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Taken for a Softie: How One WLS Patient Was a Victim of Scam Online and How to Prevent It

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By Jesse Jayne Rutherford

Diane Brandt was once a trusting person. But Carl , a man she had an online relationship with but never met, conned her out of every penny she had?and then some, changing her trusting nature for good.

After this OH member had gastric bypass surgery, meeting friends online was exciting. On another social networking site, she met Carl, a good-looking man her age who said he was from Riverside, California, where he owned a construction company. ?He made it easy for me to open up to him about my life and feelings and insecurities about myself and who I am. He slowly pulled me in,? Diane recalls. Within a couple of weeks, they were making plans to meet.

And then it happened: he called from Italy, asking her for money. He told her his ?business partner? had been ?robbed? in ?Africa,? and asked her if she could send $500 to nearby Ghana. Diane wired him a total of $2300 and comprised all the cash she had available plus a total advance on her check from one of her jobs. ?Which may not sound like a lot to some,? Diane concedes, ?but for me it was two months? pay from one of my jobs.? After he put off seeing her in person, she grew suspicious and began making phone calls.

Diane found out from the site where she originally met Carl that he was a suspected scammer; in fact, the support team at the website knew what country she had wired the money to without her even telling them. ?I was devastated,? she says.

With the help of OH friends who lent their support, she recovered and got up the nerve to file a complaint and also contact OH to warn other members of scammers who might prey on vulnerable people who are new to socializing.

Here?s what Diane learned from her experience:

- Save all your communications. Don?t delete your e-mails.

- If telephone connections are always really bad, and if you hear lots of strange clicks and static, the caller could be routing calls so they?re untraceable.

- Sparse profiles?people who don?t have much to say about themselves?are suspicious. Find out more about the person.

- Don?t allow your online friend to isolate you, poison you against your loved ones, call you excessively, or call you in the middle of the night, no matter what time zone he/she lives in. These are controlling behaviors.

- If you?re romantically involved with someone, yet they express no interest in sex or meeting you, it could be a sign they?re after money instead.

- Do not wire, send, or by any other means give money to people you?ve never met, no matter how well you feel you know them.

- Also, do not cash a check from someone like this, and do not let them wire money into your account. They can then use this information to take funds out of your bank account.

- You can report scams to the sites you met the scammers on, and also to the IC3 at www.ic3.gov.

January 2009