This happened in the past and it did not scar me emotionally, but I still think that I should do something because it is outrageous that a man would do such things.

I got contacted by a man on a dating site. His profile was "Tom". He quickly took the conversation off the dating site and into email. I am 52. I believe his profile said that he was in his early 60s but I cannot verify it since the profile is gone.

We talked once on the phone. It was pleasant. He sent me long emails about his likes and dislikes. Mostly he disliked any kind of dishonesty and infidelity. I thought that he was too much with those long emails but I tolerated them and did not tell him that it was impolite to want to take so much of my time with his lengthy disclosures. In one email he asked if I would take down my dating site profile while we are exploring the relationship. I thought that it was too much but did not say it to him.

He wrote that he was going to New York for a work meeting and that he was a civil engineer, semi-retired, working on contracts. He used a different name and made it appear that Tom was his second name. I will refer to him as F.B. by the initials of the name he used.

From New York, meaning when he said that he was in New York, he wrote that he won a contract for a project in South Africa. Eventually he said that this project would be his last one and was what he needed to fully retire.

I forgot to mention that I live in Silicon Valley and on his profile on the dating site he put San Luis Obispo, which is much further south in California, but not completely out of reach.

He then wrote that he was immediately leaving, flying from New York to South Africa. I thought that it was strange that he would start on the implementation stage of his contract so soon but did not pay much attention. In general I was not thinking that much about him but did provide very short responses to his very long messages. The emails became more and more "loving" and full of metaphors. I said once that he was poetic but overall was annoyed.

He wrote that he was in Cape Town. He called me from a number that appeared to be South African. He then started calling me from his original American phone number whose area code is 716. I have just checked and the area code belongs to Buffalo, New York.

In one of the conversations I asked him what he was going to do over the weekend and if he was going to do any sightseeing in Cape Town. He said no. I asked why. He said that he was concerned for his safety. I thought that it was strange.

In the meantime, the man named A. whose proposal I did not accept when I was young (and much later regretted it) reached out to me. He is now divorced from the wife he married later and wants us to try being together. I am very enthusiastic about him and I wanted to tell this "Tom" guy that I was no longer available, but by then his emails had become so desperate, with him saying that I was his only reason for existence, that I thought I would wait until he returned from South Africa because I did not want to disappoint him while he was engaged in such an important project.

Before that development, he asked me to accept an envelope with a check on his behalf. A check for that project. I thought that it was strange but I agreed nonetheless and gave him my address. I live in a complex and my address includes a unit number.

He sent me the tracking number for the envelope. I looked once and saw that the envelope was somewhere in Texas, in transit. I did not look again.

Then he called and said that the envelope, per tracking, had been delivered to my mailbox, but it was not there. I said that tracking sometimes shows stuff as delivered 1-2 days before the actual delivery and that he should not worry. However, he sounded worried and agitated. He then asked me if I had checked whether my address was correct. I said no. He then read out my address and the unit number had two digits with changed places, meaning, if my unit is 21, he read 12. He told me that that was how I wrote the mailing address. I thought that it was strange that I would make such a mistake, but did not pay too much attention. I searched in our SMS convo and did not see the address at all. He said it is OK and to go to unit 12 in the morning and the envelope would be there. However, I was concerned that at unit 12 they had already opened their mailbox and discarded the envelope addressed not to them. "Tom" wrote to me that the check was for $875,000. I did not sleep well that night because I thought that for me it was all fun but for this man it was real and I faulted myself for allowing this to happen in the first place. I also faulted Tom for not telling me the amount as I would not have agreed to receive the check had I known it is for such a huge sum. In the morning I went to unit 12. There was a young gentleman there who had not looked at his mail yet. We agreed that he would later and that I would check back after work. I was relieved. I called "Tom" who seemed not to comprehend what I was saying, as if he could not understand. He was agitated. Ultimately I said "As I have explained two times already, the young gentleman who lives in 12 has not checked the mail yet".

He also told me that his agent was looking for some materials to ship to him to South Africa and could not find them and that he would ask me to check it out for him at my local Walmart or Best Buy. I did not sound enthusiastic and did not commit to doing it for him.

Later after work the young gentleman who lives in unit 12 and I went to the mailboxes together and he got an envelope addressed to me. I was relieved. I called "Tom". He asked me to open the envelope. I did. There was a check written to F.B.Construction Company in the amount of $875.000. The check was not accompanied by any kind of invoice or other documentation. I thought that it was strange. "Tom" asked me to take a picture of the check and send to him via an SMS. I did.

Later he said that he would be coming back to California on one of the two adjacent days he mentioned and asked me to pick him up at the airport. I said right away that I would not be picking him up at the airport and that he should go to his home upon arrival. He said OK.

I was looking forward to his arrival to tell him that I was not available. By then his emails appeared completely delusional to me as if he was living in a fantasy land. He wrote about me getting married to him in church and stuff. I did once try to take him back to reality and explained that he had not even met me but that did not deter him. Emails continued, I was annoyed by their length and what became boring and repetitive "poetic" stuff (although the actual sentences weren't repetitive, the ideas were: how he would love me till he dies). In the last emails he wrote of MY love for him. I planned to tell him, when he got back to California, that he allowed himself to get carried away by fantasy. I even talked to my psychiatrist/therapist about it, calling "Tom" crazy and the psychiatrist asked in what sense I meant it. I also shared that I did not feel guilty and my psychiatrist confirmed that I did nothing wrong.

Next day "Tom" called and started an incoherent train of thought about his "agent" who could not arrange for some stuff to be shipped to South Africa for the project. The project, per "Tom", involved building multiple apartment buildings and employed more than 100 workers hired in South Africa, plus a site supervisor and a foreman who flew from the States. I could not believe that for such a big project things would not be all procured in advance. It sounded too strange. And once I realized that he was asking me to spend money, I instantly became very business-like and said that if he wanted me to spend money, he should first get that money to me and that I accept Zelle, Venmo and PayPal. He said that he did not use any of those and had a bank in London and could wire money to me but it would take several days unless I had a business account. I said that I had a personal account with Wells Fargo. He asked me why I did not have a business account, sounding very discouraged. I said that I had had a personal account for well over 20 years and never had felt a need for a business account. He said for to a business account he could wire money very fast. I said once again that I only had a personal account. It sounded exceedingly strange that somebody who has, as he claimed, lived in California for three years would not use Paypal, Venmo or Zelle. He once again started saying that he needed stuff urgently. I said flat out that I would not be spending any money unless he first transmits it to me and that it was his problem. He sounded extremely discouraged and surprised on the phone.

I forgot to mention but he said that he was from Geneva and given his accent that part was believable. He also wrote in his first email that three years ago his wife passed away due to cancer which was very stressful and that he has a 20 year old daughter who goes to school in Geneva. He later referred to her alternatively as Sallie and Sherry. It sounded strange that she would have two names that are both American. There were other things that sounded strange but I was not paying much attention.

After I flat out refused to spend money, he said "OK, we will talk later normally". But I got suspicious (I know, when you read it you wonder why it took me so long to become suspicious). I did a google search for F.B. I found a LinkedIn profile where he claims that he is the CEO at Construction, does not have a picture and has zero connections, zero past experiences and zero posts. I also found a website "F.B. Construction" that appeared to be made in haste with very little content and questionable content at that. I checked when Google first indexed that website: less than a month ago.

I then texted him "how come you have zero connections at LinkedIn and your website was first indexed by Google less than a month ago"?

He texted back: "Are u here for question and answer all in the name of favour

Wow"

I finally realized that it was a scam and texted "please stop writing to me"

He then texted "And plz I will send u an address to send me check too plz"

I was furious that I allowed him to waste my time like that and wanted to report him to the dating site. So I actually wanted that address because I thought it would help identify him. I checked on the dating site and his name did not appear in my convos as he must have deleted his profile. The dating site is paid so he at some point paid money to be there. I wrote to the dating site about the scam but they could not locate his info.

In the meantime, I texted him "What is the address? Let me know". I did that because I was curious if there is a real address behind all this and was hoping that if there is, I would report him to the police department that serves that address.

He texted back "Okay I will confirm it tomorrow plz".

I waited a couple of days and nothing came from him. In the meantime, I searched in my email and found the message in which I gave him my address. I gave it to him correctly. So this whole deal with sending the envelope to another unit was his invention and wonder why that was necessary: was the intent of the scam to make me worried (that was successfully achieved) in the hopes that I would be willing to spend money then? So that part of my idle curiosity remains unsatisfied.

I have not heard from him since. I sent one reminder but that was it.

I then went over my recollections of those emails which I did not quite read but rather scanned because they were annoyingly long and realized that some stuff there was so strange that I should have been on notice much earlier. For example, there was a lot of stuff about his thoughts on relationships but if indeed it was only three years ago that he lost his wife after a 30 year long marriage, then he did not have that much time to ponder what relationships meant to him. That from a marriage that lasted 30 years and ended in death 3 years ago he has a child who is only 20 years old was strange, too. He also, in his emails, thanked me profusely for my emails to him, but my emails to him were super short, basically acknowledgements that I received his emails.

I did online searches, discovered that this is called a "romance scam", that such people never meet in person, that it is common for them to claim that they are in the construction industry and work outside of the US, and that an average loss of money on such a scam is over $4K. There is a way to report them to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Now that I have written it here, this post will become the canvas for my report to the FTC.

What else can I do? Should I post about him on the web, meaning create some simple Google site and post screenshots of his LinkedIn profile and website and dump all his emails to me? On the one hand I want to warn other women about him, so that the site would come to google searches for "F.B.", but on the other hand I am thinking that for each woman he invents a different "name", creates a different empty LinkedIn profile and a different website. So I do not know if exposing him as F.B. online would be of any use to other women and I do not want to spend my time if it won't be an effective way to expose him.

I can see how a woman who is desperate can fall for something like this. I can also see how a woman who is even less suspicious than I am simply would not check on Google or would not be sophisticated enough to realize that a LinkedIn profile with zero connections is fake. I can see how an unsophisticated woman would not know how to check when Google first indexed a website. So out of concern for such desperate and unsophisticated women out there I want to do something to expose him, but I do not know what to do. Maybe there are websites I am unaware of that talk about exposing romance scammers?

I am also simply curious what this was all about. I could understand if he wanted me to wire him money, but he seemed to want me to spend my money on some stuff that was needed in South Africa and for some strange reason had to be shipped from California. It is all so strange and I do not see how he would have benefited. I also do not see how he could entertain the hope that I would fall for such a scam since by then he had already heard from me that I would not be picking him up from the airport, received my email in which I told him that we had not even met, and there were no signs of enthusiasm coming from me. Why did I appear so gullible to him despite that lack of enthusiasm? Puzzling.

ETA: the check is a printed company check, not a handwritten check. I checked on Google and the company is real and does exist in Dallas, TX. The address on the Priority Mail envelope in which the check arrived is real, too, but is not the address of that company. It is the address of another entity, which, per Google search, is legitimate, too.