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Romance Scam

Please report romance scams and dating scams here. We accept reports on Russian scammers and Nigerian scammers.

Disclaimer regarding pictures posted on the board: please understand that you are NOT looking at the pictures of people who are actually scamming you. The people portrayed on these photos are innocent men and women, NOT involved in scamming in any way and have nothing to do with scammers. The scammers are using their images without their knowledge or permission to deceive their victims and steal their money.




Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Emotional Support, Compassionate Friends
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Wingman182
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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Postby Wingman182 » Thu Apr 07, 2016 5:46 pm

Of course you miss him ladibyrd, or rather the him you thought was real. You had hopes for the future and planned for a life with this person. And now that is all gone. It also doesn't help that he had been with you between the times you were in contact with each other. When you went about your day to day routine you were also thinking about him. If you went to the movies you were wishing his was there. If you saw a beautiful sun set you were imagining how wonderful it will be when you can share these moments with him. It's okay, we all did it. After all it's just human nature to think of these things. Unfortunately it also tightens the grip the scammer has on us as well.
But you need to break off any and ALL contact you are having with this scammer. Maybe it will help if you think of this as an addiction. Because in a very real sense that is exactly what it is.
Scammers get under our skin and into our blood. They make us feel wonderful like we had never felt before. And when we are away from it we start to feel bad so we keep going back for more. And when we fine out the truth and that it's best for us not to have it any more it hurts like hell and we go through our own form of withdraws.
And just like any other type of addict in order to make a clean break of it you have to break it off clean. So regardless of how much you miss him or how tempted you are to send another text you MUST STOP for you own good. Your road to healing is already going to have it's fair share of bumps in the road. Maintaining even just the slightest bit of contact with a scammer is only adding more speed bumps in your way that you do not need.
So either block his number or change your number and delete his from your phones index.
It truly is the only way to help you move forward. We can't do this for you, so you need to be strong and do this for yourself.

And I wouldn't worry about running into his profile if I were you. If you had reported everything about this scammer he has more then likely had to close down his old profile and had to start a new one from scratch.
And as for his anger is concerned. Well if everything about this person you thought was real turned out to be completely fake, Wouldn't that mean his anger was fake too.
And it was. Using false anger is just another tool they use to manipulate with.
But in the mean time learn everything you can here before you try looking for someone new online. Once you are equipped with the right tools and knowledge of your own you will be able to surf the internet with a higher degree of safety.
But for right now ladibyrd lets just help you back on your feet first.
What do you say ?
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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

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mysterylady
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facing pain with strength

Postby mysterylady » Thu May 19, 2016 2:39 am

victims of scams have memories that may cause anger or sorrow. However, if we victims try and move forward and not let the past change our outlook on life, we are the victors not the victims. Over time you will let go of the anger and come to the conclusion that the person you were dealing with was not who you thought he or she was. Remember you are not alone .

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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Postby JulieNP » Mon May 23, 2016 8:37 pm

Mysterylady - I think it is also important for us as survivors of scammers to remember that we did the right thing - we tried to help another human being in need even if the individual was reaching out for the wrong reasons! Our take away is that we are decent, loving individuals who will always be willing to help someone in need - but because of our experience we will be just a bit more cautious before we open our hearts and wallets!.

Julie

ladibyrd
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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Postby ladibyrd » Tue Jun 07, 2016 7:41 pm

That is exactly what I did. The man that was/ is scamming said to me " Please give me the benefit of the doubt". That phrase touched my heart and that is what I did. I helped someone whom I didn't know, but helped anyway, because I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I have always considered myself to be kind and loving. I will do anything for those that I love. That is not a 'fault' or negative but a positive.
thanks again for being here folks.

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thewillow
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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Postby thewillow » Sun Jun 19, 2016 11:47 am

Hi--trying to heal. I typed in his name in spokeo. Do not have the money to join to search him, as I gave it to him. Of course like others, I am so in love with him. He's gorgeous and it's really him. Can scammers also work alone?

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minerva
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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Postby minerva » Sun Jun 19, 2016 11:54 am

Mostly they work in a group only few work alone. could you please posted all the detail of your scammer please ? such as his email ID, skype ID, phone number, pics, email texts with money request, etc and Welcome to RS :)
to help you how to post and other read the FAQ viewtopic.php?f=74&t=83893

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thewillow
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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Postby thewillow » Sun Jun 19, 2016 4:41 pm

Hope I post all the info where it's supposed to be would like it where my email is Scammer alone or Alone Scammer.

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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Postby FrumpyBB » Sun Jun 19, 2016 6:59 pm

Thank you, it´s all well organized now, for others to find :)
Please try your best to block ALL your scammer´s still incoming messages and calls!

What is all this? => The FAQ

The scammers vs. Why is "he" still doing it?

Why is alerting the man in the pictures DANGEROUS?

Please click why confronting my scammer is terribly wrong :)

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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Postby AnastasiaLow » Wed Nov 22, 2017 8:11 am

Hello everyone,

Can anyone tell me how to move on? I'm still addicted to the scammer.

He even showed me his "children pictures" and I have managed even talk to one of child whom she called me mommy.

I am still waiting for him every day to what's app me. i believed I fall into category of recovery scam. He showed up when I was being scammed by the first scammer, he convinced me that he will helped me get back money 50x. As he had a friend in FBI doing scam cases. To my stupidity i believed him and Had been paying him every month.

I'm so depressed because of this, I had run up debts everywhere because he been asking for almost most of my pay check every month, stating is FBI legal fees and transfer fee etc.

Apart from money issues, I am addicted to him and I want him to text me every day. We share many secrets too.

My instinct been telling me I can't trust him and I tried to break off with him so many time but I can't.

Please tell me how to survie this..

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Wingman182
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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Postby Wingman182 » Wed Nov 22, 2017 8:29 pm

My heart breaks for you after reading your last post AnastasiaLow.
I remember all too well how bad it hurt in the beginning of my healing. That feeling of emptiness. That hole that was ripped out of my heart. Knowing I was scammed but could not help but still be in love.
This in my opinion is the worst part of becoming a victim of this crime.
Scammers can manage to touch that deepest part of our hearts. Make us fall in love with them.
Then use that love we feel against us.

But how to get past this,,, how do you survive ???
You have to keep reminding yourself each and every day that the person you were talking to, even the children were fakes. That they only pretended to be someone else.
And that the someone else was nothing more then just a beautiful dream. And that was all they ever were or will ever be. Is just a beautiful dream.

Your feeling are yours and they are very real. And if you are like me there will always be a part of you that will not be able to truly forget that beautiful dream.
Why ?
Because when the heart is touched that deeply the heart can never forget,,, not fully anyway.

I can suggest two things that may help.
First keep coming here anytime you need to. Post what ever is troubling you. And we will try our best to help in anyway we can.

The second is try to find some way to say goodbye.
Closure is something that is very hard for us to have because we were not dealing with a real person that we could get angry with, tell off, or simple say goodbye to.

My scam happened mostly on line. We chatted of course. But there were emails, and of course the photos.
Well I had my closure by having a funeral of a sort.
I read each email and look at each photo one last time. Then I deleted them. And to add a final note to it. I went to my recycle bin and emptied that as well.
And all the while doing this in my mind I was laying that beautiful dream down to a final rest place.
It was one of the hardest things I had ever done. At the end I was exhausted, and in tears.
But in the end it was the best thing I could have done for myself. Because after that I was able to truly start my healing. And start the process of putting my life back together again.

If you can find a way to say goodbye. I hope and prey that you will be able to one day say the same.

Your going to get through this AnastasiaLow.
And we are all here to help as best we can.
Because we have all been in that dark place where you are now.
But it's not going to last forever.
I promise.
Wingman182 Pay It Forward

Julia2016
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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Postby Julia2016 » Thu Nov 23, 2017 2:35 pm

AnastasiaLow, my heart also broke when I was reading your post, actually two of them.
I was also scammed, and I perfectly understand – like we all here - how you feel.

I started my healing from reading posts of other victims in “The Healing Process”, “The Victim Support section”, “Hula Girl’s scam diary”. I read them so many times that many of them I knew almost by heart. I did it to understand the whole mechanism - when I know how something works, it is much easier for me to cope with it. You can also check, for instance, the library of fraudaid.com – 12 steps of getting your life back on track. It was hard in the beginning but I set one goal (like to clean one window) to be achieved a day no matter what. Daily physical exercises also helped me a lot. Keeping yourself busy will prevent you from thinking about it – a wound can be healed only if we stop touching it, right? Do your best to put all your heart and mind into even your smallest acts, and each next day will be better.

The sooner you stop waiting for his messages (I think blocking him would be the best solution), the faster you will be healed. The only way to win is not to reply them, to cut them off, and it will also prevent them from scamming you more – they are professionals, and they perfectly know what they do. It is necessary for your healing.

The most difficult part for me was to realize that I was scammed (deep inside I was thinking "what if he is real?"), that the whole relationship was between me and my imagination which the scammer successfully created in my mind, that I was emotionally attached in fact to a fantasy, to separate the image of a real person from the “image” of a scammer, to understand that the person on the photo has no idea that I exist, can be happily married and is not looking for a partner … But I managed and survived. You can also do it, and you will! It is stormy now, but it never rains forever, right?

.. and don’t bother with “many of your friends you lost because of the scam” - you did not lose your friends …. you simply learned who the real ones were …

Take care AnastasiaLow, you will get over it!!

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Wingman182
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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Postby Wingman182 » Fri Nov 24, 2017 3:33 pm

Julia I just have to say that was an excellent post,,,,,,, Bravo !!!!!

And this;
.. and don’t bother with “many of your friends you lost because of the scam” - you did not lose your friends …. you simply learned who the real ones were …
Well said,,,,well said indeed. :applause:
Wingman182 Pay It Forward

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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Postby jennseerattan » Thu Nov 30, 2017 2:16 am

Hi I'm not very certain how to do this properly, I just know that over the last month especially this week, I've been crying myself to sleep. I desperately need to talk to someone I know is real. I've been through major hell and back all my life,10 yrs single, 3 army men just came into my life. I want to report each and everything I know but I also need to know about these 3 honored soldiers whose profile is being used.2 I believe is 1, but 1 is really hurting me. Please help, I beg you.. I can't take it anymore. .JS

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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Postby Igulinka » Thu Nov 30, 2017 2:36 am

jennseerattan

Welcome to RS. We are very sorry to hear about the pain you are going through. Please know it does get better in time. You need to start to put scam beside you but and take a baby steps to recover yourself.

I was also horribly scammed few years ago. I thought I would be insane or not alive anymore and all of it needed a time to put itself back together to the "new normal" . You will be also in better place one day. Take baby steps, one day at the time and I promise you will be healed and happy again.

It is horrible that scammers will go us far as let victims suffer and hurt, but they are nothing but dirty minded sociopaths, West African rats, which would even defraud sick or dying.

Please do not search for photo victims. They are not relevant to the scam. To heal you need to keep occupied with other things and not to think about scammers.

Kindly post those scammers in three separate topics : fake profiles, email addresses, phone numbers, money requests, stolen photos, letters etc.

If you lost money please file reports at institutions where found were transferred from as well as https://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx.

Please don't give up, better days are yet to come. Feel better.
Confronting the scammer is WRONG!!! DON'T enlighten criminals with your wisdom. REPORT & BLOCK.
PHOTO VICTIM - "Do not confront the owner of the pictures, as they are victims themselves! You will only serve to further the terror and harm !" Silence Is Golden!!! I speak Polish.

Julia2016
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Re: Welcome to the Victim Support section.

Postby Julia2016 » Fri Dec 01, 2017 12:22 pm

Jennseerattan, it is horrible what these scumbags have done to you. It looks like as if you have become the victim of a very aggressive gang.

I think that it is very important that you immediately cease any communication with them. By doing so a. you will protect yourself against their further attempts to scam you more, like, for instance, a recovery scam b. from that moment you will start getting your life back on track. Just cut these sadists off!

I was also a victim so I know how you feel and what you are going through now. Reading other sections like „Support”, where other victims shared their stories, helped me a lot to understand and become aware of many things of which at that time I had no idea. Reading these sections will also keep your mind occupied with thoughts other than related to your particular scammers – then, I think, you will be able to sort (almost) everything out and start thinking about how you can get through it. You cannot fix any engine if you don’t know how it works.

The healing process is different for every person. Do whatever you usually do when you are stressed. I personally like a tremendous physical effort to remove all negative energy from my body. Setting, for instance, even the smallest goal to be achieved every day will also help you to get back your peace.

Don’t try to figure out how they can do such things – these parasitic manipulators are not human. The internet is full of the pics of their dumb, thoughtless and sweaty faces. Gosh, and all of them so ugly …. They are dead from the neck upwards. They have no human emotions. Their brains are completely empty. So don’t bother with such thoughts (if you have any) because it would be only a waste of time. You need to protect yourself NOW.

Don’t look for men in the pics either because a. they are not able to do anything about their stolen photos, b. they are victims themselves.

If you feel attached to your scammer, you need to understand that this person does not exist. He is only your fantasy, the product of your imagination which the scammer created in your mind on the basis of what you told him yourself thinking that he was interested - like normal people usually are – in their potential partner, in your dreams and thoughts. All of us remember how the scammer asked us so many questions about what we like and what we don’t to discover („lucky we”) that – in a blink of an eye – he likes and does not like exactly the same things as we do: “wow, we are meant for each other”. The reality is that they don’t care. All they care about is our money. They perfectly know that since we are human, we have human feelings. This was the reason for selling us their sob stories about a wife who died in a car crash or when giving birth to his child or another crap. There were many stories like these, and I am sure that your scammer was selling you the same bullshit. This is how it works – you pour your heart trusting that the person on the other side was genuine, understands you and accepts you as you are to eventually find out that he uses all this information and secrets you told him against you by emotionally blackmailing you – this is their standard: “You have another man you keep me here at the airport, I'm just confuse that you refuse to send your part … maybe I have to kill myself now. Thank you for treating me poorly", or something like this. Sounds familiar?

One of the most difficult effort in our life is removing someone precious from our hearts. But as soon as we realise that this “someone” does not exist, having “him” in our heart becomes pointless. The battle between what we know in our heads and what we feel in our hearts (I think this is the stage you are now) is the hardest but you can win it! I won this battle when I understood the whole mechanism of scamming. If you asked me whether it was worth reading so much about it, I would answer “yes” because now a. I know b. I can look at the pics of “my soldier” with no feelings whatsoever … in fact, now I don’t even like what I see … Unfortunately, we don’t have a delete button to delete what happened to us, but I deeply trust that all the s*** they put us through sooner or later finds its way back to them, and if we are lucky, we will watch Karma at work.

Jennseerattan, you will get over it! Just start ….

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