Multinational Crisis Part 2: The Scammer

Let’s go into the wild, where we don’t know what lurks in dark corners. Swamps, quicksand, and creatures waiting to devour you await. They will hunt you, subdue you, and then ravage you. Sounds fun, right? Didn’t think so.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you read any of this series, part two is the one you should read. The internet. What can I say about the behemoth we have created out of a little man slighted by a little girl? This happened, and he created the insanity we now have: social media, to exact revenge and soothe his ego. What can I say to that? Good for you. I don’t think so. But there it is. What spread horrible gossip has created a landslide of media outlets just like it, where the goal is to show off, aggrandize, and shock, in order to be shown off, aggrandized, and to shock others into a drone-like state of worship.

Don’t misunderstand me. It has its merits, but they do not outweigh the drawbacks. Yes, you can connect with family and friends around the globe in real time without exorbitant phone bills (that is what we used to have before they went the way of the dinosaurs, for you youngsters out there). It can give us fast information and news we would not otherwise seek, but you still need to verify its veracity yourself. Most of us do not bother, and we read drive-by commentary and posts as if they are factual scientific evidence of truth. They are not, in anything close to that, most of the time. Just a one-sided view from one perspective. So, information on social media is unreliable, truth. Journalists gear most of the content we consider news to manipulate your views; also true.

The social media that was once there is no longer. Now we have a place where we all go to be inundated with ads while we attempt to chat and share with family and friends. The ads, all focused on information purchased from them, along with your personal habits, pinpoint what you are most likely to click or purchase. Want to test that theory? Do a search for a day or two on something, and watch how everything you see relates to that search.

My point is that social media could have been a safe and fun place for people to interact, but it’s become a long commercial or a black hole that sucks you into a deep dive on something you didn’t know you couldn’t live without. Worse still, it has created a generation, and generations to come, of attention-seeking, lazy kids who think they can get rich or famous without hard work and education by showing skin and body parts to strangers. All this is done for likes, clicks, and comments. Get enough, and the media lets you make money from it, no matter what degrading thing you do for it. That is where we are in the world. Sad.

This has made this addictive drug a minefield of predators and prey. It’s a place where someone can create a profile, let’s say of an innocent eighteen-year-old boy, who chats and woos a girl of similar age. Secretly, he may be a forty-year-old pervert or worse, and how would you know? Unlike on sites like Patreon or Indeed, and a few others, no documentation is required to create a profile of any age. Yes, some have verified badges that make you feel safe, but you are anything but. Verified only means they pay the entity to show something that says you are authentic and real. It is pay-for-service. The scammers and cons are paying for that service, which is now giving you the false comfort of thinking you are not about to get screwed. If you do not believe it, I promise it’s true. One of the many impostors I spoke with this past year told me how it works. Basically, if social media won't let you use your own name, you can make up anything. And they do.

For instance, I used to jump on social media to find the ever-popular memes and have a good laugh. They are the comics of the era. Some are actually brilliant and gut-busting. When I would get on, posts and later reels would pop up, and I would ignore them for the most part. I would make a comment here or there, or call someone out when I knew a post was inaccurate, and so on.

What began as an innocent curiosity

One day, I saw a reel, or maybe it was a post, about a man. Don’t ask me what he was doing or what he posted. I don’t remember. It was that memorable. I know it must have been interesting, because otherwise I wouldn’t normally waste my time.

I can tell you it was about a little-known Italian actor who was just then gaining steam in the American market. The next thing I knew, there was a reply from that actor/musician, along with a request to chat. I replied, “Sure,” in open chat, thinking it would just be a thanks, but then the request to chat privately came in. I was a bit naïve. I knew no famous actors would ever engage fans one-on-one, but this person was not famous yet. I agreed, believing it was for privacy reasons. It was not.

How imposters start a dialog

Asked to speak in another app for his privacy, I engaged in an innocent chat. At first, it was general chit-chat. Who are you? Where are you from? Are you married, or do you have a family? These are things most acquaintances ask of each other. He then thanked me for being a fan and asked how long I had been one. I was honest. I told him that I didn’t even know who he was and that it was a drive-by comment I posted. This did not bother him at all.

At first, I thought there was no way this was happening or that it was real. But the man playing his role was very adept at his con. He had done his homework online about the actor, knew where the actor was, and had any publicly available information. I began to believe the lies. For a few weeks, he would pop into my messages and ask to chat, and I did. He seemed genuine. Then he hit me with "I love you," and I went cold. Who does that? Who professes love to someone they have never met or spoken to? I had told this person that I was married and had a son, which did not seem to matter. I had told him my age, which was more than twenty years his senior, and got the proverbial “age is just a number.” If you are a woman or even a man, take notes. When those words are uttered, consider it their tell, number one. Most people don’t say this kind of thing.

Once the scammer has you

It continued. I threatened to block his contact if he continued on this path, and he backed off, only to return to it again. It was getting old. One day, he hit me with a situation he was in. He asked for my help, and I listened. His story was that he was in New York on business with producers and, after meeting all day, could not leave. Then he said his two sons were stuck in the hotel and playing video games, but their Xbox game card had run out or something like that, and he wanted me to get them one. And that was all I needed to hear. I knew what the game was the very moment.

Saying that he should send a staff member or PR person was a no-go. He told me I was the only person he could trust. When asked why he just didn’t do it on a break or even sitting there, he doubled down on the tall tale. He said his accounts were all frozen, get this, because he was trying to fire his manager. He went on to say that, since he had a contract with the manager, his accounts were frozen until the outcome of a trial.

By now, some of you may be having flashbacks to conversations you may have had with a personality online. So let me say this out loud and definitively. That does not happen. Someone you employ cannot freeze your assets. Not in this country or any other. But he did not miss a step. He said he was not an American and that, in his country, Italy, it was different. How many strikes are we up to? Anyway, little did he know, I didn’t grow up in a barn. I have traveled and studied in my life, and I have family who actually immigrated to Italy.

These conversations did not happen in one day. Every day he gave me more fishing line, little bits at a time, thinking I was his catch of the month. At some point, I got fed up with the lies and told him to kiss off. He got angry. I told him I knew he was not an actor, not this actor. I had done a deep dive into this person and was now well-read, so I could tell the truth from a lie, and I listed the proof. Silence. I said goodbye, and that was that. But no, he came back and tried to talk to me, saying he missed me and our chats. I told him I was not interested in this game and not interested in speaking to a liar.

Called out

That was when he gave up the ghost. He had grown attached to me and did not want to lose the connection. Before he spilled his truth, he asked if I would stay his friend if he told me the truth. I said I would, not knowing I would just be unable to reconcile the lies with a true friendship.

The ugly truth came out. I considered it and blocked him. I will not tolerate lies. I spent some time thinking about this and got mad. If he was doing this to me, how many other women was he manipulating? What I found out was incredible. I went back to this person’s pages and watched the feed. Woman after woman being asked for a private chat, and one after the other acquiescing. I now saw the system. They watch who comments and look for lonely women, older women, and even women a bit younger, and they lure them into this fantasy. I tried to warn some women, and was told off by more than a couple. They thought I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Looking for answers

Since that day, I went on a mission to find out why this was happening, how they carried out their plans, and whether it could be stopped. I lured over two hundred into chatting with little old me, lonely, bored, naive. I found so many ways to listen, then hit them with my proof that I'd gotten good at it. I could tell within a day or two whether I’d get anywhere. The hard asses, I just blew off or told off, but the others were a lot nicer to deal with. Over the year, I got a lot of information from them, and it was not cut-and-dried as I had anticipated.

Most are very young. Some I spoke with were seventeen or still in their teens. Some were a little older. And I spoke with a few who were in their thirties. While many practice this kind of scam for malicious reasons, more do so because they are so poor. Not the I don’t have money for dinner out, poor, but the I don’t eat three times a day, kind of poor. The I sometimes go without food, kind of poor.

The men who became honest gave me their real names, told me where they lived, and explained why they scam. The reasons are not what others think. Aside from extreme poverty, many live in houses with dirt floors, with multiple family members packed into small spaces. Education is expensive, food is as well, and there are no jobs available to them. Jobs, good or bad, go to people with deep pockets who can line a government official’s. Some come from larger families and have to take on a sibling when they can manage to get on their own. This is expensive, so multiple family members often engage in the same cons.

Women are not the only targets

Please don’t think this scam game is limited to male targets. Men get swindled just as quickly, by women, yes, and by men posing as women. Loneliness is not sex-specific. Some of these cons are highly lucrative for those preying on the naive, making them a strong lure for people who would not normally engage in crime.

Poverty’s consequences

Poverty and extreme poverty make decent people into criminals. Most of these people were decent before falling into this line of work. I managed to keep in touch with a few of the men. I am not sure they ever have honest conversations with many people. I did not, nor would I ever, treat them as less than human or my equals. They are gentle-natured and impressionable. Most, if not all, told me they believed Americans were all racist against people of color. They know what most think of their nation. That made the sting of guilt less for them when they succeeded.

I schooled them on us and admitted that yes, we have racists, but all nations do. I am not sure what kind of people they have interacted with in their lives, but I do know this: when treated with respect and kindness, they are kind and respectful in return. None crossed the line with me once they were out in the open.

These are a struggling people, with no solution, no help, no hope. I have empathy for that. I have known poverty and the lengths you will go to in your desperation. What they do is criminal, for sure. There is no excuse for committing crimes against others, but there has to be a discussion about how wealthy nations can help poorer ones. We pay CEOs millions upon millions. We spend millions on useless things. Nation after nation discards more than it uses, while people out there suffer.

These people are not useless or unintelligent. They want to work and take pride in a workweek’s end. Some want to get through college, get out of poverty, and change their lives. Some have degrees but cannot find work. I met engineers, biomedical engineers, businessmen, and students. None was going to get a dime out of me, and yet they still wanted a friend. They wanted to be honest and straightforward. They wanted to be themselves and have a kind of connection where they could be open. I gave them that.

How my perspective changed

I have grown to care for these people. Our country spends our tax dollars on ill-gotten gains, criminal activities, and wasteful spending every day. Something has to change. This nation’s government is keeping its people in poverty while keeping their bellies full. They have comforts they do not afford their people. Electricity and hot water are a good example. They have those necessities 24/7, while they ration them out to poorer areas, like Lagos, giving them power for only a scant number of hours per day. This is shameful. Someone has to care enough to help people get their footing. I am not saying to throw money at the problem. I am saying teach the man to fish, and they will walk away from crime and scamming. The alternative is their decline, to everyone’s detriment.

Who is affected 

Scamming is not a victimless crime. The victims are not just the women or men being manipulated. It extends to the identities they pervert, the industries those people work in, and, believe it or not, the scammers, young and old. They victimize their integrity, the integrity of their countrymen, and the sovereignty of their own nation. Cybercrimes have become a serious global problem.

In part three, I will discuss the women. I’ll give them some tips about the scammers so they can navigate those murky waters. Let me say this last thing. I know I have taxed everyone’s brain. Men, women, none of them are real. No actor will ask for a private one-on-one. No celebrity would need a measly $200 or more from the likes of us. Not one. And lastly, for today, no parent on the planet would trust a stranger with their children. Don’t buy it for a second.

Published on Medium, 2026