Just Escaped Romance Scam & Saved $1,500
I just escaped from a online/email romance scam that saved me $1,500! I'm 76 years old. No fool like an old fool, right? Grrrrr. It started on a reputable online senior dating service and quickly moved to private emails. For 10 days, "she" and I exchanged more and more romantic messages and made more and more extravagant plans. In my romantic daze, I ignored several "tells" about the scam. Only when she tried an "emergency" from an alleged foreign country and "ASKed" for $1,500 did all my alarm bells go crazy. And I stopped. The "tells" I ignored during my "haze:" luring me to start with pictures of a normal, age-appropriate woman, switching to private emails quickly, sending increasingly provocative pictures and asking me to send pictures in return, "photos" from Istanbul airport where she said she was traveling on business, pictures of what she claimed to be antiques shops that actually came from a web site for an antiques dealer in southern Virginia, etc. When she "shouted" her emergency and asked for money, I was jolted back to reality. It ended when I asked her three times a very simple question so I could send her money by Western Union: name, address and phone number of her hotel. Three times, she dodged a question she could have answered in less than a minute. I called her bluff and she disappeared. I was very lucky. Today, on other subreddits, I've read stories of people who were blackmailed for $2,000 or scammed for $5,000. As you know, it's a worldwide problem. Btw--a bit of humor-I hope-I didn't send any naked pictures--not my overweight, old body! I have reported this scam to the FTC site. I intend to do more research and I'll share it with you as I go. Thank you for reading