cybernetic mess that impoverishes her resources and quickly becomes a thorn in her heart that will torment her for a long time.
When Melania reads the online message from John, a soldier in the U.S. Army, she doesn’t wonder how come the man in uniform has contacted precisely her. No, she thinks “The power of Facebook! How could I ever meet a man like this if I weren’t on the net?”
Melania is not naive and clueless, she’s forty, she has a degree in biology, works for a public institution, has a former husband who she left out of boredom and incompatibility of character.
«I saw your photo - John writes to her - and for two days I’ve been waking up at night with your face before my eyes. I like what you say in your profile. I think you’re a fascinating woman. May I ask you to be friends?»
«Why not - Melania thinks - a polite manner of introducing himself in a man with good qualities is always welcome.»
The friendship begins with the exchange of messages, first daily, then hourly: morning, afternoon, evening.
«I’m a soldier in the United StatesArmy and I’ve been stationed in Afghanistan for many years now.» John tells her about his days, the dangers he lives through, his regrets for one day having had to divorce his wife who betrayed him (the cheat). His dreams of having a traditional family, a loving wife with whom to plan a future. A life together full of love, passion, values, respect. As well as travel and fun.
Strangely enough, John asks very little about her. He seems not to care who Melania really is, how she lives, what she believes in, what religion she practices. In this, the American is very open-minded. And, if at first Melania is a little surprised, she soon gets used to it. An outsider would have immediately understood that (the so-called) John couldn't give a damn about Melania, but she doesn't. She starts to be dazzled by his phrases and to justify his obvious indifference as open-mindedness. After all, you can’t expect the narrow-mindedness of an Italian lover from an American man, a soldier who has travelled the world.
Melania, on the other hand, takes great interest in him, what he tells her, the words he writes to her:
«Darling, it’s getting harder and harder to get to sleep at night, in the darkness of my room, without you beside me, without holding you close to my heart. Without seeing your marvellous eyes half-close with the pleasure of my caresses on your soft skin, kissing you to bring you happiness and ecstasy. The happiness that only two soul mates feel when fate brings them together».
«What are you doing? Dear John, how do you spend your days? - asks Melania. - What do you want from a woman to make you happy?», and in the following message he replies: «I want a woman like you! Oh, Melania, marvellous creature, where have you been all this time? Why didn’t you bring me happiness before now? Where were the scents of your skin? your body, your womb, the colours of Eden that I see in your eyes. Where was your mouth that I dream of kissing all the time? When will I be happy and satisfied? I can’t wait any longer. May I call you darling? Don’t tell me I’m moving too fast! I’ve never suffered and been so happy because of a woman like this before. I suffer because you’re so far away, I’m happy because you’re in my life now and anyway I feel you close to me. You’re inside me. We are one!».
See how much passion John the soldier manages to convey?
Completely smitten, Melania increasingly lowers her defences and her objective judgement criteria. She cares very little now about her job, her friends, her hobbies. John’s messages, John’s promises, the prospects of a happy life together, lead her to imagine intense days filled with new things, happiness, travel to the USA to meet his family, and why not, to join him in Afghanistan.
She starts to fantasise like a teenager about to experience her first love. She plans their meeting and eliminates any obstacles to her happiness before they even appear. She could go and join him in Afghanistan, she could ask for some time off work.
The public authority where she works allows this sort of leave. She can already see herself dressed in camouflage fatigues, crossing inaccessible desert areas, in a white Land Rover. She starts to read up about it, she buys books, including “Viaggio a Kabul” [Journey to Kabul]3, where a whole new world starts to appear before her: the snow-capped mountains of Hindukush, the cobalt blue of the sky, the ochre colour of the ancient abandoned cities along the Silk Route, and the noise, the myriad colours of Kabul. And with all of this, her fantastic soldier, John.
What can her phoney lover ask her for, at this point? Probably anything....
The facts teach us that Melania agrees to all his requests. Her involvement is so all-encompassing that not even a hint of a possible scam would awaken her from his spell. She is in the (virtual) hands of John, who asks her to pay with (real) money for the dream he has given her.
«I gave you what you wanted!» he’ll tell her later, when he’s found out.
But let's see how the story continues
While she plans her trip to Kabul, he begins to devise a tour of his own around Italy. Get to know Rimini, go to the sea together; see Rome and Venice while they’re on their honeymoon full of happiness.
Melania changes her plans for exotic excursions shifting them towards cultural explorations in the Vatican museums and romantic getaways in the narrow streets of Venice. What does it matter! America and Asia can wait, the important thing is to have her beloved John at her side!
The fact is that the American is becoming very keen to travel to Italy and live there, to start a new life in the “Bel Paese” with his beloved Melania; to be together, love each other, be happy, and start a family. He is so involved in this perspective of life together as a couple that the next step becomes decisive: leave the American army. Resign, leave permanently.
«But are you sure? - she asks - The choice you’re making is forever. Won’t you regret it?»
Melanie is a little worried, but very flattered by the fact that a man like him would completely change all his life plans for her.
«Regret it?» says John. «Regret wanting a life with an adorable woman in a wonderful country like Italy? I’d regret it bitterly, a thousand times over, if I didn’t take this step. Straight away, now. And I’m tired, fed up of the dry land where my military boots tread. I’m tired of war and blood!
I want to see blue skies, Italy’s turquoise sea, your hazel eyes with specks of gold, Melania my love!».
The request for money
At this point, all of you reading this, would have woken up from the daydream if John had asked you for money, right? Melanie doesn't wake up; but let’s look at their chat exchange:
«I’ve applied for discharge. They’ve told me they’ll accept my application but with certain conditions.»
«What conditions?»
«They want me to pay something. A sort of penalty.»
«How much?»
«The equivalent of 24 thousand euros in dollars.»
«Well, you’ve got it, haven’t you?»
«I’ve invested in securities in the United States, it’s money that is tied-up. I haven’t got the amount they want, here.»
Melania is upset by this request. It’s not decorous for a man to ask his woman for money. She’s not used to it, because although she can remember many shortcomings of her former husband, he always provided for his family.
She never lacked anything while she lived with her first husband.
A little alarm bell rings faintly in her brain, but her heart overrides the doubts that are surfacing. Because he’s also clever at brushing them aside.
«I don’t know if I’ll be able to get that amount together» Melania says, already starting to regret her caution because she has some money put aside, more than the amount John needs.
«Don’t do it, my darling, if it’s a problem. I feel rotten asking you to do this. It’s not right. I have enough savings for both of us in my US accounts. It’s the man who should always look after his woman! Forget what I said. We’ll find another solution. I’ll stay here a bit longer and we’ll postpone meeting for a year until I’m discharged.»
«A year?». Melania is appalled at the prospect of waiting another year to be able to embrace John. No, she can’t wait that long. Because he writes to her assiduously, intense words full of emotion. He tells her how much he loves her, how lonely he feels laying in his bed and hugging his cold pillow; every night he dreams of kissing her and making love to her, then in the morning waking up leaves his soul empty and sad.
So, Melania gives in. She dips into her savings and transfers some money by Western Union. John collects it and disappears. The great love affair ends overnight.
John doesn’t really exist. The person writing to Melania is a 23-year-old Nigerian. He’s part of a gang of crooks who split the loot between them after each romance scam4.
When Melania contacts the police, they tell her she is the third woman from Rimini to be scammed in a few months. But that’s small consolation to her. As soon as she can she insults the so-called John (online again) and calls him a thief and a scammer. He answers that he gave her what she was looking for and suggests she join him in Nigeria to have some “fun”. Melania calls him an “animal” and ends all contact with him for ever.
No dream could finish in a worse manner. Poor Melania. She’s upset about the money - yes - but even more about having fallen for a scam which, with hindsight, seems so obvious to her. «I really am stupid!» she tells herself every morning as she looks in the mirror.
She began treatment because she didn’t know what else to do. She closed her Facebook profile. The psychologist told her to avoid the computer and start going for long bike rides again like she used to when she was young, to enrol in a club for environmentalists, artists or whatever she liked, to leave the virtual world alone and get out and meet real people.
Luciana
When Luciana reads the friend request on Facebook, intrigued she thinks “A Frenchman? He’s not bad actually!”
The man immediately tells her he’s a widower, like Luciana, and he makes a date to chat online with her the following evening.
She’s a widow, he’s a widower. They’re the same age, both 50 with children. This is how their daily online meetings begin. A very pleasant date for the woman who becomes fond of Vincent (this is the name the self-styled French widower gives her).
According to Luciana’s tale their date every evening becomes pleasantly unavoidable. The messages he writes are always very polite, he sends her kisses and little hearts, and he also sends a few photos with and without his children. Luciana does the same as she falls in love like a teenager.
«It felt like I was reliving the now forgotten feelings of my youth. He used to send me words of love that I’d never even read in books. In the end I was completely off my head, to the point that I was unable to tear myself away from my mobile or my computer»5.
Departure for Ivory Coast
Let’s be clear in our minds that Ivory Coast, Senegal, Ghana, are almost always involved in any fake love stories, because these are the places where the swindlers live, and they need to have the money sent there. Our dear Vincent warns Luciana he is about to leave for Ivory Coast for his work as an art dealer. But this is wonderful news for her. Once he has finished his African trip to buy inlaid wooden masks, he will return to France, but not without first stopping off in Italy to embrace his beautiful lover from Rimini.
How exciting! The dream is coming true. Luciana starts to fantasize about their meeting at the airport. Her holding a notice on which she will have written “VINCENT” in big letters. Him, handsome and elegant, with his suitcase labelled Abidjan, and sunglasses; perhaps a small souvenir for her or her child.
Luciana can’t wait, and she begins organising all the details of her welcome for Vincent. “Shall I make a banner to put up in the hallway at home? Perhaps not, it’s silly.”
She doesn’t want to seem too taken and treat him as if he were the only man on earth. Much better to think about more concrete things like a special dinner, with all her best dishes: saffron-flavoured lasagne, blueberry tart, a good Italian wine. Everything must be simple, but perfect, to welcome the man who is going to change the course of her life. Luciana can’t wait to embrace him. She takes up going to the gym again, she lunches on salad and mozzarella. She wants to lose two or three kilos in the time she has left before she meets Vincent.
Luciana becomes more beautiful and her friends notice this. Her eyes sparkle as she tells her story, how lucky she has been to have met a special man on Facebook. A few of her friends speak of caution: «Be careful with social media! Things are not always what they seem!» But Luciana barely listens. She expected these warnings and doesn’t take heed. Her happiness springs from having met the man of her life, and her friends’ gossip will not ruin it for her.
But one day she receives bad news that dampens her contentment, that feeling of being lucky, privileged almost by fate. Vincent sends her a message from Ivory Coast asking her for help. He’s desperate. His briefcase has been stolen and with it his wallet and credit card, his mobile phone and all the money he had with him. What’s more, the thieves chased him by car and while he was trying to get away from them he ran over an 8-year old child who was seriously injured and is now in hospital. At this point, Vincent risks prison if he doesn’t immediately pay 2500 euros for medical treatment.
The fog begins to clear in Luciana’s mind
Many women would have paid, just as they pay in other Romance Scams, but Luciana starts hearing little alarm bells ringing, and she begins asking things, asking, asking: a photo of the run-over child, his name and details, the address and bank coordinates of the hospital where the money is to be transferred.
Vincent is a little offended by her mistrust. He tells her so. Then he patiently explains that the hospital does not accept bank transactions from Europe. The only way to pay is by Money transfer.
The fog clears in Luciana’s brain and she emails the embassy in Abidjan asking for information about the self-styled Vincent, she provides his FACEBOOK profile, and little else. She discovers the man is an impostor who is known to the police because he is part of a gang specializing in romance scams.
The little alarm bells
Luciana starts adding all the information in her possession together. The alleged Vincent pretends he is French because Ivory Coast, a former colony, uses French as its official language. He’s never left Abidjan and has pretended to go there, to be able to receive the cash payment in his homeland.
Luciana doesn’t send him the money and she’s clever to realise, in time, that it’s a scam. The request for money sets off a little alarm bell inside her. Intuition and reason prevail over her emotions, and the scammer loses the match he has so laboriously played.
Then tell the unscrupulous looter to sod off. But it’s not easy to let go of the dream. Luciana cries for days on end, after reporting the scam. She says she felt completely stupid, an idiot:
«He used such psychological violence - Luciana explains during an interview - as to literally bring me to my knees. He even used to ask me if I’d slept well, if I’d eaten and if I’d had a good day at work!
