How we fell victim of online romance scams

Many love affairs nowadays begin with a message on social media. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • He seemed like the complete opposite of the man I was running away from.
  • I didn’t see his not having a job as a problem at the time.
  • It began with a few thousand shillings here and there, and then, soon, she was paying most of his bills and giving him cash to ‘warm his pocket’.

Could that stranger who instantly professes his love for you on social media be a con? Women who have been conned in the name of love share their stories with Joan Thatiah.

Like many love affairs these days, Judith Achira narrates how the greatest scam of her life began with an inbox on social media. When she saw the hello message, she naturally ran to this man’s timeline to have a peek at who he might be.

“He was like an answered prayer,” she recalls her first impression.

At the time, Judith, now 34, had just come out of a physically abusive relationship with her toddler daughter. The first thing to catch her eye was a post where this 33-year-old man, who she only refers to as Chris, admonished men who hit women. That was the post that got her responding to his inbox.

“He seemed like the complete opposite of the man I was running away from. He spoke out against violence against women and infidelity. He spoke against men who say they can’t raise other women’s children, something which, as a single mother, I needed to hear. On the computer screen he seemed like a perfect relationship partner. And he was quite good looking as well,” she recalls.

So she was thrilled when Chris seemed keen on dating her. When she finally began knowing him, she only found one little crack on the seemingly perfect picture frame. Chris was in between jobs. For a love struck Judith, however, this was only a little problem.

“I had a good job in a regional public relations firm and a small business in the estate where I live. I didn’t see his not having a job as a problem at the time,” she says.

It began with a few thousand shillings here and there, and then, soon, she was paying most of his bills and giving him cash to ‘warm his pocket’. She would even trust him with her ATM cards. He would stay over at her house for long stretches of time, something which bothered her a little bit, but which she dismissed telling herself that he probably just wanted to spend as much time with her as he could.

They spoke about marriage. He got along well with her daughter. Then he fell sick and the bottom of the container that was their ‘relationship’ came apart. He was admitted to a hospital. He didn’t have insurance but as the supportive partner she thought she was, she was paying his bills.

“On his third day there, his family travelled to the city to see him. I had been with him for over a year at this point and was looking forward to meeting them. He, however, texted me as I was rushing from the office to see him over lunch hour not to go because his family was there,” she recalls.

Bewildered, she didn’t go. That was the turning point for her. She realised that their relationship was not what she thought it was. She started going over the details. How secretive and possessive of his phone he would be. How they had both agreed to keep off each other’s social media pages.

From there, things just started going downhill. She started looking for evidence that he wasn’t who he told her he was, and she found it. He had a pregnant fiancée who he was looking after with her money.

“I should have seen him for what he was. No man is that perfect,” she beats herself up now, over two years later.

THE ‘SINGLE FATHER’

The average con artist is easy to smoke out. How? The deal he dangles in front of you is usually too good to be true. He will be selling a bungalow 10 minutes from the city centre for Sh2 million or promising you untold riches when he can’t even buy a decent pair of shoes for himself. He promises perfection.

That is why it was no cause for alarm when Lisa Kinyua, 32, learnt that the man, who had been liking most of her pictures and sharing her inspirational posts on social media, had baggage in the form of a three-year-old son. Their relationship also began with an inbox from him on Facebook.

While this man, who is now a painful memory for her, did not take money from her, he used her emotionally and sexually. Throughout our interview, she refers to him as Mwizi wa mapenzi.

This, what might seem like an imperfection, was what this man used to worm his way into Lisa’s heart.

“His whole world seemed to be about this little boy. He would often tell me about how he had raised the little boy by himself since he was an infant. This boy was the carrot that he dangled. I wanted to be part of their little circle so I hang around,” she says.

At first, it was pity from her. Then it grew into affection. The more he whined about how unfair the world had been to him in the past, the more emboldened to him she became. To keep her interested, he would tell her how there were many women in his neighbourhood or at his job hitting on him.

It was only after months of bedding him, cooking for and cleaning for him and his son that she found out that she was just one among a string of women, who he lied to and who kept doing things for him.

“I was tipped off by one of his nosy neighbours before I caught him in the act with another woman. The three of us had a big physical fight. It was quite the spectacle but weeks later, I sat down with this other woman and she narrated the same stories he had told me. I later found out that even the woman he claimed had abandoned her son was still very much in the picture, just working in another country.”

Lisa reckons that she fell in love with the imperfection. With the fact that unlike the usual con man who comes on as being too perfect, this one was imperfect. He was human.

CHRISTIAN SINGLES ON FACEBOOK

A decade or two ago, the best way to meet a romantic prospect was through an introduction from a friend. Blind dates arranged by friends and friends of friends birthed many happy relationships.

Then came the Internet era when people no longer need to meet face to face. Introductions and recommendations from friends changed into having many mutual friends on social media and belonging to the same Facebook group with a person. The recommendation is well received especially if this group that you belong to is one made for a good cause. Only good, honest people will be found in a group called ‘Saved and ready to mingle’ or ‘Honest Christian Singles’. Right?

Well, 30-year — old Terry, found out last year that this couldn’t be further from the truth. She confesses that she hasn’t had the best luck meeting men to date.

“I work in a school setting. The hours can be very long. Two years ago, I joined this group for Christian singles on Facebook,” Terry, who was too embarrassed to let us use her second name, recalls how it began.

From Facebook, a smaller, more intimate group was formed on WhatsApp. Having a lesser number of people led Terry to think that it was a safe space. After all, her group members, who she imagined she ‘knew’, would share their intimate dating struggles.

“He side-chatted me one night and we chatted for hours,” she recalls.

The man told her he lived in Tanzania. He told her about how much he missed home. How much he wanted to come home to stay. He was also very interested in her, what she liked, her family, and about her job, which she found very sweet.

On occasions, even without her asking, he began sending her money. Small amounts of money for lunch or for airtime, something she took to mean that he was a good provider. At this point, she was already picking out the colour of curtains for the house they would share. “I was longing for the day he would tell me that he was coming home,” she recalls.

This day came about six months after they began chatting privately. She counted down the days. That evening, the time that he was supposed to be crossing the border to Kenya by road, he called her. Apparently, there were some items in the car that he was driving which he couldn’t take out of the country. He would explain the details when he saw her. He, however, specified that he needed Sh70,000 so that the border police, who had arrested him, would release him. He didn’t have a lot of cash on him but as soon as he came home to her, he would pay her back.

Without giving it much thought, she withdrew her savings using the mobile money application and sent him 66,000.

Less than an hour later, he called again, could she send an additional Sh20, 000? The police were still on his neck. She didn’t have that much money left in her bank account. He, however, he assured her that he would pay all of it back and then some more all the while reminding her that was going to be his wife and his M-Pesa would become her M-Pesa. She called a colleague who had only sH7,000 on her phone. Terry borrowed it citing an emergency, promising to pay back the next day.

They spoke a few more times that night. Finally, he told her to go to sleep. That he had crossed the border and he would see her the next morning. “That was the last time I heard from him. The last time that number was on,” she chuckles bitterly.

Would she date someone she met on social media again?

“Absolutely not. Social media for me now is an avenue to keep tabs on my family and friends.”

If there is anything she learnt from this, she says, is that anyone looking to fall in love should do so only with someone they can see and touch in the flesh.

IS THE MAN IN YOUR INBOX A CON ARTIST?

Not every man who says all the right things is a con. Some are just good guys. The stranger on social media who seems to share all your view points and say all the things you want to hear, however, could be up to no good.

• Beware of the man who instantly professes his love for you before he has even met you.

• Beware of the man who likes to hide his relationship status on social media. The one who is of dating age and could even have a family but there is no whiff that a love life exists. What is he hiding?

• Then there is the man who gets into your inbox from nowhere. The man who you have no mutual friends with. Beware of him.

• It may be a red flag if the man who appears to have set his eyes on you can’t seem to get over the fact that he is a single parent.

• Just because you meet him in a group that was created for a good cause does not mean that he is a good man.