A romance scammer: what do I do to warn others?

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.

PS When I think back to how in the beginning he was talking about hating infidelity and dishonesty, now that I know that he was a scammer, it does all appear so ironic. Laughable. But there must be women who fall for this stuff because otherwise why would he be spending time trying?

There certainly are women who get taken in by scams. That's why scammers like him do what they do. You trying to expose him is probably not the best use of your time. As you say, he can change his alias. If the FTC is accepting reports of experiences like this, then sending such a report is probably the most helpful thing you can do. Actually, I doubt the FTC will allocate manpower to launch an investigation, unless they can correlate your report with other similar reports.

Your priority is to protect yourself. I think you would be wise to never give your physical address out like that again. The whole experience is not really a waste of your time, if you learned from it. Hopefully, this guy won't show up on your doorstep. That seems not too likely, since he seems to have moved on, once you proved more than once that you were unwilling to comply with his directives.

There's been shows on TV exposing "romance scams." These scams can never be completely stamped out of existence. The main reason people get taken in is not because they are innocent and naive, IMHO. Some lonely people will believe a scammer because they are wanting what they are told to be true. People can be very complicit in their own victimization. Some folks actually adhere to the notion that, "I believe in accepting others at face value, until they give me a reason to distrust them." (I suspect that women are especially prone to that.) That's backwards thinking, IMO.

As soon as there is any conversation about money it’s a red flag you are being scammed.

This type of scam where you are asked to hold a check is a very common scam.

He wont use the same name, will keep changing it for every scam, all you can do is report him

Thank you. @Rose76, FTC does not launch an investigation: they share the report with law enforcement agencies nationwide. ReportFraud.ftc.gov. I am thinking that by including the information about the company that wrote the check (which exists in Dallas, unlike F.B. Construction which does not exist), I will provide the law enforcement in Dallas with something tangible. Beyond that, I do see that there is very little I can do. I won't waste time creating a website to expose him.

Yes, there have been learnings on my end: I will not give out my physical address like this. The thing is, shortly before this happened, I had had a good experience with a man off that same dating site to whom I gave my address and he picked me up and we went to the San Francisco Ballet together (it was his first time seeing a ballet). It was clearly a dead end in terms of a relationship, but he was pleasant and appreciative and clearly real. So the learnings for me: if you are going to a ballet together (and he Zelled me money so that I would buy his ticket), it is one thing. If it is a weirdo whom I have never seen and he asks to accept a check, it is another thing. Draw the line.

Open Eyes, after reading your post, I did a Google search for what you wrote: "This type of scam where you are asked to hold a check is a very common scam." Remarkably, the search took me to the website of Texas Attorney General and they accept reports of scammers:

Common Scams | Office of the Attorney General.

Since the company that wrote the check is in Dallas, I will file a report with the Texas Attorney General, in addition to the report to the FTC. This will give me some satisfaction that I acted on it. And then it will be time to move on. I agree with @Rose76 that there is no reason for F.B. to show up on my doorstep: I am no longer of interest to him.

This Tom doesn’t exist. The thing is that these people don’t work alone. It’s a big chain of international scammers and they take turns writing their emails.

He’s (or rather they as he doesn’t operate alone) likely isn’t and hasn’t ever lived in the US. The phone numbers they use are typically google numbers or someone’s cell number that immediately get deleted. Their accents they always claim to be from Germany or Switzerland because it sounds less alarming than from one of the countries where many scammers usually operate from. And they always have an accent. They always lost wives to cancer and have one child etc

There is a website where you can post your story to warn others (I have to look for it I forgot the name). .

Oh also pictures they use are stolen of innocent peoples face book and other platform. Those people are also scam victims.

Romance scams should be reported to police and FBI. They’ll take the report if you lost any money. If you didn’t lose any money, they might not bother but it’s worth to try. In the entire history of scamming international scammers were caught once in Australia. They are sadly impossible to catch because it’s a chain. Not a person

I'll state the obvious and what has already been said here.... when money is mentioned, get out of Dodge! They're grooming whomever to see how gullible they are and to see just how much they can take someone to the cleaners.

You've had one very lucky escape!

My friend's recent experience is tame compared with this. Just shows you how far people will go to deceive.

You never know, the Texas Attorney General may yet deliver some results. You've certainly issued a warning to everyone on this site. However, taking to social media could be dangerous. Be careful!

Creating website or posting about HIM or exposing him will not achieve anything because HE does not exist. Also the reason they can’t keep names straight Shelly Sally Tom etc because they interchangeably send so many emails to so many people taking turns that they can’t possibly remember who is who. They also have to act fast. If they didn’t get stuff from you fast their emails will become sloppy in a hurry.

These scam chains do pay for dating profiles and then immediately take them down as soon as they find new victim.

Reporting it to dating sites will not do anything because again this person doesn’t exist. It’s the entire crime network and they do not operate in the US or from the US

The US Postal Inspection Service is also cracking down on romance scams. More info here: Romance Scams - Online & Offline Dating | USPIS

Indeed in the first email he sent me he included two pictures of a very innocent looking, engaging and endearing man. I have used reverse image search on Google with these images but found nothing. The photos were probably taken from some unsuspecting victim"s social media profile.

Divine, thank you for the most thorough answer. I will report to the local police and the FBI, too.

What is this about? It's about money. Only money.

As was said prior, this person is not real. I wouldn't waste a whole lot of energy trying to "warn others" because the person you are warning them about doesn't exist and will use a different name and picture.

I think warming others to be careful and protect yourself against scammers is very valuable. Warning them about this particular person is pointless because this person doesn’t exist. But I think warning people by describing patterns of what scammers say and how they sound is valuable too.

Yes, had I known in advance about this pattern with people who say they are from Germany or Switzerland, I would have spotted the scam much earlier.

I went back to his emails and yes of course, I had reasons to suspect that something was seriously odd earlier. When he "arrived" at South Africa, his luggage was lost and it is was his camera and his work macbook. I thought it was weird that he would put this stuff in luggage and not in a backpack he took as a carry-on, but it was not an immediate red flag for me as it should have been. Later his luggage was "found" but it was "vandalized" and most stuff missing. And this is how he initially got my postal address:

"It’s pretty sad at this point because the bag missing contained a whole lot of important stuff amongst which are some documents, My MacBook for my work, Camera and of course a beautiful postcard I got for you to be sent when I get here."

so he wanted to send me a postcard and I gave him the address. The "please receive and hold the check for me" came later. So in hindsight I was very gullible and had I known in advance about this scam pattern, I would not have wasted time and become worried for real when his check was sent to a wrong unit number. I still do not know why this scam pattern necessitated sending the check to a wrong address: was it just to make me worried? But at any rate, spotting the pattern would have helped me.

You "overlooking" his long boring emails is another pattern they identify potential victims by - they are looking for people too polite or apathetic or not assertive enough about poor English or poor manners.

They prey on vulnerable women who are either just out of relationships or just lost loved ones to death or are under enormous stress for any other reasons and aren’t fully with it, so to speak.

People in a vulnerable state would behave in a way that they’d never behave under normal circumstances.

Scammers aren’t looking for people of particular character or quality, they look for people in a vulnerable state. That’s why it’s recommended to never date right after death in a family, especially after long suffering, on rebound, recent widowhood, divorce, major illness etc don’t date when in a vulnerable state.

That’s why romance scammers are scum of the Earth and are despicable creatures.

I am unclear why he chose me. On my dating site profile I spoke of having many friends. I did not give off signals of loneliness. Maybe this network of scammers tries with a large number of women and even if a small percentage of that wide cast net falls prey, it is more than enough to justify their expense of time and money.

Another weird thing was that he told me he speaks Romansh language. I had not heard of such before. I looked it up. I asked him what other languages he spoke. He said just Romansh and English. I found it weird that he would not also speak French and German but only Romansh. Right now I am in this state when things that were weird to me but that I overlooked pop up in my mind and I realize that the totality of that weirdness should have been a clue before he started talking about money.

Next weekend I plan to write a report and submit it. On this thread, we have accumulated many avenues for reporting this network:

The police
FBI
USPS
FTC
Texas Attorney General

Hopefully out of all of the above, someone will pay attention, even though I did not lose any money to this scam.