Falling for the love scammer

Peris*, a journalist in her early 30s, prides herself in being the kind of woman who would not easily fall for the tricks of a conman.

However, two months ago, she almost fell into the trap of a man who was priming her to be one of his victims.

The man, who introduced himself as Donald Ouko, first sought to be her Facebook friend after they both got into a heated discussion on a mutual Facebook friend’s post.

He then started asking her for dates, which she turned down every time, but he got her attention when he mentioned that he was a farmer with greenhouses in Naivasha, growing vegetables for export to the Middle East.

“This got my attention because I dabble in farming in my rural home; he said he would show me his farm and introduce me to the lucrative vegetable business in Mombasa,” she recalls. 

FEIGNED INTEREST

This offer was the reason Peris agreed to finally meet this Facebook friend. But what happened in the weeks that followed reads like a script from the handbook of the new breed of men who are feigning romantic interest in women to bait them into giving them money through sob stories. These men, whose playground seems to be social media, convince women to loan them money consistently, but they never pay back, leaving their victims broke in many instances.

“They are brilliant, often grooming huge numbers of suckers until a small percentage start falling for them. They use all the right words and prey on their victims’ vulnerabilities with great skill,” says Dr Chris Hart, a psychologist.

“These men are social predators who prey on the weaknesses of women. They will broach different subjects to see what will catch the woman’s attention,” says Maurice Matheka, a relationships counsellor in Nairobi.

“Once they touch your heart, they can now get money out of you. And the thing is that many women would easily part with money if they are getting the right attention from a man,” Maurice explains.

In Peris’s case, Donald wasted no time in trying to get into her pockets.

POOLING TOGETHER

Only days after meeting her, he called with an incredulous story: Two of his foremen had fought and one killed the other, so he needed Sh30, 000 to pay off the police to reduce the charges to manslaughter. At the same time, he needed Sh40,000 to pay a hospital deposit for his chronically ill mother; would Peris help him out?

“I felt sorry for him, but my instincts told me that something was terribly wrong. Why would he ask for money from me, a stranger that he had only met a day before? And how could police reduce a charge from murder to manslaughter?” She wondered.

Nevertheless, Peris ignored her doubts and decided to send him Sh5,000 to help.

The next day she also sent him another Sh5,000 when he called to ask for money to help his sister who had been battered by her husband and thrown out of her matrimonial home.

Meanwhile, they were still discussing farming plans and Donald advised her that that he needed to take soil samples from her farm in Busia so that he could take them for testing to determine the best crops to grow there.

He claimed that he was short of money because he had just banked a Sh4.5 million cheque the previous day and he was waiting for it to mature.

Peris fuelled his car for the roughly 457-kilometre journey from Nairobi to the farm in Busia. He had already told her that the soil tests would cost her Sh60,000.

Donald also wanted them to pool money to buy another piece of land in Busia, with each contributing Sh380, 000 for that goal.

However, Peris’ suspicions about Donald were growing by the day. He always needed money for one thing or another. One time he claimed to be at Namanga, short of cash as he tried to clear a truckload of maize he had imported from Zambia and his bank did not have a branch or ATMs in that town; the next day he had lost his wallet … there was something about him that just wasn’t right, so she confided in a friend and hatched a plan to investigate him.

Her friend would try to persuade him to buy a pay TV subscription. Peris’ friend managed to convince Donald to tell her his house number in Kileleshwa.

FEARS CONFIRMED

“He told us that he was moving out of his house to rent it to a UN employee and gave us the location of another house where he would be moving at the end of the month,” Peris recalls.

But it turned out that Donald did not own the first house, and neither was he moving into the second.

“I had almost given him Sh380,000 for the land that we were to buy together, but thank God for that nagging instinct that held me back. It saved me from being conned,” she says.

A common characteristic of these social predators is that they like to try to give an impression that they are doing well financially, talking of big deals they are about to close, showing off big cars, and generally trying to show that they live a high-class life.  But the irony is that they always need money for one thing or another.

“These men paint a wonderful picture of themselves and at the same time want to come across as vulnerable, a trait that is attractive to women.

“They also do not ask you for money directly. He’ll tell you that he is in trouble and needs a specific amount; he’ll talk about having asked friends and not being able to take a loan. The woman will then be thinking: What can I do to help?” says Matheka.

In prepping Peris for the kill, Donald once picked her up from her office to drive her to Machakos, where he signed a cheque at a lawyer’s office for a piece of land.

 “In less than a week he had asked me for so much money, but thank God I only lost less than Sh20, 000. I also learnt that he had conned a few of my friends,” Peris says.

While Peris, escaped with minimal financial injury, Monica* a 40-year-old supervisor at an international hotel chain was not so lucky. She also met Martin, the predator who  unwittingly made her his ATM machine, on Facebook two years ago. They were both members of common Facebook groups and Martin sent her a friendship request. He claimed that he was an event organiser.

“He always talked big; about the influential Kenyans he was either meeting or organising events for and the flashy life he was leading.

WEB OF DECEPTION

“Looking back I wonder how I got involved with this thug. It is as if he bewitched me; I couldn’t see the kind of man that he is, but then again he has a way with women; he’ll tell you what you want to hear. If you have a problem, he’ll offer to link you with some big shots who can help and he will empathise with you when you have problems. He works on you until he wins your heart, all the while aiming for your wallet,” Monica says.

Matheka underlines that Martin’s strategy is common among social predators who target busy corporate women like Monica. They try to make the woman feel special and give her the attention that she craves.

“These men try to prove that they are high-flyers so the woman forms an image of the kind of man he is and bites the hook. If a man lives in a leafy suburb and he is going through a rough patch financially, chances are you will bail him out, because you’d never suspect his scheme. “

This is the strategy that Martin used on Monica. After a while, one thing led to another and they got into an online relationship that set Martin’s scheme into play.

Even before they had officially met, he asked Monica to lend him some money because he was having problems with his landlord and had been kicked out. Ignoring her instincts, Monica sent him Sh85,000.

She was out of the country on a work assignment in Europe, and he was always giving excuses for why he couldn’t pay her back at the agreed time. She decided to pursue the matter when she flew back in.

“We first met at a hotel and I found it odd that an event organiser of his stature could not pay our lunch bill;  it was also odd that he lived in a servant’s quarters in Kilimani.”

The couple carried on with their relationship, but Martin never refunded Monica’s money. He also did not pay for some gadgets that he had asked Monica to buy him during one of her trips.

Then one night, after a crazy night out, that left Monica wasted, Martin took some nude photos of Monica while she was asleep.

BLACKMAIL

“I remember this night with a lot of regret because he now uses those photos to intimidate me, threatening to publish them whenever I ask for my money,” Monica says with an almost inaudible voice.

By the time Monica realised that Martin was just another conman, he had about Sh600,000 of her money which he borrowed during their one-year relationship.

“He always had (pathetic) stories to get money out of me and it worked, maybe because he had told me that he wasn’t married and that he did not have family members, but I later came to learn that all this was a lie. He manipulated me, playing on my emotions, and I bought all his lies.”

One day Monica listened to her instincts: Why would Martin live in Kilimani when he was so hard up, to the point of not having money for food or rent?

And why would a big event organiser have no money? With this in mind, Monica decided to investigate her “boyfriend”. She found out that he was married, so she flew back into the country and confronted Martin about his lies.

However, things turned against her when Martin used his connections to have her arrested for harassing him. He claimed that Monica was a former lover who had refused to move on.

It has been two years now since all this happened, and Monica would be happy to get some justice, but she is afraid of what might happen if she pursues the case.

“I have all the receipts of the money transfers to him and our messages but Martin is a corrupt guy with many connections among influential people. This makes him almost untouchable and he might even turn this against me.

“Again, if we go to court, everything will be public and it would not only be embarrassing, but also the case might drag on in court and be a costly process. Also, who would believe me? That money is not worth putting my life out there, but I pray that Martin does eventually pay for what he did,” she says.

This is something Maurice admits that the predators exploit. They know a corporate woman would not want to be seen to have been that gullible. They know that there are no chances that she would go to court and if she did, she might have a hard time proving her case.

And so they carry on from one victim to another without worry of facing any consequences.

Peris, on the other hand, plans to bring Donald to justice after discovering that he also conned some people in her social circle, which is another thing that these predators do.

Posting about Donald on Facebook led people to call her and confirm to her that he lives off conning women. Monica has also learnt that Martin has conned many other women in the name of love and that he uses Facebook to identify his prey.

She has picked up the pieces and is in another relationship now, but she would be hesitant to engage with anyone she met online. “It is better to meet people the traditional way and let the relationship develop slowly but surely.”

Women can also avoid falling prey to these predators by paying more attention to the people they meet. Dr Hart warns women to be wary of men with weird or flaky behaviour.

 “Meet people through work or mutual friends. Anything else and there is a possibility of a con and if you notice anything that seems strange to you, run for the hills.”

* Names have been changed

SIGNS OF A PREDATOR

1. If someone is too good to be true, he probably is.

 2. Someone who acts weird - if there are any inconsistencies, if he leaves you with so many unverified questions, tread carefully.

 3. If he asks for money, put up your antenna. Never send money to someone you have never met or who you only met recently.

 4. If you can’t say with surety that you know where he lives or works and his friends and family, and other pertinent information, beware. Do your due diligence and try to verify what he tells you.

 5. Beware if you met on social media and he suggests that you should quickly move to a more private email.