Tag Archives: #eharmony

CAD Tales- Who’s conning who?

Some people can look you straight in the eye and lie to you.
Some people can look you straight in the eye and lie to you.

How can anyone expect to know the truth when the lies are so ordinary?

A fifty five year old widower meets an attractive New Jersey woman on OKCupid. His wife of thirty years died of an illness and after five years of grieving, and occasional dates, he’s ready to get on with his life. She was his greatest love. They were unable to have children.

He’s a college grad with a steady job, nothing flamboyant or unusual. A family man, his aging mother lives with him in the home he owns.

He notices a single woman with long dark hair and a pretty smile on the e-dating site. She’s financially self-sufficient, also a home owner, with several entrepreneurial interests and teaches music lessons. She’s had relationships with men, and a marriage that ended in divorce.

So who’s defrauding who? Both stories are perfectly plausible, but only one is telling the truth….

The man is a life-long bachelor who strings multiple women along at a time. He’s never been married and lives in his mother’s home. And oh, that college degree, it never happened.

They dated, “monogamously” for several months. When he took a week off from his job without any explanation, our heroine caught onto his penchant for simultaneously juggling multiple “relationships.”

Should she have known? 

We’re often told that victims “should know”… Something should seem “off,” or that their personal vulnerabilities made them targets.

Often therapists provide months and months of therapy to unravel the mystery of why someone “chose” to become a victim, as if they fooled themselves instead of getting punked by a despicable liar who targeted and caught them in a web of deceit.

And is it a crime?

The woman had no expectations other than finding a loving person with whom she could share time and experiences. And from wanting to be loved, she became defiled.

The more mundane the lies, the more sinister the erosion of trust for the victim, because they can’t point to anything that could have signaled reality. The violation they feel can have a long reaching affect on the rest of their lives.

While the offender skips along to some new unsuspecting victim, the current one is left with heartache, a pervasive sense of deep-rooted defilement, and life-long trust issues.

Where is justice for these victims?

Hopefully, it lies in New Jersey’s legislation #3908. If you have yet to sign the change.org petition to support this law, please do so today!

Mischele Lewis, who suffered sexual assault by fraud at the hands of William Allen Jordan, (the story that caught the interest of Assemblyman Troy Singleton, and began his journey to introduce legislation,) is far from New Jersey’s only victim of this insidious crime. This law is for all victims. If you’ve suffered SexFraud in NJ, or anywhere for that matter, please let me know. We need examples of this crime for legislative hearings in the Assembly and the Senate.

Facebook Response

Thought you might like to see how some folks respond to this defiling crime. This comment was posted on my Facebook page:

Nick Masi
April 3 at 2:47pm
I don’t get the story. I was waiting for something more sinister and climactic, like emptying out her bank account or something along those lines. Dating a lying loser is unfortunate but you cannot lock up people for things like that. Life doesn’t come with a warning label.

I found it ironic that Mr. Masi could relate to the theft of the victim’ money, as if that were a major breach, but not the defilement of her sexual sanctity. I responded that some people think sex is nothing more than warm flesh and body fluids. They don’t grasp that a person’s sexual organs are a gateway to their soul. He’s far from alone in his beliefs.

 

 

Deb’s CAD Tale

Tom CAD TaleA woman named Deb contacted me about what had happened to her and asked me to post it. It’s a tale that’s typical of the outrageous behavior of internet romantic scam artists with an enlightening “take-away”.

 

A little background….

Tom seemed to be a great match for Deb. He found her in an on-line dating site. He was a good communicator and they spent hours on the phone, almost daily, throughout their eight month relationship. She felt the “chemistry” of a new found connection right away when they first met.

He claimed that his job caused him to travel on assignments. Shortly after they met, he was called away. Little did she recognize, at the time, that married men frequently disguise their existing relationships by claiming the need to travel for business.

More false claims

Tom pretended that he was a Marine Reservist and a Forensic Psychologist. He’d been turned down by the Marines and never went to college. He stated his age as 41 when he was actually 52. He is alleged to be a bigamist. The case has been filed against him in New Jersey and is currently pending.

Debunking the myth

We often hear people accuse SexFraud victims of ignorance and gullibility. But one would hardly use those terms to describe Deb. In fact, she’s trained to recognize, sort out, and deal with issues that surface in dating. She’s a dating coach. She believes that the elevated level of conquest piqued Tom’s interest and made her a “high value” target.

You can read more about Deb’s case on her blog. She has located a number of additional victims who Tom has hoaxed and they serve as a support group for each other.

 

 

 

 

 

Internet Dating- A sure way to find a con artist?

online-dating

I receive complaints each and every day about internet dating scams. These stories break my heart. They’re tales of love-bombing and betrayal. Some involve sex addicts. Others hide marriages or money fraud. And my first inclination is to recommend people stay away from dating sites.

MSNBC conducted a survey that calculated 30% of e-dating participants were married. The number was higher for men than women. But the Oasis Singles Blog indicates that 30% of the dating pool, in general, is covering up existing marriages. So if the ratios match, e-dating at least, provides access.

Toxic Hazard

The trick is to use e-dating wisely and be on the watch for hazard signs. 

Free sites are apt to contain more scammers than paid resources for obvious reasons. The greater the disclosure and security provided by the site, the more likely they are to eliminate con artists.

  • If you constantly reach voice mail, rather than securing direct contact, or if their written responses are delayed, your match may be waiting for their wife or business colleagues to get out of the way.
  • Are they speaking in a hushed tone or only texting late at night? Their spouse could be right alongside them when they do.
  • Are they making miraculous recoveries from illness? Telling you they’re sick one day, and then appearing perfectly fine the next, could signal they lied to hide their whereabouts.
  • No photo on the site? When people want to send you their photo privately, rather than place it online, it could signal that they don’t want to be found out by a spouse. Let them know they need to post their picture, not send it to you directly.
  • Weight, height and age are the most frequently incorrect statements on dating profiles. If it’s important to you, don’t take their word for granted.
  • If they never take you home or identify where they live, it’s a tip-off that they’re hiding a spouse.
  • Someone who is really into you would love to show you off to their family. Failure to do so could easily indicate a problem. Con artists will denigrate their family relationships. They’ll even feign that they’re dead. If you don’t meet the family, be very cautious!
  • Avoid e-dating services that market people as wealthy or millionaires. No one who is wealthy wants to be punked by a Gold Digger. Their interest is not served by attracting you to their affluence, so why would they?

ID cards

Always Photo ID a person you meet through on-line dating!

I know it sounds intrusive, and it is! But you are taking risks in diving into the dating pool, and so are they. Rather than springing your request to ID them on your first date, let them know ahead of time that you expect to exchange IDs when you meet. Their resistance is a good indication that they’re not on the level.