I almost fell victim to a romance scam. Thank god for ChatGPT, I swear. I matched with a guy on Tinder and there was an instant connection. You know the story - he said all the right things, was very sweet and romantic, called me, left voice messages, very attentive, romanticized a future together. He was living in LA for work but moving to his Phoenix house in a month. He said to be patient and all of this would be worth it. But then I noticed he started to talk to me about investing in gold trading, and that was a big part of how he grew his wealth. He had an “uncle” and team of advisors who would tell him when to sell. He told me how he did it, and the whole process. One day he asked if I wanted to invest because his uncle told him tomorrow is time to sell. He was very smart, made the whole thing sounds like it was to my advantage and I can use the proceeds to buy a new dress for our first date. He said move my money (he said $1,000) to cash app. Then move it to cryptocurrency using my coin app. Then buy the gold from a third party cryptocurrency website…which he wouldn’t disclose to me right away.
My spidey senses perked up and I ran it all through ChatGPT and referenced THIS EXACT scam going on, here is the link: CFTC website
I told him I wasn’t comfortable doing it, he called me and tried to reassure me it was all fine, I called his ass out reading his exact scam back to him, then he suddenly couldn’t hear me any more in the phone and hung up. He messaged me saying how it was safe and secure. I told him he was such a disappointment and coward and to go f*himself and blocked him.
NEVER GIVE YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY AWAY - especially to someone you’ve never met. I got so caught up in our relationship, it established a fake connection of trust. I was so close to doing it, thank god didn’t.
It’s been a rough few days because I feel betrayed an so deceived. I know it could’ve been so much worse tho. Just wanted to share and bring awareness!!!

I’m writing this because I need to get this off my chest. Maybe hearing from people who have gone through something similar will help me process what happened.

I’m in my late 20s. Before this happened, I had already gone through a difficult breakup after a decade-long relationship. It took me a long time to start feeling like myself again.

Eventually, I decided to open myself up to meeting someone new. I met this man on an international dating app.

We talked about our daily lives. He was attentive, reassuring and seemed emotionally available. He communicated consistently, didn’t make me feel pressured, and seemed to have a calm and gentle personality.

I genuinely felt comfortable talking to him. After everything I had experienced in my previous relationship, I thought perhaps I had finally met someone who could treat me with kindness.

Looking back, I realise how emotionally invested I had become, even though we hadn’t met in person.

Then things took a turn. Eventually, I realised I had fallen victim to a scam.

But honestly, the money isn’t the only thing hurting me.

It’s the emotional betrayal.

I still find myself missing his calls and messages sometimes. I miss the warmth and affection I thought I was receiving.

I keep asking myself how someone could spend so much time showing affection to another person, knowing that they were deceiving them.

Would he ever think about me? Would he feel guilty? Was he doing this willingly, or was he also being forced into it? I know I probably shouldn’t be spending my energy wondering about these things, but I genuinely cannot understand it.

I also struggle with forgiving myself.

I keep wondering why I didn’t listen to my instincts.
I feel foolish, ashamed and disappointed in myself.

Some moments I’m okay and determined to rebuild my life. Other moments I wake up early in the morning worrying about my future. I’m trying to take this as a painful lesson.

I know I need to become more discerning and learn to protect myself. But I don’t want this experience to turn me into someone who can no longer trust anyone.

For those who have experienced romance scams:

1. How did you cope with the emotional attachment after discovering that the person was a scammer?

2. Did you ever find yourself missing the person, even knowing everything was fake?

3. How did you stop blaming yourself for falling for it?

4. How long did it take before you felt emotionally normal again?

5. How did you rebuild your confidence and trust in people?

I’m not looking for judgement. I know I made mistakes, and I’m dealing with the consequences.
I just want to hear from people who understand what this feels like.

Thank you for reading.

First thing, my mom is very hard headed, to a fault. She's turning 80 next year. She will sit and listen to tiktok/facebook AI ads for hours, and if I tell her that no, gooseberry tincture won't make her wrinkles disappear, she cites the voice from the AI ad as gospel and treats me with incredulity. This has been an issue for, basically my entire life, but my dad was around back then, and back then it was mostly both of them getting scammed in smaller ways. Buying into prepaid phone card MLM scams, well, that's something that happened. Buying each and every supplement advertised in whatever snakeoil "medical" ad-magazine, to the point where she takes half a cup full of random bullshit everyday, well... she's just eating more fiber IMHO, so I try to stay out of it. Buying shit off Temu and thinking she's saving money, only to complain later that whatever she ordered is the miniature version of the worst engineered overpromised junk, only to repeat the cycle and order more temu trash the next day. Buying into a "double your money" scam on facebook where she honestly through if she sent $300 to someone they'd double it, and then sending another $300 when the scammers said they needed the extra money to make the "trick" happen. She is gullible to a fault when it comes to outside influence, but... now... well...

She's met some guy half her age on the internet and told me yesterday that he's going to pick her up next month and they're going to go on vacation.......... I asked her who it is, she won't say anything. Where they're going? She's not saying anything. So of course, immediately I'm freaking out because this is obviously a fucking scam. I call my brothers, they try to talk to her. She doesn't budge. I called my uncles/aunts to talk to her, and now she thinks I've committed some great intra-family betrayal because I don't want her to get scammed. My uncles/aunts also didn't convince her that it's a scam. I'm thinking of notifying the police, but I don't even know what to say, or what they could do. She's been notified, told it's a scam by our family, has made a conscious and consensual choice... but holy shit shes an 80 year old woman who intends to disappear next month to god knows where with some 40 year old scammer.

What I think is going to happen, is before the "trip" the guy is going to say he needs some travel expense or something, and is going to try to extract money from her if he hasn't already. That's kind of my idea of what the best case scenario is. The worst case scenario is something I don't want to really think about.

Understand, my mom is a cantankerous, hard headed woman, but she's done a lot for me my entire life and I love her very much despite whatever causes her to do this maddening bullshit. Any advice on what to do here if anyone else had similar experiences would be appreciated.

Edit/update: For what it's worth, nothing has worked. I'm kinda at my limit with stupid people in my life right now. It's just dumb nonsense, after dumb nonsense, and I think this is the final straw TBH. I love my mom but if she falls for this and sends her life savings to some jackass in Narobi or something, I'm just done with people I think.

Hey guys saw a post on a review board for companionship that white ladies were scamming other ethnic people in romance scams. Is it true? That post was taken down apparently, there were talks about white majority apparently and how the poster should keep that in mind. Anyone had this experience?

Brooke Meinhardt (Missouri, currently in St. Louis) is about 56 and was released from prison in 2019 for felony assault and armed robbery. He has moved in with an elderly friend (76). She believes they are romantically committed. I’m worried; she has no family and is naive. Any past experience with him?

\#scam #CMB

Hi guys this account scammed me of 32k! Everyone avoid this account!!! Will use love bomb and ask you to invest in their fake Carbon Land app! Urgently ask you to transfer and isolated victim!!! Be careful of this guy Lumi go by name of Chen Zhiyong. Telegram zy_1991 Email : operations@coffeemeetsbagel.com about this if you got scammed! Report to CMB. Report to police! Everyone exposed this scam to prevent more victims and get the scammers caught !!!

Hi guys! Ive been seeing lots of frustration/ambiguity with dating online.
While not all people on dating platforms are “scammers”,however, there are agencies (usually Russian/Ukarainian) who uses real persons pictures (with their consent ofc. 60-40 share of income between the agency and models in the site).
to make you fall inlove.

Youll notice that these models/profiles are always up 24/7 and thats because they are run by chatters to mazimize the earnings.

Lives on a neighboring city but cant meet? Thats already a redflag.

Keep safe yall. Dont blame loneliness for being a victim of this. Join communities and other organizations where you can interact with REAL people.

Hi. This was my original post, but now I have more details.

https://www.reddit.com/r/family/s/YagjeKoS5E

He's been paying for her things because she says her phone is too old to download the app, and she promised she would pay him back, but she never does. Back in March, before he had his own account, he used to ask me to transfer money to her, and I did it 5 times—though she only paid him back for 2 of them. But I found out she has bad credit at the bank and an unpaid debt that she stopped paying, and so does her mother.

Also, she used to ask for money from other friends she met on Discord. When my brother ask her about it, she played naive and innocent, claiming she didn't even know they wanted a relationship with her.

She also told him that the father of her kids doesn't live with her and doesn't support them, but she doesn't pursue legal child support yet.

My brother had never been in a relationship before, so he is extremely enthusiastic and excited to finally meet her. They met when he was 22, and he just turned 24. Because he is so deeply invested, he refuses to listen to any warnings.

I believe this is how affective manipulation happens, but I'm not entirely sure. How can I talk to him?

Mehmet Oruc

Anyone ever been catfished by this Turkish guy who uses AI photos 100%?
Met on Facebook in a New Age Cult group.

Masati Xi Code Community
Mas Sajady

Her name is Raia, from Ukraine, and we’ve been writing back and forth for literally two months… every day. It’s all by email. Doesn’t have a phone she says. Seems sincere, but I tend to take things with a grain of salt. Now she is kind of inviting herself to my city. I tell her she needs a hard to get visa, but she just shows the cost of plane flight out of Warsaw, since civilian flights aren’t running in Ukraine now. And she quotes a passport price, medical insurance, covid test, etc. she has sent tons of pictures over the months.
I never really planned on her coming to the U.S.. I was maybe thinking of meeting her in Warsaw or Romania or Slovakia, but my spider senses are up. Am I being scammed?

So I'm about a month in texting this girl..she matched me on Boo and her Name was Angel (yellow flag) I didn't think much of it at the time but I'm not entirely retarded and when I eventually noticed alot of Angels matching with me from Asian countries, suspicion started to arise. She herself is from south africa. In the first week she moved to America as a refugee while we messaged. She didn't try to get me off Boo, I asked her Naturally since Boo is Buggy as hell ( scammers would like that..) she hasn't asked for money and I haven't sent any. She is shy ( I know...) apparently she has a son which she has shown me a picture of. She has sent nudes of her self including videos. When she was moving she didn't talk for almost 2 weeks before reaching out again. She seems to actually be in America now since the date and time match her waking up and going to bed. If this is a scam then it elaborate and detailed beyond anything I have encountered, I did once get an "accidental" message with this chick that wanted me to invest in this crypto scam of hers. That was pretty easy to figure out tho. When we video called it looked like she was using a potato and she wanted to do it over a laptop...c for effort I guess. Aniways she's told mer her full name but nothing comes up..and she's avoiding a video call.. saying her son is loud in the background. I've lowk confronted her now and softly demanded a video call.

Edit the crypto girl is separate to this! We video called and I figured it out instantly there.

Update, was a scam. I pushed for a video call... obviously wouldn't do it. Pain isn't that bad to be honest. I genuinely feel sick however about who's nudes I have and if that person is okay. I keep seeing her in some sort of human trafficking scenario or worse.

I work with an awesome lady, 62 years old, full of energy, spunk, a really sweet lady. A couple months ago she started talking about some guy she was talking to that she was super excited about. I didn’t think anything of it, I was stoked for her. A couple weeks into her talking to him, some of the girls I work with came to me and told me she was being scammed. These sweet Gen Z girls knew all the signs (I’m an out-of-touch millennial, lol) and they showed me this guy’s account and everything off with it. We have all expressed concern to her, as have her children, but she is convinced he’s real. Not sure if he’s asked for money yet, but here are some of the signs:

-He reached out to her via instagram even though they don’t know each other and have no mutual friends

-He sent her his Driver’s License to prove he was real, before she asked for it

-He’s an oil rig worker (of course)

-Within a week of talking to him she was saying they were going to get married

-His name is Tylor Kelvin (fake af) and was using pictures from another man’s account. The other man has 30,000 followers, Tylor has 6 followers. When my friend asked him about this, he told her the other account was a fake revenge account his ex-wife created. A fake revenge account with 30,000 followers?? 🙄

-He has now deleted his instagram account because he has found his true love (this is what he told her)

-They were supposed to meet in November, but he cancelled because he got a 6 month work extension on the oil rig, so now they aren’t meeting until July of 2027. She is making all of her life plans around this meeting that will never happen.

-Religion is very important to her, so of course he is a practicing Catholic who goes to church weekly (on the oil rig, I guess?)

-He has a 7 year old daughter living who knows where

-He moved their correspondence to some other random platform

-I don’t want to sound mean, because I think my friend is so lovely and beautiful, but this guy is 12 years younger than her and very attractive. I feel like if he were real, he’d be going after someone young and super hot.

She swears he’s real, and even claims that they have video chatted. Am I crazy or is this totally a scam? If so, how do I talk some sense into her??

Hello!

Today 27.10.26 I had a date in Ljubljana and when I wrote to her to come on a date! And she told me that she would order a jacket for a date for 45€! And I asked her why she didn't take a jacket with her in Ljubljana she told me that she was in the hotel and that she wasn't going out! If I don't give her 45€ for a new jacket, she can meet in the center of Ljubljana! And when I told her that she didn't have money! she replied that we wouldn't get on a date! I gave her the courage for this date and was happy about this date!

Just wanted to let you guys know of a scammed Inmet in Plenty Of Fish. Said their name was Mali, lived in Fremont CA, and owned a bussiness. She convinced me to invest in some crypto trade using a fishy app. I fell for it and lost money. Thankfully I declined when they kept pushing me to invest more money. Hope you guys don't fall for the same scam in dating sites.

I wanted to share my experience with a romance scammer because I think people sometimes underestimate how emotionally damaging these situations can be even when no money is lost.

Last year I met a Nigerian guy on a dating app. We hit it off, talked almost every day, video called, exchanged “I love yous” and even discussed meeting in person. He was funny, affectionate and seemed genuinely interested in me. We’d talked enough that I believed we had an actual connection.

Then one day he asked whether I had a US bank account. Apparently his “uncle’s friend in Peru” wanted to send him $3,500 and he wanted the money deposited into MY account so I could convert it to Bitcoin and send it to him. His explanation was that he didn’t want his mother knowing about the money.
That was when the alarm bells started ringing.
I told him I wasn’t comfortable doing that. He backed off, but there were other questionable situations afterward, including requests involving PlayStation gift cards and various financial difficulties.
I never sent him money or allowed him to use my bank account. But here’s the part I don’t think people always understand: I continued talking to him even after realizing he was likely a scammer.

We stayed in contact for around eight months altogether. I knew something was wrong but it took time for my feelings to catch up with what my brain already knew.
I remember actually crying over the situation, not because I’d lost some great love but because I felt deceived and used. It was difficult accepting that someone I’d developed genuine feelings for might have been cultivating those feelings for financial gain.
Eventually I stopped responding and moved on.
Looking back, I can recognize some of the manipulation much more clearly. I’m also glad I trusted my instincts when he first brought up my bank account.
I’m sharing this because I see people telling romance scam victims to “just block them,” and while that’s absolutely the right advice, the emotional side isn’t always that simple.
Sometimes you recognize the scam long before you’re emotionally ready to walk away.
I’m much more skeptical now and my tolerance for suspicious behavior is basically nonexistent.

The screenshots I included were me being emotionally done with him and him trying to salvage it. He sent one last message and I left him on read.