The power of the scammers!

Why are we afraid of telling the truth

11. June 2023

Being a victim of a romantic scam can be complicated and humiliating.

I do understand that some of us may not want other people to know what has happened and we feel ashamed.

How could we be so stupid and why did we not listen to our friends who warned us?

These are valid questions.

Although, if we keep quiet, we are enabling the scammers to continue and find other victims.

That is why I decided to tell my story from beginning to end.

I have been going through the communication that has been either on messages or videos.

Of course, I don´t have the life communication, by phone or video, but that is ok, what I have got is enough.

When I read the communication I think, HOW COULD I BE SO STUPID?

When I look now with open eyes I ask my self what was wrong with me, why did I fall for the smooth talk?

I am a clever intelligent woman but I let my guard down and that is why I fell flat for the scammer.

This began during Covid and I wonder if the isolation during that time played some part. I missed normal communication with my friends and there the shining knight appeared!

I am not sure why I did continue the relationship because I did quite often see through the scam but somehow, he always managed to convince me that everything was ok and I begged him to forgive me for being so mean!

This is the simple truth.

I felt so terribly guilty not believing his love and his wonderful words!

Normally I am not a lonely person, and I have not felt lonely until I entered this relationship. I felt completely alone often. I could not talk to anyone about my situation and I cried a lot.

I could not talk about my doubts because then people would be judgmental and would say all kinds of things that I did not want to hear about how this was most likely a scam and I would have to get away from it to save myself.

No, I believed him.

And the strangest thing was that I fell deeply in love with the kind man. When I looked at his pictures and saw the honest innocent calm face I felt so guilty ever doubting him.

Of course, I fell in love with a dream, not with the reality.

I could share everything with him and he did not judge me! I trusted him completely for my innermost thoughts! There was this wonderful connection and love!

When I began to send him money it was just a small amount and I looked at it like a contribution to some child or person that would not have enough to survive!

He told me his situation was temporarily and in fact he was rich, just waiting to sell his property and some bad people stood in the way!

He told me he had lost his wife and that was why he felt lonely and wanted to change his life.

I knew that some of what he was telling me was the truth, I had it confirmed from some mutual friends, but of course they did not know the whole story about who he really was.

They just knew the surface and the nice front.

Anyway, when going through the conversation now in the beginning and until we decided to get married and he should come and live with me there are so many red lights that should have made me leave but I didn’t.

After a while, trying to get visa for him and talking to the authorities here I wanted him to get a working visa and we could then get married and would have enough time to convince the authorities here that this was true love, and we would be granted permission for marriage.

We made plans and we made estimation about how much the process would cost.

I was going to help, financially and the estimation was not too horribly hight.

During the process, which has now lasted more than a year I have spent a lot of money on all kind of papers for him and fees he had to pay the agent who took care of the visa.

He was supposed to come in beginning of June last year but something happened and he could not come.

He was then supposed to come month after month and always something happened.

The red lights blinked constantly but I did not see them clearly. I saw something was not working and I fought with him and accused him of using me and lying to me, but he managed to convince me everything was normal, this just took time!

I know that I am not alone in a situation like this. I know there are women all around the world being scammed every day, but they don´t speak up.

In January her told me he needed to get some paper to be able to travel and that would be the last paper he would need and then it would be his visa and everything complete.

I did send him 1.300 euros in January this year and I decided that would be the last he got from me.

He got the paper and sent me a picture of it in an email to prove to me that it was there.

What happened now was that he got sick, seriously sick and could not travel because of that. The work was waiting for him, he just needed to get his health back! And guess what! To go to the doctor he needed money, a lot of money because hospital treatment was expensive! I did not send anything. I was finally true to myself and not giving anymore.

He told me he was alone in the world and I was the only one who could help him!

I had felt for some time that when I stopped sending him money the relationship would be over.

I cried a lot during the months of this year. I woke up in the night crying and suddenly during the day I started crying just out of the blue. This was a difficult time for me and I was grieving the loss of a loved one, but I survived.

3 weeks ago, I told him the relationship was over.

I had seen a new Facebook page with his picture. The page had been set up in January. There was no info about the person but the name was his real name. He told me that this was fake and I asked him to report it to Facebook which he said he did but they refused to take it down.

I knew he was lying and I ended the engagement. He was shocked and did block me from his Facebook. That was my final proof that he had been lying to me the whole time.

I am ok now. I have recovered and my life is normal again, or almost. I feel disappointed in myself for letting me be scammed like this but it is okay. I am standing straight now and every day is a good day. I have not taken all the pictures down, there are 3 still on the wall but they will disappear when I am ready. There is no hurry.

I have learned a valuable lesson and I am strong. I have good friends who I can talk to if I need but I think I am over the talking period. Now it is just to make the most of every day and go to bed grateful for being free.

I am going to use my experience and write about it, if someone else could get out of a similar situation simply by reading my words it would be great.

There are women who have been damaged for life by an experience by the scammers. They have even lost their properties and lively hood by helping the scammers.

Let’s not keep quiet. There are ways to stop them.

Hulda Bjornsdottir