I've just been romanced scammed and ready to help others.

Hello to you all.
I have just had my first and hopefully my romance last scam.
I was beguiled by a man on Match.com. I am incredibly lucky that this individual was fairly transparent BUT even though there was something itching at my senses and red flags were raising, I absolutely admit that I wanted it all to be true. Having just been though a very emotionally draining experience I was so very grateful to have a mans affection and compliments, that my head surrendered the driving seat to the needs of my heart.

I was aware that...
* His sentence structure would alter.
* Some of the suggestions for our future together would be wrong to my gender.
* He would rarely answer my questions directly but would respond with over affection.
* His terms of endearment escalated far too quickly into love and marriage.
* He was over zealous in professing his honesty and God fearing.
To mention just a few of the areas that didn't ring true to my mind..

BUT I kept making excuses..
* English is not his first language...
* Maybe his culture is more expressive than mine...
* His wealth dictates that he can behave with a more confident nature...

I have by nature a very honest and open character and trusted that other people are the same. Even though I consider my self to be fairly intelligent woman who is fairly savvy, the truth is I SO wanted to believe in him.
I'm VERY lucky to have come out of the scam with a dented heart and ego and not a dented bank balance. For that I am truly grateful. However I'm aware that other people have had the devastating experience of having a more cunning predator than I was lucky to have.
That makes me very angry. Very protective. Very eager to address this and fight back, and very willing to dedicate my time and energy to listen to anyone who is in need of reassurance that...
IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT!!!
It is natural to seek connection and want to trust. It's what we want the most in life isn't it?
These predators know this and use this to the maximum effect.
If you have been a victim please know this...
YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG!!!
You are worthy of finding trust and affection. Please don't let these abusers of your trust ruin your self-esteem and rob your spirit as well as your time, energy or even money.
There are good people in the world who are worth investing in and with this experience you are better equipped to detect who they are and discard those who are not.
I am so determined to turn this horrible experience into something positive.
So..
I shall join 419eater and bait them.
I shall offer my time to those who want to express their felling and thoughts.
I shall spread the word around all of my friends and loved on how to detect these parasites.

If you have been a victim of this please be at peace with yourself.
You are human, and we all make mistakes.
There are ways to heal and support is there.
X

Welcome here.

Please post a couple of his initial scripts to you. Remove your personal information from them.

Also post his email address name, phone number and his user name on the dating site.

Hello there.. luckily I spoke with a family member who sent all of that information out for me this afternoon and spread his details. X

Is it posted here?

hi and welcome to Scamwarners, Ready to expose them.

Being a former romance scam victim myself, I can identify with what you are saying. I would like to suggest to you to give yourself time to heal ( the entire process), then after you have mended yourself decide again whether or not you still want to do what you said. It is admirable, either way. If nothing else, spreading the word and educating others at how these parasites work could do a world of good.

Hi Bryon. Thank you for that question. I've just had a chat with him and he hasn't posted it up here as yet.. Apparently I need to get the headers off the original email so he's going to walk me through that process later tonight and I'll upload all information asap.


Thank you HillBilly and I'm sorry to hear you were scammed.
I hear what you are saying and thank you for your advice. I appreciate you taking the time to write to me.
I am certainly going to build up my knowledge and skills towards baiting slowly and with care as I'm very aware that knee-jerk actions can backfire.
Having gone through such anger yesterday I thought I'd got to a place of peace but yes, you are quite right to advise taking time to have a healing process. Today I've felt quite weepy with it as certain things came to mind and as I've been sharing my experience with others.
Again, thank you
xx

Welcome Ready to Expose Them. It was an encounter with a romance scammer that first brought me to Scamwarners and 419eater as well. As Hillbilly said, give yourself some time to grieve and be kind to yourself. Treat yourself to something special. If you need to talk, we are here to listen. In romance scam situations, people who have never had the unfortunate experience have a hard time understanding, so your friends and family might not always say the right things.

Immediately stop all communications with the scammer. Don't tell him that you know it is a scam and don't report his email address to the service provider.

Posting up his email address, telephone number, name and some of his emails might help prevent somebody else from becoming a victim.

Take care of yourself.

Details:
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=93589

Thank you Claire.
I really appreciate your response. I am swinging emotionally but fortunately I have some lovely close and supportive friends. I'm also VERY lucky to be blessed with my awesome family member who was the first person I called when my alarm bells really rang. I had no idea that Calvin did this baiting service in his spare time. I've been blessed with his understanding and support. He has just uploaded the scammers details for me.
I feel so very fortunate to have only lost a few quid on a couple of texts!
Again thank you for your offer of support. I will most certainly take advantage of support if I hit a bad spot at any point.
Bless you all for doing what you do... what an amazing support system.
Xx

Ok... now I'm feeling grim.
It's been dawning on me that a couple of previous connections on Match have been weird and on digging back I've come across pretty much the same bad grammar etc...
Got a new military admirer just appeared... I've passed on what details I have so far to Calvin and will add anything else that comes in...
I guess they've been trying from different angles to see when I'd bite...
Yes.. flat, teary and grim.
He caught me when I was emotionally drained. I'd been in the hospital for 14 hours caring for a dying friend. I managed to maintain calm and peace for her amongst juggling the needs and politics of her daughter and granddaughters who have been at each other for years. I kept the environment respectful to everyones needs and she died in comfort, with dignity and in peace. So on top of grieving for her I was also exhausted.
I keep repeating the mantra "He caught me when I was emotionally vulnerable" but right now I feel a fool.
It was her funeral today.
It's been a tough week.
Thanks for listening. It's good to have an outlet x

Sorry to hear about your friend, Ready to expose them. It sounds like you are a good friend, caring for her to the end. Keep in mind that the normal grieving process is a series of ups and downs. It is not one continuous cycle, but you go back and forth from between the stages. Some days will be good, others not so good.

Once your emotions stabilize, get back on Match and keep your search focused to men that are local to your area. After I had my run-in with a romance scammer, I took a break for a few months and then was very cautious about who I entered into a conversation with. I met the wonderful man who is now my husband on Match. We have been married for almost 5 years now.

Hang in there.
Clair

Like Clair I'm sorry to hear about the bad stuff going on, ready. reiterating what Clair said, if it wasn't for the cold rainy days, we would not appreciate the sunshine and warm days... ( I just said it differently, but its the same theory).

While I don't want to argue Clair's points, I do want to say that I think you need to do whatever is comfortable for you. If that means finding a local mate, that is good. Also if it means traveling the world, that is also good. The important thing is that you are OK with what you decide.

It is a lot harder to tell what is inside a person from a long distance relationship, but you've learned some of what to look out for, hopefully good and bad.

I met my wife on Dating-N-More ( same owner as RomanceScam.com ) <Removed link to third party site MW>
As of today we have been married for 8 years. We lived half a world apart at the time we met. There was a lot of traveling while we dated, lots of video calls ( making sure a live person is on the other end of a video call is important), emails, etc.

Only you know what is best for you, as long as you are honest with yourself, you can do what is best for you.

Ah bless you both.
Thank you for your compassion and encouragements. I'm really grateful that you guys have taken the time to respond. It was a tough night and the lowest point I've hit.
I'm feeling way better with a bit of distance from the funeral, tons more reading on eater and I've found a place of peace and compassion for myself again.
It is absolutely an up and down ride and I think the two arenas of grief were piggybacking on each other, creating an expanding loop of emotional feedback.
I've kept on with match as I won't have him affect my journey in such a way that I shut down.
It has however refined my scrutiny of communications and I no longer feel the need to be polite if someone makes me twitch!
Very liberating I must say. I kinda pity anyone who gets in touch now to be honest!
I've taken positive steps towards slowly, gently and safely entering the 419 community and kicking around the site having a rummage through the threads and stickies is a great healer. I already knew that to only have him on me for a couple of days was very lucky but when I see the sub-human depths to which this creature and his fellow scammers happily sink to, I feel so grateful that he's also a stupid creature.
I'm starting to really get a feel for the pre hook set ups and the patterns of manipulation they use.. I've always been pretty good in the past at spotting dodgy energy but the timing caught me out.
I do think everything is for a reason.
Me.. no real harm done, heightened awareness, lessons learned on a steep curve and countless silver linings!
In the mean time he's led by the nose into a whole world of pain and frustration where his own discharge of manipulation bounces back him 3 fold, well.. ten fold!
Poetic really!!?

Xx