67-Year-Old Male Friend Falling for a 27-Year-Old Female Scammer

Pookie

Pookie

Crazy Cat Lady
Location
Western NC
Long story short, they found each other on a dating website (not sure which one) and she apparently is in Ukraine with the war issue is there, he's sending her money and gave her money to evacuate to UK. She keeps telling him excuses, needs money for the Russians who imprisoned her brother, etc., etc.

He's being taken. I tried to tell him this but he swears they are in love and she will come soon to the US to marry him. He's bought a $7,000.00 engagement ring for her and sent it to her.

This is nuts. What can I and my other friends do to help him? We've told him this is a scam, and all, he refuses to believe us. I don't want him to lose his retirement savings to a scammer. I thought about contacting his son and maybe he can do something.

Has anyone else had this issue with a friend?

Any help or advice would be great.
 

Probably not much you can do for him. Similar incident happened to a friend. He told me he was in love with a Philippine woman he met online. Was set to marry her. Sent her money, Bought rings, got a passport and then covid struck and he couldn't leave here. He took sick and died. Then, his daddy found her on his son's phone and started to communicate with her. Now... he's ready to head overseas and marry. Fortunately, my wife went through the phone and showed him where this woman and some dude in Iran were communicating with each other and wanted to know how big his bank account was. That ended it for him, but, until then, you could not convince him that she wasn't really in love with him.
 

Pookie said:
Long story short, they found each other on a dating website (not sure which one) and she apparently is in Ukraine with the war issue is there, he's sending her money and gave her money to evacuate to UK. She keeps telling him excuses, needs money for the Russians who imprisoned her brother, etc., etc.

He's being taken. I tried to tell him this but he swears they are in love and she will come soon to the US to marry him. He's bought a $7,000.00 engagement ring for her and sent it to her.

This is nuts. What can I and my other friends do to help him? We've told him this is a scam, and all, he refuses to believe us. I don't want him to lose his retirement savings to a scammer. I thought about contacting his son and maybe he can do something.

Has anyone else had this issue with a friend?

Any help or advice would be great.
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You can tell him that Ukrainians don't need financial help to come to the US. They get to come here for free through various emergency refugee programs set up by the US and Ukraine. They don't even have to buy a bus or train ticket. That's a fact.
 
squatting dog said:
Probably not much you can do for him. Similar incident happened to a friend. He told me he was in love with a Philippine woman he met online. Was set to marry her. Sent her money, Bought rings, got a passport and then covid struck and he couldn't leave here. He took sick and died. Then, his daddy found her on his son's phone and started to communicate with her. Now... he's ready to head overseas and marry. Fortunately, my wife went through the phone and showed him where this woman and some dude in Iran were communicating with each other and wanted to know how big his bank account was. That ended it for him, but, until then, you could not convince him that she wasn't really in love with him.
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Ugh, I'm sorry, what a mess. Maybe his son can help. Why do people fall for this?
 
it is a sad situation where lonely people are often taken advantage of .......
if you chat with ANYONE on the internet and they ask or hint for you to send money ....... disconnect and block this person period.
older folks are targets and if your friend has family they need to be informed ASAP. They will never get any money sent back.......so hopefully it is not a lot but it is always More then they will admit too freely.
 
@Pookie

I’ve had this a number of times. Although admittedly it did seem somewhat suspicious to me at the outset. Some of these scammers generally aren’t as clever as they think they are; they can be tripped up, Romance Scammers that is. I kindly asked the person to send me more photos. I then put those photos through Google’s search image function. I discovered that the person sending me photos was taking ‘lifting’ photos from a military forum. The person sending me photos was in reality probably a man, taking photos from the military forum. The actual photos that Google found for me and compared with the ones being sent to me were of a military woman with a different name and different age.

I would say that if you want to help, then stay supportive. Avoid being confrontational & judgmental with him if you can. He might otherwise put the barriers up. And then there is no opportunity to help him

You have told his son. That seems like a good thing. Maybe he can add leverage from a different perspective. Still need to be non-confrontational though.

Possibly suggest that he take some cautious steps for now, such as stop sending more money until he can verify the situation and person. Could it be possible to encourage him to insist on video calls with this person or other forms of direct communication if he has not already done so? But be careful, as from the scammer’s perspective, if he/she has already received money, some of it could be used to pay someone to pretend to be the woman has been communicating with.

I think someone has already mentioned reporting it to law enforcement?

You may only be able to convince him if you can provide concrete evidence that it’s a scam. Hearsay doesn’t usually work when trying to convince someone they are being scammed.

If it’s possible, convince him to check up on things himself, as someone might do if at the start of a genuine romance. Someone who does their own simple research might become more open to the reality of what they are seeing or have discovered.

Maybe discuss these things I've said here with his son too.
 
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He's pretty young to be falling for this. Often it's when the frontal lobe of the brain starts to go that people are more susceptible to these things. But watching that show 90 Day Fiance...Happens to all ages.

I knew a woman who's father in his 80's was sending all his money to his new online friends in Samalia. He was neglecting his elderly wife and the daughter had the mother taken to the hospital and she went to a nursing home. This man was even happy to sign conservatorship for his wife over to the daughter. He was too busy sending all his money away. He drained the savings, sold the car and was riding a bike. The woman said, so far he still had the house. How this ended, I don't know. The woman's mother did pass in the nursing home.

This stuff is no joke.
 
Yes, I had a friend (who lives in this town) who fell in love with a man on line. He needed to borrow some money from her.
Then he said, "I'll pay you back right away! , but the easiest way to send me money is to give me your bank account number and wire it to me
directly. This way I can replace the money in full back into your account the very next day!"
She did that.
Two days later she called her bank to see if the funds were back in her account.
0 ZERO balance in her personal account. He also wiped out her business account. She lost everything.
 
squatting dog said:
Probably not much you can do for him. Similar incident happened to a friend. He told me he was in love with a Philippine woman he met online. Was set to marry her. Sent her money, Bought rings, got a passport and then covid struck and he couldn't leave here. He took sick and died. Then, his daddy found her on his son's phone and started to communicate with her. Now... he's ready to head overseas and marry. Fortunately, my wife went through the phone and showed him where this woman and some dude in Iran were communicating with each other and wanted to know how big his bank account was. That ended it for him, but, until then, you could not convince him that she wasn't really in love with him.
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Questions: How did your wife get access to the Filipino women's phone? Also, how long ago did this happen? You wrote that your friend's father then wanted to marry her? How old was the father?

Re the OP: When people get scammed like this, they are scammed bad! It's like they're hypnotized or something. I saw a similar story where a TV intervention was done. The woman's daughter and SIL had to bail her out because she almost lost her home. She had sent this guy who claimed to be British over $300,000. They loaned her money to keep her from going into foreclosure, plus more I guess. She turned around and sent this guy more money. Every time he promised to come to the U.S. to visit her, an "emergency" came up.

If your friend is not willing to believe he is being scammed, there's not much you can do. I don't know if law enforcement agencies will take a "second hand" report from someone who is not a relative but I guess it couldn't hurt to try.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
Questions: How did your wife get access to the Filipino women's phone? Also, how long ago did this happen? You wrote that your friend's father then wanted to marry her? How old was the father?
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The Filipino woman (if it really was a woman) wasn't all that bright. After a while, they got careless on the phone and unknowingly allowed someone on this end to see other texts they had sent. Neither The old man (70) or his son (40) were smart enough to understand these phones. (that includes me) :) The wife however, was smart enough to go through the phone and see all these other texts. This all happened 2 years ago.
 
Old Fool Quotes By Michael Perkins: You're never too old to make a fool
 


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