Multiple Faces Detected
January 21st, 2026
A woman named Helen has been communicating with a man named Steve on Google Hangouts since the beginning of this year. She met him on Facebook when he randomly sent a friend request to her and messaged her, wanting to become friends. He told her that he worked for Doctors Without Borders as an orthopedic surgeon through the United Nations in Syria. His son supposedly goes to a boarding school in England but went on a class trip to Dubai because of his math smarts. He fell and hit his head super hard, and according to Steve, they need funds to pay for his head injury and to get them both back to the United States. Is this a romance scammer or a real person?
Helen Isn’t Sure if She is Talking to a Romance Scammer or Not
Helen wasn’t looking for love but thought it would be fun to make a new friend outside of her circle once she saw that someone tried to add her on Facebook. He started messaging her, and they hit it off with conversations. He had been talking to her since the beginning of 2020, getting to know what he did for a living and who his son was. She found out that he was an orthopedic surgeon working for Doctors Without Borders through the United Nations in Syria.
She also found out that his wife passed away due to cancer, so he thought that sending his son off to boarding school in England would be the best idea since he works overseas. As the son was at boarding school a month into their relationship, the teachers thought that he was ultra-talented at math and invited him and a few other talented students to Dubai on a school trip. However, on the school trip, he suffered a head injury and had to be transported to the hospital.
The doctors determined that he would need blood transfusions and oxygen, which would cost a lot of money. Steve asked Helen if she could help him out since he was still overseas, so she gave them around $25,o00 for the boy’s medical bills.
“Having lost a child myself, that’s where my heart-strings started to go,” Helen stated when asked why she helped pay for his son’s medical bills.
The boy had the operation after Helen paid for his medical bills, then wrote a letter to the United Nations, stating why it’s necessary for Steve to leave and be with his son. However, there was a price to pay to get him out of Syria since a giant war was happening there. The United Nations wanted 10% of $1.7 million dollars for Steve to leave. Helen told the United Nations that she didn’t have that type of money to give them, so she started negotiations with the UN.
However, something didn’t seem right to her, and doesn’t know if he’s being honest. He promised her that he would pay her back, but doesn’t know if that’s going to happen.
She started to do research and found Social Catfish where she reached out to us for help. David, the founder of Social Catfish, talked to Linnie, our search specialist, to determine if Helen was talking to a legit person or a scammer.
Is Steve a Romance Scammer?
“One thing that should be noted is that the UN and military are separate entities. The UN would have nothing to say about any army protocol leave or anything if this were true,” Linnie states after researching this case.
The UN would never ask for money for something like this, therefore making that email fake. Also, Helen tried to video chat Steve but it never worked when nowadays everyone has access to video chatting and a working video chat camera.
After reverse searching his images, they found out that his image is being used on multiple dating sites under multiple names. On these sites, multiple people have reported his images as stolen.
Finally, there was a recording of the real guy in the pictures that were found. In the recording, he speaks Italian when he says that he is happily married and his pictures are being spread all over the world due to romance scams.
Helen’s Reaction to Our Findings
Helen feels like she was taken advantage of since the scammer brought a child into the scam to fool her. She never would’ve given money to the scammer if she didn’t feel like a child was in harm’s way.
She never told her friends and family about any of what happened because she knows they would’ve told her to STOP! If you are in a similar situation with a scammer, we recommend talking to your friends and family because they care about you and in most cases want to make sure you are okay. If you are in a shady situation with a scammer, they will be the first ones to let you know that your gut feeling is correct and to get the help you need.
For Helen, we recommended she call the police and notify them that she has been scammed. In most cases, these scams go unreported which causes a lack of awareness that these scams actually exist. All Social Catfish can do is verify information, it can’t create a crime report for you.
She wishes the end result would’ve been different from all of this and wishes that there were more good and honest people in the world. She thinks that there are too many bad people out there that ruin it for everyone.
Social Catfish is Here to Help You Avoid That Romance Scammer!
If you think you’re dealing with a scammer or have had your pictures stolen, Social Catfish is here to help you!
If you want to be a part of our next YouTube video or blog post and share your story, now is your chance. You can educate our audience about what you have gone through and make sure no one else goes through the same thing. All you need to do is email ShareMyStory@socialcatfish.com, and we will get back to you with more details.
You can also reverse search any information you have on the Nigerian romance scammer to see who it is you’ve really been talking to. If you have their name, email address, phone number, social media username, or image you can search it up in our search bar to see if there is more information on the suspected scammer you are talking to.
