My Scam Story #43

A Romance Scam Victim/Survivor’s Story

Survivor’s Origin: USA

This is the original victim’s story, enhanced by the SCARS Institute Editorial Team to improve comprehension, readability, and continuity.

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My Scam Story

I’ve decided to finally share my story. SCARS has encouraged us to tell what happened, and I’m hoping that by doing this, I can begin to work through the heavy weight of shame, self-blame, and sadness I’ve been carrying. Maybe writing it down will help stop the negative thoughts looping in my head—the regret, the disbelief, the self-hate that comes from feeling so vulnerable and used.

I don’t know if I’ll ever fully accept what happened to me. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel whole again. Right now, I find it hard to feel gratitude for anything. I know we’re told to look for something positive, something to hold onto—but the truth is, nothing feels real or safe at the moment. Gratitude only means something when it feels honest. Right now, I don’t feel it. I only feel broken.

Before this happened, I was never someone who cared much for Facebook. I didn’t like it. I found it fake and uncertain, and I didn’t trust the way it exposed people’s lives to the world. I mostly used it to respond to people I already knew. I never sent friend requests. I never accepted requests from strangers. I kept to myself. I guess you could say I was a novice—naïve, even—about how all of this worked.

I’ve always loved dogs, especially dachshunds, and I followed a number of dog-related Facebook groups. On June 19, I got a friend request through one of these groups. The man’s profile showed him as extremely attractive, charming, and put-together. And beyond that—if I’m being completely honest—I don’t know what possessed me to accept. It was completely out of character for me. But I did. And unfortunately, that’s when evil came knocking on my door.

His name was “David.” Or at least, that’s what he called himself.

He messaged me, and before long, he had me under what I can only describe as a spell. He pulled me into what I now call his “love cloud.” It felt beautiful and comforting and powerful. I believed I had met my soulmate. He was kind, attentive, romantic, and he seemed to know exactly what to say to make me feel seen and adored. He created an emotional reality that was so vivid, I didn’t see the scam forming behind it.

He told me he was a government contractor, working as an oil rig welder. He had just started a new job in Malta, and his Wi-Fi wasn’t working well. He asked me for a favor: to log into his online banking account and make a payment on his behalf to someone working with him in Malta. He gave me login details for what appeared to be a real account at a Bank in California. The information worked. I accessed the account, made the payment, and saw with my own eyes that it supposedly held $8 million.

He asked me to make another payment. That one also went through. It seemed harmless—I thought I was helping the man I was falling in love with. I had no reason to question anything. But then the third payment failed. According to him, the bank had frozen his account due to multiple login attempts from different IP addresses. He told me he wouldn’t be able to access it again until he returned to the U.S. and went to the bank in person. I believed him. Why wouldn’t I? I’d seen the money.

That’s when the manipulation escalated.

He sent me a photo of an injured hand. He said he got into a fight on the rig, had to go to the hospital, and now couldn’t pay the bill. If he didn’t pay, he said, he would be in danger. There was always drama—always another reason I had to help him. And I did. Again and again.

Looking back, I see now that I was brainwashed. I was in a mental fog, completely detached from reality. I was in love with a fantasy—a fake dream created by a criminal who knew exactly how to manipulate me.

I lost $200,000. My entire retirement. I spent hours and days at Bitcoin machines, sending everything I had to someone I had never even met. At the same time, he was building the fantasy even further. He encouraged me to start looking at houses. He talked about vacations. He talked about our future. He mailed me what looked like an $8 million check—payment for the Malta job—via UPS. It looked real. He told me to hold onto it until we met. That was the hook that kept me believing he was rich, that our happy ending was just around the corner.

But it never came.

He kept asking for more. And eventually, he made it clear that he expected me to return to work just so I could keep sending him money. That was the moment the dream started to crack. I was scared. Deep down, I finally admitted what I didn’t want to see. I had been conned. I had been scammed. I had been used.

He called me again, and when I finally heard his voice—a thick foreign accent that didn’t match anything he had claimed—I screamed. I told him he was a criminal. I told him he had destroyed me. And I never answered another call or message after that.

Since then, I’ve been grieving—not just the money, but the love I thought I had. I grieve a life and future that I now know was never real. It’s a cruel kind of pain. A betrayal that leaves you questioning everything about yourself.

I’ve had to accept that the money is gone. I’ll never get it back. I’ve had to accept that I have to return to work and rebuild my financial security from the ground up. I did this because I was lonely, because I was isolated, because I was vulnerable. Being alone is hard. It makes you do things you never imagined.

But maybe—just maybe—my story will help someone else. Maybe someone will read this and recognize the red flags earlier. Maybe they’ll pull away before they lose what I did.

If this happened to you, please know you’re not alone. You’re not stupid. You’re not weak. You were targeted by someone who knew how to find and exploit your kindness, your hope, and your heart.

I’m still here. I’m still standing. And slowly, I’m trying to forgive myself.

This is my story. And I share it in the hope that it protects someone else from living it.

SCARS Institute Notes:

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