when romance turns to finance

On social media keep getting friend requests from handsome men usually with stethoscope around neck. REMOVE.

I am a widow, I am lonely, but I do hope that I would not be so susceptible to give someone I do not know money, whether I have it or not... interesting how so called intelligent people can do this... men also, I suspect fall to these scams..

thank goodness that lady was brave enough, and shows how caring she is to come on BBC and warn others.

I was lucky; I met someone online, he lived in Canada and said he was a professor. I was waiting for the hard luck tale, but he was waiting for my hard luck take, too! We met, travelled back and forth for a year, then married eight years ago. We travelled the world together and he’s paid for everything He retires (from his career as a professor) next year, and we’ll keep on travelling even more. I feel lucky to have not only found love second time around, but adventure, too! (Nope, still won’t put my hand in my pocket...)

Some people are just naturally trusting, and tend to believe what people tell them, and are also kind and want to help. My mum was one like that. You could easily say stupid and easily fooled, but it's born of a genuine kindness and desire to see the best in people. Add a bit (or a lot) of loneliness and romantic hopefulness into the mix, and it's easy to see how these things can happen, sad though it is.

It's very easy for any of us to think something like that would "never happen to me". These scammers are experts at what they do and we need to look out for each other. A friend of mine (very intelligent and certainly not normally naive) met a man while on holiday with a friend in Turkey. They chatted and went for a few walks together etc
He ran a restaurant and was supposedly divorced. He came over to the UK to visit her and I met him briefly at her house. With hindsight, I should have been suspicious of his lack of conversation with me. She went back to visit him in Turkey and stayed with him and met his children. They were supposed to be planning to get married. Needless to say, he got financial help from her for his business, purchase of a car etc. When she told him she didn't have loads of money,he said she had deceived him! It turned out he was still married and hiding his wife somewhere, was connected to the local version of the mafia, and probably ran male prostitutes from his business. He raped her and threatened her. She rented a flat in the local town and was going to attempt to challenge him through legal channels. Fortunately, another ex-pat she had become friends with persuaded her she had to leave and drove her to the airport in the middle of the night. She was literally lucky to get out alive. She consulted lawyers here, but was told there was virtually no chance of bringing charges against him or getting her money back.

Men and women from poor countries sometimes spend all day trawling the Internet looking for ‘a sucker’. Sometimes I know having been there the wife is also looking ! Someone I know was targeted, he knew her for two years, married her, took her to America, thought everything was great, not a foot wrong, and on the day she got her US passport left him ! We are very naive sometimes.

I might add it took five years to get the passport !!!

Unbelieveable really that these women fall for this type of scam. Wish I had savings for myself never mind £63,000. Shame they are still falling for this, one reason I am glad I have never felt the need to go onto these dating sites since getting divorced over 20 years ago! One husband was enough to put me off for life.

I get a few friend requests through Facebook which almost always have a photo of a man in military uniform and a personal history that includes military service. A Google image look up almost always identifies person and someone other than who they say they are. As a lifelong, anti-gun pacifist, I’m never going to be persuaded by that kind of approach!

It doesn't have to be online. A friend of mine, rich and beautiful, was widowed at 48. She nearly got conned into marrying an apparently charming shyster who was getting his feet very well under the table - and drinking gin like there was no tomorrow, all at her expense. It was when he was expanding his plans to her children to remodel her large house that alarm bells started ringing and he was given his marching orders. (He subsequently conned another widow into marriage, we heard.)

I too m amazed at how seemingly intelligent women are taken in by these scammers. I've also had the friend requests from handsome military types dressed in the white uniform with braid and medals and distinguished grey hair. Allegedly from the USA , but check out the profile and they're invariably from Nigeria.
A different scam just doing the rounds involves a phone call either from your "bank" or the police about a fraudulent transaction on your account. They want you to tell them the code that your real bank has texted to you so that they can complete a very expensive purchase on your account which they have the number of.
My sister got one of these just yesterday and told the caller she'd put him on to her son. He rang off sharply.
My sister said he sounded totally plausible but she just didn't trust it. She reported it to her bank.
A very similar one has been reported on FB today.

geekesse, exactly; I was able to look my husband up on the internet and find out a lot about him. He had not even thought about doing that (maybe more naive than I), and he is an intelligent, educated man. I could’ve been anyone...

We had a man who lived fairly local to us hit the headlines of the national newspapers a few years back for being a serial scammer, having had several wealthy Lady friends on the go at the same time, all for the pure purpose of scamming them out of their life savings. He was a married Man with a young family, nice home, and a caring wife, yet he lied to her as much as he did the other women, and it came as an almighty shock to everyone who knew him when he was arrested after falling into a Police set up trap following complaints from one of his victims and their family. He got a lengthly sentance for fraud, lost his wife to divorce and his home when it was proved that it had been paid for by the proceeds of crime. I felt really sorry for his children who had not only lost their home, but also had to put up with the shame of what their father had done becoming common knowledge amoungst fellow pupils at school and the coverage in the national newspapers.

When I went on a Gambian all inclusive holiday with my children after I separated from my husband, every day there were local men wanting to sit and chat with me, walk me to the local shops because there were potholes out in the street and no street lamps (which was true), wanting to know where did I live in England etc.

It was laughable and such an obvious chat up line but they did have impeccable English. I just told them -no thanks I didn't want to spend my holiday talking to them-so they gave up after a few days and left me alone. How anyone can fall for this, I have no idea. I wouldn't even give any of my hard earned money to someone I knew really well and liked, never mind a stranger I had never met who professed love for me!!!!

Bit harsh to refer to the victims as "suckers". A lot of people are at a low ebb at the moment afraid, isolated and lonely it is easy to see how they could be drawn in by these very plausible fraudsters. A little sympathy would be nice.

My friendship group have a standing joke "at our age any man taking an interest is looking for a purse or a nurse". Like another poster, one marriage enough to put me off for life.

Had a colleague whose first H died in an accident and who came to lunch to tell me she was marrying again. My response "what ever for", to which she replied "I cannot live alone".

I was scammed emotionally but not financially. At least he didn't con me out of money which is worse! He played on the fact that I was bereaved and lonely, and started coming onto me in a big way. He was married and I was tempted, but after him asking me to have sex in the car instead of whisking me away to a hotel I went off the idea, but he would not take no for an answer and started to stalk me. Awful experience. When you are bereaved you are vulnerable.

I have two experiences of women acting in a similar way to this

Friend One split up with her husband shortly before turning 45. She looked for another partner in the UK but all the men her age were looking for women much younger. Eventually, having been on holiday to Turkey, she found the men were very happy to sleep with her despite being much younger. She took to going twice a year and even described herself as a sex tourist.

Friend Two's husband worked abroad a lot, including regular trips to Russia. FT found out that the whole time he'd been travelling, he had a 2nd 'family' in Russia. Russian woman and her son from her 1st marriage. FT left her husband when she discovered this and divorced him, at which point he married the Russian woman. The new marriage lasted JUST long enough to get passports for the wife and stepson, set up home and get the stepson into a UK school, and then she kicked him out. So now he is single, having been dumped by FT his loyal first wife and also by his 2nd, passport job wife.

I think they pick up on vulnerable woman who are eager for a romance, once they’ve drawn them in they then pounce because by this time the woman has fallen under the spell. Happened to a colleague of mine. Good to see we are all savvy on here.

A few months ago I offered plants on my local freecycle site. Among others, I was contacted by a man calling himself Don. He said he had just retired and moved to the area. He had bought a bungalow with a large garden that needed filling. I arranged for him to come over and get some plants, which I left outside, so didn't meet him. He texted me to say he would have as many plants as I had to offer. This suited me. We texted and arranged for him to come over. He cancelled the same day saying he was doing voluntary work. During our texts he said he was doing lots of volunteering. I told him I looked after my elderly mum. He said he would like to meet me because we were like minded and he didn't know many people. We arranged once again for him to come one afternoon to see the plants in the garden. The day before, I happened to mention that apart from my mum, I also lived with my sister and son. He didn't turn up the next day and I never saw or heard from him again.

These stories are almost incredible! Except that I'm rather naive and my husband often has to stop me being taken in.
The only story I've heard was from friends who needed to buy a van on the french equivalent of ebay (leboncoin). They saw one at a bargain price and, without seeing the van, were all ready to get the funds and send it off. Luckily the bank person knew them well, asked what and who it was for, and warned them off.

This happens a lot and it’s not just poor countries either, scammers are just as likely to come from the UK or Spain or Poland. Men are much more likely to be targeted, particularly if they have been using a dating site, scammers can keep up the deceit for months, even years.
The best way of dealing with any online contact is to give the impression you have no money, so be very careful what you say and any photos you send that might identify you or your address.
We all need to remember if you do get married to a fraudster he/she will get a share of your property

More money than sense, that’s all I can say.

I've seen quite a few programmes and read plenty of articles about similar romance scams to those described on this thread. Men have also been scammed in this way by women who flatter them, prey on their vulnerabilities, then spin sob stories as to why they need money for something or other.. In the early days of the Internet I used to chat to loads of people in forums for word games etc - I had been warned not to divulge too much personal information and to be suspicious of anyone even hinting at wanting cash. I've always been skint so scammers would not have got any joy out of me. Most people I spoke to seemed nice and only one ever said something along the lines of needing money to get a passport - I told him to save up like everybody else.

We all like to think we would not fall for these scams, but remember the scammers do this for a living and the longer they do this, the more people they talk to, the better they get at what they do. They are skilled con artists, manipulators, hustlers. They are often articulate, have a good understanding of 'victim psychology', and 'victim selection'. In their chosen field they are smooth salesmen whose only goal is to, one way or another, get people to part with their cash and/or steal their identity to use in yet more fraudulent activities. It has been proved they even have records of people to target that are, unkindly, called 'sucker lists' - I guess the theory is if someone fell for one type of con they are more likely to fall for others too. Cruel deception(s).

There are plenty of genuine people, looking for love, or friendship, but everyone should be aware of these type of tactics and refuse if asked for cash - whatever the reason given for wanting it.

Empathy rules Greciangirl