Online scammers have become VERY creative about luring lonely hearted people into their web.

Many now even have a facebook page with a picture of a house on a good amount of land, in a named midwestern town (but with no other information about school or work). And, to match the easily set up Facebook page, they also easily set up a LinkedIn page, showing their status as a doctor or other high flying professional, with employment through a branch of the UN or some equivalent agency (whose employees are almost impossible to track or verify, unless you’re employed by the FBI or Interpol yourself). The combined pages make them appear legitimate.

Very recently, two of these professional, sad story “Widowers” showed up in my email, within two consecutive days:

Widower #1 started with an unsolicited friend request and an implied claim that we had a mutual friend, but the friend’s name wasn’t on his Facebook page.

Curious and figuring I’d find out who the mutual friend was, as soon as we were able to connect, I accepted the request and immediately asked who our mutual friend was.  Widower #1 responded that we didn’t have a mutual friend and -as if I were the wrongdoer- intimated that our connection was because I had accepted his friend request. I guess that twisted logic was to absolve him of guilt. The tone of the response made me angry and suspicious so I thought I’d have some fun with his arrogance (by playing dumb and open to his unctuous charms).

I pretended to bite and he quickly peeled off a sad, tragic story of an auto accident, causing the loss of his wife and infant daughter, and to top things off that he’s now —a saint— left all alone, to raise a teenage son who misses his mother and baby sister. The tears of Widower #1 were seeping through his computer, trying hard to wet mine. I covered myself from the rainstorm and wrote back that before we could continue with our love at first sight amazing story and the fact that he saw me as “the best and most beautiful woman on earth” (good thing he immediately recognized that fact…no?), because his Facebook and LinkedIn pages didn’t give any detailed information, I would need to know where he went to medical school, when he graduated, and have a copy of the tragic obituary notice. Only with those answers, could I be assured that his undying, instant love for me was real so that I could plan the wedding, including starting to shop for two white tents to make my wedding dress. He accepted the wedding plans but asked about the tents. So, I “admitted” that the pictures on my Facebook page were before I’d gained 400 pounds but that I was ashamed to post the current pictures.

Although Widower #1 said the magic words that I shouldn’t ever be too tense (‘can’t help the pun) about telling him my weight gain and about his valuing only my inner beauty (not caring at all about the size of the outer package), he couldn’t give me any useful information about where he went to medical school (only some obscure place in East Africa) a specific graduation date, or a copy of his medical license.

It seems that the only copy had been lost in a fire…you know how hot Africa gets. And, the school, being in the bush, caught on fire from the heat. But as the bush burned, the fire department was gobsmacked, unable to move, thinking Moses was coming back to do some of the same sort of miraculous work he did with that first bush. And so, as the firemen stood there waiting for Moses, the bush burned, but gosh darn it, this bush consumed itself, taking the school and all of the student records along with it.

So much for the second set of Ten Commandments but, really now—who can deal with twenty commandments when we’re all struggling with the first ten as it is?

Besides, the UN hired him without the documents, why couldn’t I believe him without seeing them? His statement made me so ashamed that I wanted more information than the UN…note to myself: must work on dumbing down so that I can get a job at the UN.

As for the obituary, he answered that the whole thing was too painful to look for, implying that I would be crass and horror of horrors!! I could lose him if I continued to push for those painful details.

Trying to prove that I was as dumb as the UN and not crass, I answered that although I absolutely felt swept off my feet by his greatness, I saw myself as a two ton, obese person, unworthy to be his wife and so, I would have to decline even being in his life until I got my act together to deserve him.

In response, he assured me I was the only one for him, but that if I needed time to prove myself worthy of the love he wanted to give only me, he sensitively understood but he begged me, because we’d become so close and all in two hours, to stay connected as his “friend”, at the very least.

Alas!! In answer to that plea, I told him that, although he said I look “so young” in my Facebook picture, and probably, even younger, now that my “gourging” (he meant gorgeous)…voluptuous plumpness has filled out my face. I wasn’t born yesterday which means, “Gottcha!! I won!”

And then I blocked him.

Guess that ruins my reputation as the best and most beautiful, two tented, woman on the planet.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

It was as if Scammers And Sons thought if one couldn’t hook me another might get lucky. Widower #2 popped up the very next day with the same hook request for friendship.

Unfortunately for their team, I checked on the name Widower #2 gave and, sure enough, he also had a Facebook page with the same sort of house on a midwestern, landed gentry plot of a photoshopped site, as well as a LinkedIn page with faked professional information on it. I blocked him before playing out the game of Gotcha! Once played there’s no need to play it again.

Besides, since I had lost my status as the best and most beautiful woman in the world with Widower #1, I figured I didn’t stand a chance to convince Widower #2 that I was worth another go at it with him, so what was the point of even trying.

I know, I know, I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. But the belief Widower #1 had of my being the B and MB woman on earth crumbled before his eyes, when I blocked him, and like Humpty Dumpty I can’t put those pieces back together again for love or money—scratch that negative thought—I bet for love of money I could get reinstated as that kind of woman again.

Allow me to share two examples of what happens if you respond seriously to these scams: the first is of an acquaintance who lost money to a “high security clearance level engineer” (his accountant, really, because the whole thing “wasn’t his fault”) and the second is of a man who lost mucho moola to a woman scammer.

In the first example, the sad, lonely, widowed Siberian scammer was freezing his butt off on an ice float that his company was trying to turn into metal, while he and his work team were fighting polar bears to the death for the last bits of fish available. Not to mention internet access, except, amazingly, when he was communicating with her via the internet, the internet worked! It must have been her magical powers over him that caused the internet to respond each time. In any event, his phone didn’t work because the polar bear police controlled the phone lines and he could get arrested for pushing to use them and then lose his job, from which he was retiring in three weeks, to return to the states to marry her.

On his off time, besides pining for when they could be together, he’d found an idyllic Scandinavian village that he couldn’t wait to show her on their honeymoon.

However, the surviving teenage son (probably the same son Widower # 2 was sacrificing for) was living with his maternal grandmother in a villa in France where the schools are better than in outer Siberia. It turns out that this amazing son (his only link to the “too painful” loss of his precious wife and baby daughter) had contracted beriberi and the doctor and hospital bills were overdue, because alas!! and alack!! Can you believe it?! Neither can I! His money was tied up until his last day of work in three weeks, when he booked a flight to join her for their wedding and honeymoon.

But, despite my friend sending the money, the boy never made it. What a tragedy.

Nevertheless that saintly scammer strongly discouraged her from visiting, even for the funeral, because he was coming back in two weeks (how time flies) unless he contracted ice flo flu which might turn into pneumonia.

Surprise, surprise, it did. And as he lay dying, with his death immediately imminent, as well as too painful to last another hour (but I repeat myself, which he did too, to countless lonely hearts), they’d have to postpone the wedding so he could attend his own funeral.

And, since she wouldn’t be able to get there in time, he was going to have his body immediately cremated (after dying, of course) so that no one else could be exposed to the deadly disease, of ice flo flu.

So, he sweetly advised, there was no point in her coming to see him off into the sunset, before or for an ice flo cremation. If she wanted his ashes sent to her that could absolutely be arranged…for a fee.

As for the money she was sending for the doctor and hospital bills, she was to fear not! It was as safe as she would be in his arms once he retired. It seems that the money he’d borrowed from her, for his son’s illness and shocking demise, was reinstated by his retirement funds and was to be returned to her, along with all of his money (she was his only heir, she saw the papers drawn up by his lawyer in London) by his accountant in London.

Then, poof!! The money wasn’t there because the accountant seems to have since died too. Not from beriberi, thank the lord, but from overwork in keeping every lonely heart’s money straight, in a bank in Nigeria, which can’t be accessed without a deposit of the same amount to show good faith to the government official in charge of such special accounts. The bottom line is this well-educated, but lonely woman, lost her ass-ets and you can too if you are so inclined to fall from your perch of sanity.

Her story pushes me to share the wisdom of researching all of these scammers and asking for real proof so that they don’t have a chance in Hades to hook you with love bombing.

Be extra careful, as time progresses, because the cons get better at this with every article written. For example, any con who reads this article will start a documentation ring with fake copies of diplomas, death certificates, fake wills, trust agreements, and adding you as their sole heir to sweeten the pot.

The bottom line is that the Facebook and LinkedIn dovetailing sketches are amazingly creative, but, please be aware that both are easily created and as fake as the scammers who thought that crafty ruse up.

These cons are slick and sick to play with the hearts of lonely, vulnerable, women. But then, it’s also just as sad that there are women con artists who play this way with lonely men to steal money from them.

Please be careful and please warn as many (especially older) people as you can, who may be lonely for love, not to fall for these sad stories and/or love bombing scams.

And don’t worry about losing your “most beautiful and best woman on earth” status with all of the scammers in Siberia.

Because…

If you’re very careful about your choice of a really good, caring and kind, man to give your heart to, and if you decide to love him as a feminine woman does and—at the same time—show him that you’re worthy of having the best man on earth love and treat you as he should, he’s going to make you feel like the best and most beautiful woman on earth…without your having to pay him to say so.

Audrey Biloon

Copyright 1/22/24

Photo by Anastasia Nelen on Unsplash