Multiple Faces Detected
August 31st, 2022
Romance scams often cause a divide within a family. Alexis was desperately trying to shield her father from the flood of scammers targeting him online. Some of these scammers had unrivaled persistence, with one of the romance scams taking place from 2014 until recently this year.
Gary has had a very difficult love life. His daughter says, in his first marriage, his wife went out and cheated on him every night. This caused him to get into a relationship with her mother, which eventually ended in divorce. Gary’s last unsuccessful marriage caused him to turn to online dating. And that is when he and his long-time internet romantic interest began talking.
After talking for a while, Jennifer started asking for money. Eventually, Jennifer convinced Gary to send her over $100,000. This was financially devastating to him. He had to sell his house to recoup some of his losses, and downsize to keep his head above water. This financial mistake caused him to have to move to a small town called Solvang. This small town of just 6,300 people caused Gary to be even more isolated than before, which made him dive even deeper into online dating.
Alexxis has a lot of respect for her father. He provided for her after two devastating divorces and lives with trimmers, a condition similar to Parkinson’s. Because of this she felt that it was her responsibility to protect him. So she began monitoring his social media and bank accounts. This caused a bit of a rift between them even though they had been close her entire life. But she believed there was no other way. Gary couldn’t seem to find someone real online. He kept on finding girls online who seemed to be perfect but seemed to have a hidden agenda. So even though she would have to take a lot of heat for it, she would do it anyway.
Even with her monitoring her father’s activity, Alexis still couldn’t figure out how to stop her father from falling victim to romance scams, so she reached out to Social Catfish to help shed some light on the situation, and hopefully get him to stop falling prey to scammers online.
When the Social Catfish team flew out to meet Gary, it was very obvious that many of the accounts that Gary was in contact with were clearly fake. Gary seems to have fallen into the same predicament that so many other romance scam victims have fallen into in the past. Many people fall on hard times, Which causes the events that lead to them meeting their first romance scammer. After they get taken advantage of and lose their money, they seemingly get addicted to the predatory style of relationship. It’s often an emotional rollercoaster, but it creates so the excitement in their life, and the vague possibility of the person being real gives them something to look forward to, no matter how unlikely.
When the Social Catfish team met with Gary in Solvang, it became clear that this was the case. like many people on social media, Gary’s inbox was flooded with fake accounts of models reaching out to him. And like so many romance scam victims, Gary was confused about which ones were real, and which ones were scammers. We gave Gary practical advice on how to tell the difference, and a bit of tough love to help him understand the perspective his loving and concerned daughter is coming from.
The Best Way to Break The Cycle
Finding out whether or not someone is a scammer can be pretty straightforward. With Social Catfish, you can find out the truth in seconds. All you need to do is upload a photo of the person into the search bar below. A reverse image search can save you thousands of dollars and untold heartbreak. Use the search bar below to find out the truth today.
