Scammers, a real Halloween story

 

I recently read this article:  

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/08/hundreds-thousands-trafficked-work-online-scammers-se-asia-says-un-report

It speaks to something that crossed my mind when I was scammed last year. I do remember thinking, "What if this person is only trying to put food into the mouths of their hungry children?" 

It never occurred to me that they might be being coerced, or tortured, or their families threatened to get the money they got from me, but it makes sense, because even after they knew I had filed a police report and that my account was totally dry, gone, empty, they tried to find a way to keep getting some money from me.

It also makes sense of all the fake Instagram people reaching out trying to pass themselves off as other people.

I was cruelly scammed. My heart was broken by the fake love affair, but if it had been real it would have been the greatest love affair of my entire life. 

This person fed all my dreams. He sent me flowers and center pieces at Christmas. He sent truffles and a teddy bear. He spent hours telling me sweet things and making me feel good about myself. I have a note he wrote telling me why we belonged together. He made the house "we were buying" so real that I can walk through it in my mind today. He was an incredible dream weaver. I had thousands of texts from him, all of them intelligent, thoughtful and kind. Some of them did seem desperate enough for money that I occasionally had doubts even in the middle of it all, but those were always explained away.

I do feel betrayed and used. I feel embarrassed and shamed. I have had to go back to work in my seventies to make ends meet, but I still would not want to think of this person being forced to do it all under fear for himself or his family. 

I still think of him when I wake at four in the morning and remember those simple but sweet conversations. How they could have been so fake and yet so perfect I will never know.