Man Pays $200,000 To Save Fake Online Girlfriend

An anonymous reader writes "A 48-year-old Illinois man has experienced an online scam that was particularly devastating, both financially and emotionally. A woman he believed to be his online girlfriend turned out to be a fake, and his money has disappeared with her. The scam was recently revealed because he went to the police asking for help to rescue the woman, insisting that she had been kidnapped in London. The online 'relationship' between the two began over two years ago, during which he wired about $200,000 to several different bank accounts in Nigeria, Malaysia, England, and the US."

Dumbass

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumbass

Can't Feel Pity For Him.

[Afforess]

Why didn't he check that she was a real person. Would have cost less than 200k.

Darwinism at work folks. Move along, nothing to see here.

Re:Can't Feel Pity For Him.

[MikeDirnt69]

There is no enought 4chan memes to explain how alone this guy is right now.

Can this be real?

[tekrat]

How do people this stupid have $200,000 to begin with?

I've worked hard for many years, and while my lifestyle isn't excessive, I still don't have anywhere near that kind of money to throw around even if I was getting laid by a real girlfriend.

This guy gave "her" $200k and never even got a blow?

Wow, where do I find suckers like this? I need the cash.

Strange...

[pedantic bore]

People with common sense don't get so far into such a scam without smelling a rat... But people who don't have at least some common sense don't have $200K just sitting around. This poor guy must have been terribly lonely, and the perps played him like a harp. Very sad.

Don't Assume

[b4upoo]

People don't think these classic scams could ever suck them in but if they are done in an artful way they actually can sucker people in. Most of these con artists lack the ability but there are a few out there with serious skills that really can sink a strong man's boat.

Re:Can this be real?

[Larry Lightbulb]

Probably the majority of it was in the last few months, and may have been for what he thought was a ransom. I don't have $200,000 laying about but if I truly believed that my girlfriend was being kidnapped I could get it within a couple of weeks by loans and remortgaging.

Re:Can this be real?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Well you see, an obsessive devotion to a single pursuit tends to lead to two things:

1. Expertise in that area.
2. A corresponding lack in other areas.

When you take that devotion to extremes, you can make a lot of money and not have the time or desire to spend it on anything. And unless you work hard to avoid it, the "lack in other areas" is likely to include your love life.

How do you not know this?

Re:There's an old saying

[fish waffle]

No, the one you're looking for is "A fool and his money are soon parted."

Re:Thinking saves money!!!

[Narcocide]

How do people that naive get all that money in the first place? If I had a girlfriend who needed $200,000 to save her own ass she'd be S.O.L. if she came to me for it.

Re:Can't Feel Pity For Him.

[Upaut]

Some people get to wrapped up in the fantasy. The hope of love, easy riches, these both speak to a deep need in many of us.

A friend of mine once got engaged and moved the Scotland (from Massachusetts in the USA) for her Everquest sweetheart. Never having communicated with him in any way but online.

Now they didn't last more than a couple years, but it shows there are quite a few that never really alive in their own skin, and the prospect of making new friends in person causes stress and panic. But the need to connect is still there.

Personally, I feel for him even greater sympathy than those that lose their savings in a 419 scam; one has a core of inherent dishonesty -playing off ones greed for a quick payoff. This played off his need for companionship, and as he invested years, and thousands, into it, it wasn't for any form of payoff. Just to connect.

Re:Can this be real?

[spun]

Wait, do you think we live in some kind of meritocracy where intelligence and hard work are rewarded, while stupidity is punished? No, we live in a kleptocracy where connections and favors are rewarded and being born poor is punished. If you have money and/or connections, you can make more money with very little risk or effort by stealing the labors of honest working people, who are so desperate that they will do nearly anything for you. So, you shouldn't have to look to hard to find suckers like this, if you aren't already rich, try looking in a mirror. If you are halfway intelligent and working at a salaried job, you've more than likely given away at least that much value.

Re:Can this be real?

[Seumas]

A new girlfriend would be way cheaper.

Re:Can this be real?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Yeah that would roughly be the joke. Man, subtlety is dead.

Re:The Internets

[KhabaLox]

Obviously those are small fuzzy things from Alpha Centauri.

Lack of empathy

[hahn]

I'm a little saddened to see all the negative comments aimed at the *victim*. What did he do wrong? He trusted someone. Apparently, that's so idiotic and inconceivable that it makes him the one who's at fault. What's next? Blaming rape victims for not bringing pepper spray on a blind date? What happened to blaming the perpetrator? The lesson here appears to be, if you're capable of scamming people online, then you deserve the money and your victims are morons. I guess the study that was written about in NY Times [nytimes.com] last year wasn't far off the mark.

Re:Strange...

[tukang]

You left out the most common one: inheritance.

Re:He saved money

[Dr. Spork]

Your pathetic attempt at humor makes me sad. Stories like this should never appear on Slashdot, because while readers here manage to say interesting things about tech issues, they are basically stuck in retarded, rude and simple stereotypes about gender relations. For other readers who are similarly retarded about this issue: Please wise up before you make comments like this, here and everywhere else.

Re:Can this be real?

[Dunbal]

Not necessarily, depending on what state/country you live in and how long you've been together. For most places, living together 6 months is the same as if you were married, and that means she gets a chunk of your income.

Re:Can this be real?

[FileNotFound]

Actually it's not as absurd as you may think.

I could pull about 75k out of my credit cards. I could also get a HELO backed "creditcard", I keep getting offers for HELOs for anywhere from 100k to 250k.

So really it'd not be that hard for me to pull out 200k from a "credit card".

Re:Can this be real?

[arivanov]

In a lot of places around the western world nowdays.

This is a natural result of our "civilisation" frowning on and outright prohibiting parents allowing children to meet Ms Danger and get acquainted with it. It is better to get swindled out of your pocket money a couple of times instead of being swindled out of your salary and life savings a few decades down the road.

I know that I am going to be modded into oblivion, but it is a statement of the fact - there were much less nerds and social misfits in the days when I went to school. Despite the fact that I went to a high school that specializes in sciences and math, the number of nerds we had was nothing out of the ordinary. Today that would have been (and actually is) nerd central. 20 years ago it was a school like any other with the usual 1-2 slightly nerdier kids per each class of 25. However even they boozed, did silly things, partied and made their fair share of social mistakes on par with everyone else.

Re:Can this be real?

[Dunbal]

Guys who cling on to the first thing that fucks them

A puppy is for life and not just for Christmas.

Nobody seems to be able to just hold the fuck up and be with themselves for awhile.

Except for you, apparently? It's an instinct, hard-wired into people's brains to ensure the survival of the species. Most people follow their instincts. Congratulations on being so intellectual that you managed to over-ride this programming. Now let's talk about how your highly evolved genes are going to be passed on. Oh wait...

Nigeria

[b0bby]

As soon as you see Nigeria and bank in the same context, always run away. In fact, just Nigeria should be enough...

Re:Can this be real?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhere around age 28, I took a year off chasing tail and hearts and yeah, just spent some time hanging loose. After awhile, I started seeing patterns in the kind of women I'd been dating/pursuing (more emotionally stunted than myself; therefore safe to date and self destruct) and realized that was getting me nowhere. Once I figured out what kind of woman would be good for me (self assured/creative/down-to-earth/technical/funny), I took a look at myself and realized that a well grounded woman who was living life like I desired would not want to have anything to do with me. I then spent another year getting my shit together and then went out trying to meet my new kind of woman. Lucked out and met her right off, we decided to get married at end of first date and have been together for 12 years now. We now work together at a really cool place (Linux/Google admins), have the house on 10 acres in the country and a daughter who's breaking hearts at the school robotics club.

Sometimes, taking a step back from the dance can be good.

Re:Thinking saves money!!!

[scot4875]

Well according to my democratic acquaintances, money is not fairly distributed and needs to be taken from those who have too much regardless of how hard they work for it and given to those who have none regardless of how little they work for it.

Bull. Fucking. Shit. You haven't heard that. Ever. That's just your absolutely pathetic understanding of the "progressive" agenda.

It's probably not your fault though -- smart people with a lot of money have been painting progressives with that brush for a long time, and a lot of dupes have fallen for it.

--Jeremy

Re:Thinking saves money!!!

[LordNacho]

Well according to my democratic acquaintances, money is not fairly distributed and needs to be taken from those who have too much regardless of how hard they work for it and given to those who have none regardless of how little they work for it.

Bull. Fucking. Shit. You haven't heard that. Ever. That's just your absolutely pathetic understanding of the "progressive" agenda.

It's probably not your fault though -- smart people with a lot of money have been painting progressives with that brush for a long time, and a lot of dupes have fallen for it.

--Jeremy

And of course it only goes one way...

Actually most people

[SmallFurryCreature]

You seem to think Oprah is real. Well it is, for a segment of the population. Don't let the tv stereo-types fool you into believing this is how most people are. TV shows the extremes because normality doesn't make for intresting TV.

There won't be a program Deadliest code, gripping the nation season after season. O.C. Support Desk is NOT a sure fire hit. BugBusters will not be challenged by the president of the US of A.

Most teenagers? Never rebel and get along with their parents and siblings. Most women are not complete sluts in college crying they can't find a good guy while banging the soccer team. Most men do not in fact follow their cock, either that or the navy has a LOT more gay people in it then a republican can stand.

Most people lead simple sensible lives, they might screw up a little by accident but recover and move on. The real idiots are rare. Same as with criminals. Most people will NOT in fact kill to gain a fortune even if they could get away with it.

Humanity is a lot more normal. TV reality is about showing the extremes on the edges but you would be a fool to believe it. Do you believe everyone can run really fast because you just saw the olympics? Then why do you believe all people behave like the freaks on talkshows.

Ancient statistic. 50% of people loose their virginity before 18. Means over half the population does NOT.