Category: Others experiences

As people start to share their own experiences, it can help others to identify with what has happened to them or alert them to current Catfish.

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We crossed paths in a support group. J’s experience of a Catfish.

This email arrived from ‘J’ before Christmas. It had me in tears and her words stayed with me all day. This eloquent and heart felt account of the reality of victims of Catfish tells of the emotion spinning manipulations endured at their hands. Thank you so much for sharing this J. It will help others so much knowing their feelings are not unusual.

I sought first to understand with an open mind, wanting to believe the best in you. Wanting to believe the picture you still paint for me.

But I also read and heard one story after the next, about men and women who have been devastated by online fraudsters.

And the ones about love-bombing catfish, who devise scams for money, really hit hard for me.

Many of those victims I learned from have spent years searching their scammers alias online, as they try to move through the impact their predator had on their lives.

But I simply can’t do this.

I am already exhausted.

There is no justice in a world where you pretend nothing happened, while I wait for you to admit that it did. It’s time to move on for me.

This is my letter of truth. One that I hope will also demonstrate to other men and women who have been through the emotional abuse of being deceived and exploited for someone else’s gain that, just because their offender will not admit what they have done, and just because they believed the lies they were fed, does not mean one has to forever question their reality or live with this alone. We are not losing our minds: gaslighting is a real manipulation that can fool anyone. It can make you distrust your own instincts.

I wish I could just walk away and say I should choose who I let into my life better, but your ruthlessly calculated and deceptive pursuit of me, and effort you go about hiding all of it mean you must start behaving better.

I get that the worldwide web and social media remain poorly regulated, but that doesn’t give me or anyone else permission to find ways to exploit that.

And this is certainly not how I wanted to handle my closure, an honest and fully detailed apology from you would have sufficed while I waited for you to repay me. The fact that you are intelligent enough to operate at the level you already do offers plenty indication and hope you could succeed at other opportunities for scratch, it makes me wonder if you’ve ever heard the saying “an honest days work for an honest days pay”.

I know now there are others like me at varying degrees, who I would never ask to take up the task of being so loud at hand towards you.
It is precisely the attempts to downplay what I tried to confront, convince me I am wrong which brings me to this letter. I am writing factual truths here, and will accept any legal ramifications that would result from what I have said in this letter.

This is not the type of writing someone in the throes of “psychosis” or loss of sanity would create. People don’t just run down their hall and throw up upon learning the truth about their relationship with someone. This is real.

We crossed paths in a support group. Intended to be a safe place for communicating about the moments or events people struggle with in their lives. Now I know support groups have become places for catfish or other fraudsters to take advantage of vulnerability. To hear of someone’s most intimate struggles, while at the same time knowingly inflicting more pain onto them… for money.

There is not one decent excuse for that.

And yet, you have used my struggles as a weapon against me, exploited them as a solid “pray for her” she is crazy out of her mind backstory. But I care more about preventing women from being fed through your grinder, than I do what they think of my sanity. At the end of the day I have helped others avoid being tangled up before they could thank me. Even one beautiful, trusting and caring soul left feeling confused and alone with a smaller bank account is too many.

It was upon learning the version you tell, as to why I was reaching out to women, that I finally realised you are still working harder at keeping these secrets hidden than you are at finding an honest way to rebuild.

Kind, nice people treat others as they would like to be treated. They do not make up having the same interests, or fabricate information about themselves in order to get women to think you are like-minded persons for selfish reasons. They don’t pretend they are unmarried while just returning back from their honeymoon.

You had a preface to your game: do not be resentful or spiteful. Never lie to you. Don’t fight with you and don’t hurt you. Many of the rules were broken from day 1 while you had already waged an undeclared war on my human psyche. But now we talk about repentance and forgiveness because it is convenient. My actions to those I have hurt, who deserved better, is what it means to make things right. Not words.

Before I learned there were others, while my reality was based on your reactions, it was hard to believe my recount of events… of things I heard and felt and saw with my very own eyes. So I’m being serious when I say excuse me in advance if not everyone who reads this has encountered you at this level. But I know what happened to me. And I had to investigate and fight so hard to uncover what I knew was true but was told by you I was inaccurate about. Down to scientific facts.

At best, you made a very premeditated effort to deceive and manipulate a woman capable of offering money to you. At best, you made a joke out of my hopes and dreams and personality. Maybe you thought that a Scarlet letter would shame me from reaching this point. I am not ashamed of being human with emotions, and at the time, a profound naivety that led me where I am.
I like to think you have chosen a temporary deplorable career path. But that doesn’t change the reality that I type this as one of your victims, and there’s no more time left in me for silence. What looks to you as harassment and stalking is a victim desperately searching for answers. Trying to take back their human dignity in knowing that this was never about them.

One of the more harsh and impactful damages that result from being victim of an online romance fraud is this perceived loss in the value of humanity. A sense of isolation, fear, shame and humiliation all at once, in moments where it used to seem intuitive to open up to other people. Now there’s an incessant nagging level of self-doubt…that I will miss some sign of a predator in disguise and my naivety or poor judgement will cause me to regret an introduction to a new face. There’s this need to recover without the closure to begin.

Until today.

But then again maybe God has put it on my heart to stop you from this… and to help others do the same, should they find themselves duped by a con artist who thinks they can do and say anything to exploit what they want in life. – J

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M’s Story of a Romance Scam

It’s always a privilege to be able to publish someone else’s experience of Romance Fraud  on my website. Today, Mike has been brave in sharing his experience of a financial romance scam. Sharing these stories is incredibly important to potentially allow another targets or victims to recognise what they or someone they know are going through too.

I retired and moved to Jacksonville, FL during the summer of 2016.  I didn’t know anyone so I joined a dating site. I was arrogant, naive, gullible, and ignorant of online dating scams.

​I joined Arrangement Finders in hope of meeting a beautiful younger woman who wanted an older man.  Scrolling through the posts, I came upon an extremely beautiful woman with a rather conservative photo.  Her post read that she lived in Starke, FL not far from Jax. Her name was “Luisa Rosario” and had moved to Semmes, AL to live with her “sister”, “Joyce Patterson”.

The scammer was using pictures of Mexican-American glamour model Olga Loera.

We struck up an online relationship and she gave me her email address, RosarioLuisa955@gmail.com. She said she wanted to come to Jax to meet me, but needed my help and asked for money.  Stupidly, I started sending her $50 here and there.  She insisted on Gift Cards as she could not cash a check, etc. We texted everyday and she kept saying she was through with young men and wanted me because I was mature, kind and decent.

​Next, she “moved” to Buffalo, NY with her “uncle”, ‘Omar Velez” and asked me to wire him money via Western Union.  Again, foolishly, I did.  He got her a cell phone with a number from St. John’s, Newfoundland in Canada.  She offered some vague explanations about saving money.

​I once talked with some man claiming to be Omar who lied that he was happy for Luisa and me. I fell deeper into this scam.  We even started proclaiming “love” for one another and made plans to live together in Florida.

​“Luisa” moved in with her girlfriend, “Becca”, sent me a phoney address in Buffalo and showed a phoney New York State driver’s license. “Becca” and I spoke a few times and “Luisa” sent me many “her” photos of a drop dead gorgeous Mexican woman, face shots, sexy poses and even nudes. When I asked why one so stunningly beautiful would want to be with a retired, average guy like me; she lied about my being her soul mate, etc.

​For three years she ran this scam, conning me with lies and deception.  I sent her money along the way and we texted or emailed every day.  Supposedly, she was so broke, she couldn’t afford to get to work, had little or no food and tried guilting me into sending more money saying I was cruel to “let her suffer so.”

I even bought a plane ticket to fly to Buffalo on 6/1/20018 to move into “our apt.” that she had secured with my deposit and rent.  But at the last second, she texted me that “her sister Joyce” was dying in Las Vegas.  Then fake “Luisa” later lied that she had been scammed by the landlord and lost the apt. and all my cash. Another lie.

Eventually, I Reverse Image searched a lovely face shot she had just sent, and was revealed it was Olga Loera, a former Mexican Playmate of The Year and an incredibly beautiful glamour model and celebrity in Los Angeles. Olga and I have texted and she is a real, decent, gorgeous model and mother of two,

Luisa Rosario, who doesn’t exist, used Olga’s photos for three years to lie, steal and Catfish me.  I have confronted whomever is behind the long con, and they admitted it.  You can see “Luisa Rosario” on a fake Facebook page, but it is actually a pic of the lovely Olga on a TV Show from seven years ago.

I have learned so much in the past two weeks, so be careful folks!

Sincerely, M.

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A double shock! When random contacts collide.

My website is a branch of hope for some people seeking help with trying to ascertain if the person they have been chatting to and most often have deep feeling for/fallen in love with,” is real or not.

My first contact is generally someone who has become wary of the person they are talking with and sometimes it’s a family member who can see that their relative is blinded by the story given by the ‘Catfish’ romance scammer.

Recently, I was contacted within the space of two weeks by two separate women from the USA.

Case Study 1

‘S’ emailed first. She told me the experience of her mother, who she knew had been defrauded. She had done so well to find out who the harvested photos belonged to through a reverse image search (and made contact with him to make him aware his pictures were being used for scams) and had also got the scammer himself to show his face on a video call. She had contacted me to ask if there was any way of tracking him further, to find out his real name for police and closure for her mother who had been communicating with this man for over two years. Money had exchanged hands but more so, the part of this that is so often ignored, she was devastated at the loss of the person she loved and the reality that he didn’t really exist.

Meyer William, the ‘middle aged white gentleman from London’, contacted S’s mother through Facebook Messenger. You can see more of his pictures here.

This man has had many of his pictures harvested to be used by scammers.

‘Meyer’ claimed to have moved to Malaysia for work with his son. What has become usual for me to hear, are the sob stories that were told to her mother, the emotional trick used to create empathy with the target to build trust, manipulate them, and finally as a tool to exploit them for money. The background behind the character always has a similar theme:

  • widowed parent/military
  • moved through employment for work to remote/foreign country/deployed abroad military
  • no internet/limited service in remote place/security lock down on internet usage
  • someone is ill/they are ill
  • issue with salary/bank/ID lost/cards lost
  • payments to friends/colleagues until problem sorted
  • need help to get back home 

These are obviously very emotive issues that will have a caring person feeling they need to help-especially after a connection has been made and trust in that person built over a period of time. 

‘S’ sent me the bank details her mother had been making payments to:

Bank: BBVA Compass 
City, state: Bishop, Texas  78343
Account : 6758******
Name: Phillips Acosta
Phone: 4322******
Code: CPASUS44 

Case Study 2

‘M’ emailed asking for help to find out if the man she had been speaking to, was who he said he was.

He had given his name as Antonio Michael Bello. Widowed with a daughter. He was claiming to be from Bristol in the UK with family in the USA. He is using a U.K. mobile number/Sim. Work had taken him to Asia. On attempting to return his bank card had been stolen/corrupt. Issues leaving. Fallen ill. Finally released from Asia then hospitalised on arrival back in the U.K (private bills). This scammer even had video footage of this guy to send. The story fits the similar pattern:

  • widowed parent/military
  • moved through employment for work to remote/foreign country/deployed abroad military
  • no internet/limited service in remote place/security lock down on internet usage
  • someone is ill/they are ill
  • issue with salary/bank/ID lost/cards lost
  • payments to friends/colleagues until problem sorted
  • need help to get back home 

Not coming from this country, unaware of other landscapes, style of houses, cars, details of how our medical system works etc… it can be easy to accept what these scammers are saying as true. However, there is nearly always a turning point when it starts to become clear that not all is as it seems.

This man may not be aware that his photos have been used to scam others. They do not show up on reverse image searches.

Scammers are constantly looking for new images to use as more people become aware of ‘reverse image searches’ and some dating websites have software to match images that have been used in scams previously.

Bank: BB&T BANK
Beneficiary Name: Philip Acosta Construction Company.
Beneficiary Address: 2979 County Road 14D Bishop, Texas 78343-5032
Acc#:1340*********
Routine : 053101121
Bank Address: 121 3rd St Ayden, Greenville/NC 28513-7252

You can imagine my surprise when I was logging this case information, to discover that both of these random women were being scammed  by the same gang. Both sets of bank details were to a beneficiary named Philip(s) Acosta and both were using banks in Bishop, Texas.

Once hooked by one of these scammers, they start the process of not only getting money from the target, but using other targets to make their money ‘lending’ seem real. 

‘M’ was asked to send money (via a secure postal source) to another female ‘V’ in America. She was told  ‘V’ would get the money into an account for transferring. He told her that he knew ‘V’ as he had worked in their family construction company for a while. ‘V’ was an older lady and checked out on Facebook by name and location details from the address given.

It’s most likely that ‘V’ was a victim too and ‘M’s’ money was part of the facade of him using money from a friend to ‘repay’ part of the money lent by ‘V’. Later she might be asked to ‘re-loan’ that money when another sob story is set. 

When they start to feel they are losing their grip on the victim, the scammers will get quite distant and nasty. They will  push buttons, make out it’s the victim fault that things don’t seem to be working out or even make a last push with faked documents such as these probate and wills to prove the ‘inheritence’ they are due. ‘M’ had already come to terms with the fact that Antonio wasn’t real at this point but was playing along:

One thing is certain. Both of these women were at vulnerable times in their lives. One widowed and one just getting a divorce. They were both easy targets for  professional scammers who have the ability to emotionally manipulate others, who have a kind and empathetic nature. You think it could never happen to you? Never be so certain. 

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Guest Blog: Romance Fraud and Bigamy

In our guest blog today, Kim Sow explains more about legalities and the ‘Justice’ system after discovering her husband was in fact already married. Kim now runs the ‘Immigration Marriage Fraud Consultancy’ to help others like herself.

One of the little talked about aspects of the dating scams is the rise in people being targeted for marriage to obtain immigration status in the UK.  As the immigration criteria tightens in other routes combined with the failure to remove illegal migrants, bogus students, failed asylum seekers etc they are turning to the spousal visa which is the weakest of all immigration systems as there are so few checks carried out. No marital checks, no affidavit of single person status, no declaration on the exclusivity of the relationship, no police certificate required and very few actual criminal checks are carried out. With an illegal migrant population in the UK estimated to be 1M this means that one in 65 people you meet is trying to secure their immigration status. Marriage is being used as an insurance policy against deportation.

To make matters worse the ‘Certificate of Approval’ system was removed. This was a process that meant that all foreign nationals had to be checked by the Home Office before they were allowed to marry in the UK. This removal led to a steep rise in Sham marriages and fraudulent marriages. In 2014 the EU named these ‘Marriages by Deception’ in other countries they are known as ‘Marriage Fraud’ or ‘Mariages Gris’. Bigamy and polygamy without consent has become a large feature in these frauds often combined with criminal pasts and fraudulent paperwork.

Online dating agencies and the religious matrimonial sites have become the ‘go to place’ to secure a marriage. Many victims naively believed that if somebody is in the UK that there must have been some checks carried out, they believe that when they go to the General Registry Office (which is part of the Home Office) for marriage that checks are carried out automatically when the reality is that only when the General Registry Office has suspicions can a Section 24 be issued and referral made to the Home Office. Again the spouse may believe that rigorous checks will be made when the spouse visa/family reunification process is started when this is not so and maybe even the dating sites themselves believe the propaganda of the ‘Hostile Environment’ not knowing the full extent of the issue that ‘ne’er do wells’ are entering the UK and marrying to secure their status.

Some examples:

A woman met a man on a dating site, they married and he obtained his spouse visa. It transpired he was on a criminal most wanted list in his own country and already married.

A man met a woman on a dating site who had several children, they married and she obtained a spouse visa. He believed he was step father to the children who he financially supported. It transpired that she was already married in a live relationship and that the children had a father who was very much in the picture and who inadvertently he was financially supporting.

A woman met a man on a dating site and it transpired that none of his details were correct and he had obtained numerous different official and unofficial identities. He had already been in prison for using fraudulent documentation in the UK. Transpired he was also married. Through marriage he obtained his immigration status.

A man met a woman on a dating site and they married. Transpired she had three husbands!

A woman met a man on a dating site. It transpired that he had been voluntarily deported for fraud but been given a letter from the Home Office stating that ‘should he apply on the basis of marriage he would not be refused’ so this is of course what he did and his wife had no knowledge of his criminal past.

Sadly, these cases are common. Unfortunately not all dating sites carry out checks and of course some of the sites are hosted abroad. Social media is also being used as a dating site e.g. a vulnerable woman was targeted by a foreign national, they married in the UK and it transpired that he was already married, not the age he purported to be nor of the profession he said. In fact not even his address was real that he had given in his home country. The disabled are particularly vulnerable to these frauds as there is a different immigration system for them and they do not have to prove an income of £18,600.

None of the above cases and the numerous similar are prosecuted. In 2014 the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration wrote his British Nationality Report. He could find no prosecutions other than for organised crime. The EU Commission recommended that all member states have a multi-agency forum including non statutory bodies to look at these ‘Marriages of Convenience’ unfortunately the UK did not implement. There are no cases of bigamy being prosecuted between a foreign national due to the out of date bigamy law. Issues such as jurisdiction, domicile and ‘subject of her majesty’ combined with CPS guidance making cases impossible to obtain an outcome. These cases could be prosecuted under the Fraud Act 2006 Section 2 or perhaps 4 but they are not. Furthermore these cases are a form of rape. Few victims would have consented to sex with their partners if they knew that they were already married and not the identity they purported to be! Whilst all forms of online dating scams are harmful imagine being bound to the fraudster in a contract of marriage that is extremely difficult to extract from without serious financial consequences unless there has been a prosecution.

Other countries have had great success in address when these frauds are used for immigration purposes. Here is the law of France as an example:

Article L623-1

The fact of contracting a marriage or recognising a child solely for the purpose of obtaining, or having obtained, a residence permit or the benefit of protection against expulsion, or for the sole purpose of acquiring, or acquire, the French nationality is punishable by five years of imprisonment and 15 000 Euros fine. These penalties are also incurred when the foreigner who has contracted marriage has concealed his intentions from his spouse.

The same penalties apply in case of organisation or attempt to organise a marriage or recognition of a child for the same purpose.

They are brought to ten years of imprisonment and to 750 000 Euros of fine when the infraction is committed in organised band

Great harm is being caused by these fraudsters and a prosecution strategy must be devised if we are to stop the growth and deter the fraudsters.

For more information see www.immigrationmarriagefraudconsultancy.com

You can read Kim’s own story here.

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Victim Abuse: The after effects of speaking out.

Your Story

Claire shares her story of adult grooming and abuse.

The Theatre of the Mind

I tried to download a dating app yesterday. It was on my phone for 30 seconds before I deleted it.

Lovebombed

Last Autumn, I met a man online who made me love him like no other. He was intellectual, academic, caring, funny, attentive and romantic. Our early conversations were so rapid fire that he was taking the words out of my mouth before they came out. We spoke for hours daily by phone.  It was breath taking. He took it slowly, gently, knew me better than I knew myself.  Now I know why. He’d researched.

Indeed, the ‘getting to know you’ period lasted so long that I eventually ‘friend zoned’ him.

That spurred him into action:  before I knew it I was meeting him at Platform 8, Waterloo Station. His face lit up when he saw me. This slightly cuddly, endearingly ordinary man captured my heart. I almost ‘loved’ him before I met him. He was my mirror, but the bit I liked, for the first time ever.

You hear about women who give everything up for someone they’ve never met. I’d never understood, regarding them as a bit silly, a bit needy. Yet here I was, one step short of it. Mr W, ex Royal Navy, academic, navigation expert, ex-pat living in Rotterdam, had turned me to jelly. We snogged goodbye like teenagers. He went off to a Naval ball at the Honourable Company of Master Mariners, and I headed home with a head full of him.

Our next date was due to be in Paris, but the weekend came and went – he had to work. He wanted to put me up in the New York Hotel in Rotterdam, close to where he lived so that we had an unpressured date. That too never materialised. To be honest, I’d assumed we’d do every other weekend there or here in the UK. It was a million miles from the practical, close-by relationship that I’d sought, but I talked myself into the benefits. For a while he was my closest friend.

He was hating his job. I was wanting him here. Our communication was so intense that I eventually told him to back off a little. He sounded hurt.

He became the centre of my life. I started leaving time free for him, just in case, taking his calls just before leaving for the gym and missing much needed classes.

Our next date was London. Unsure about taking our relationship up a gear, I booked an apartment rather than a hotel so that we had the option of separate beds. I knew I’d made a friend for life, but needn’t have worried. We laughed into bed and the world vanished. For a perfect couple of days we wrapped ourselves together, emotionally, mentally and physically engrossed in our escape from reality.

Coercion and Control

It was the first time I saw him lie, really coldly, convincingly, to his boss that he was getting a supervision for his PhD, when in fact he was tucked up with me and had given up his PhD. He won’t be the first person to bunk off work, but it struck me at the time how easily the lies tripped off his tongue.

Reality for us was harder outside the bunker. He hated his job in Rotterdam. He was getting less attentive, but that honeymoon period intensity couldn’t be expected to last. At least, that’s what I told myself as he apparently spent Christmas with his mother on a cruise in the Balkans, during which time he couldn’t be in touch. His relationship with his mother was, he claimed, complex. He was secretive about her. Apparently, a spurned ex had once turned up on her doorstep.

I gave up a business I’d been working on, a passion that had burned for years. I finally had the money to invest, but he persuaded me that it was too big a risk and we’d never get any time together.

In January, he bought me a flight to Rotterdam, and we were to have our first weekend date. All our other ‘trysts’ had been week days.  I was suspicious, about how he was making me feel, shabby, needy. I explained my feelings to him and he blamed my good friend for poisoning my mind.

Eventually he threw in the job. A leadership expert, he told me he thought the management at Simwave was shoddy. However, he was going for Chartered status at the Honourable Company of Master Mariners as a boost.

I was angrily told that I couldn’t go to the ceremony with him, that it was a silly little paper signing, and I was dispatched to Rotterdam to wait for him there. 

We’d both initially had tickets for later flights, but his job loss meant he brought them forward to give us more time together. I was now on the earlier flight, he was on a later one. I knew deep inside, despite having sent me a message from a gin bar the week before that he was warming up for my visit, that he wasn’t coming. But I had a ticket and accommodation at his expense. I’d never spent much time in Rotterdam, so went anyway. Sure enough, he didn’t turn up until the following morning. He’d “missed his flight” and apparently stayed in a very expensive hotel at the airport.

His communication started faltering. 

Eventually I called time, sure he was living with someone, especially as he had now moved back to the UK, jobless, but only ever managed passing meets. On Valentine’s Day, he came over from his mother’s in Essex with a bunch of garage flowers, but had to get to Portsmouth to catch a ship for ‘Navy Reserve’ duty that evening. The timings didn’t ring true.

Punishment

Eventually he talked me round.

It was easy. I’d been out with an ex in the gap, and it just wasn’t the same.

Mr W understood me. I accepted I was nasty and should have accepted that he had a thing about his mother. We had some bridges to build, and I was going to have to demure. Despite being unhappy at his mums, we couldn’t live together because he’d apparently married his second wife within six months. But, promisingly, he wanted me to hold off buying my little Spanish bolthole. He was going to buy it with me. We would have our little place away from the World.

Despite being conscious of some cruel things he did, I was feeling increasingly bad about myself, and spent days helping to research jobs for him, preparing presentations, to make amends.  Yet still deep inside feeling a niggle, I hired a private detective to find out what was really going on.

Eventually, two weeks of being ‘ghosted’ by him, worrying about the cancer he purported to being tested for, and having completely omitted to acknowledge my birthday despite having left it clear for a promised weekend in Paris, seven months of relationship ended with a little email about how difficult his life was and he had no more time for me. I replied that I was sorry, that whatever our relationship had diminished to, I was grateful for the good bits.

I was relieved.

The truth

It was too late to call off the investigators, they’d started work: he was living with a woman near Fareham, in a house he’d supposedly rented out. I sent him a choice text and moved on. To stop anyone else getting duped by him, I posted some of our pictures up on Facebook, a rare ‘public’ post, pointing out his marital situation and where he was living – not in the mess on a naval base or with mother.

The man had no more loved me than a politician kissing a baby. Awful truths started to crawl daily out of the woodwork. Alan Ayckbourn would be hard pushed to make up some of it, especially the Master Mariners event, where at least three women had wanted to attend. But the sadder stories were what he’d done to his family. I was just one in a string of women that he’d groomed into relationships.

I had consented to a physical relationship only after extracting an explicit promise of him being unmarried and not dating anyone else. That he had a clean bill of sexual health. He had lied to obtain that consent, was married, had multiple other partners simultaneously, and  had lied about his sexual status, putting me at risk.

My reward for loving Mr W was planned suicide (fortunately not acted on), a police harassment notice, and now a civil law suit because his wife claims to have suffered enough to need three months off work. He apparently bears no blame for this. It’s my fault for naming him.

I am no longer the person I was. He’s eaten at my self esteem. I doubt I’ll ever date again. How can I? The only person I’ve loved in over 30 years was never real, just a mind game.

Looking back through our conversations for the police and for my solicitors, he laced the clues,  lured me in to hurt me. He won the mind game.

Grooming is very different from an affair. Mr W only ever wanted me to break my own moral codes, to use his “theatre of the mind” to push my boundaries. I am shamed that he succeeded, in more ways than I’ll admit here.

But I’ll use that shame and disgust to make sure that people like him – men and women alike, are no longer allowed to hurt others legally. My explicit consent matters as much as money. More.

Too many victims end up further victimised when they speak out. He, meanwhile, and others like him, continue to re-offend with impunity.

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Adult Grooming: Grooming does not just happen to children.

Adult Grooming is the behaviour behind ‘Catfishing’. Under current legislation you lose your right to any protection as you turn 16. Here ‘mumstravelblog’ describes her experience of this abhorrent abuse.

Long Term Damage from Adult Grooming

by mumstravelblog

I have spent years talking to my children (my daughter in particular) about safety online and more specifically in relation to the dangers of online dating after she split up with her first long term boyfriend and ventured over into the world of ‘Tinder’.

But to be honest I truly thought that I myself was immune from online scammers and predators, I ‘thought’ I could spot them from a mile away….. I WAS WRONG.

I have dipped my toe into the world of online dating a few times on and off over the years, and yes I have on occasions met up with guys who have looked 10 yrs older than their profile photos or have posted on their profiles that they are 6′ and turn out to actually be 5’4″ !! It kind of goes with the territory, but never in a million years did I think that at the age of 47 that I would get groomed, deceived and duped in the way that I did.

The word ‘catfish’ is used more and more in relation to online dating and those who set up fake profiles in order to scam people either for money or for some twisted pleasure.

My groomer was not a ‘catfish’ in the traditional sense; he used his own name (I think) and his own photographs, however that is the only thing about him which was either truthful or real. Absolutely everything else which came from him was lies and was all a part of a very sick controlling game he played which enabled him abuse my sanity, my integrity, my mind, my self worth, my trust, and my body.

I have already named the man who groomed me in my earlier blog – Steve Window, I am 99.9% sure than this is his real name, however when I was getting suspicious about him and put his mobile number into Facebook it connected to a profile in the name of ‘David Peters’ but with no photograph, I suspect that he may have been using additional profiles under that name and maybe others as well, I will never know the truth. The worse part of it was the fact that Steve joked constantly about online scammers and how stupid women were to fall for them, he said “if you can see someone has a linkedin account then you know 100% that they are genuine…” of course he has a linkedin account, but he is far from genuine – he is a narcissistic serial predator and compulsive liar.

In a very short space of time this one man single handedly stripped away my sense of self, he stripped away my integrity and my right to consent – I honestly feel that his deception and coercion took away my rights and my freedom to choose (because I know 100% I would NOT have chosen to have any kind of relationship with him had he rightfully informed me of the truth).

Now without blowing my own trumpet I am a pretty intelligent, grounded, strong and sensible woman! As well as being a former Police Officer. It’s not very often that someone like this would get one over on me, neither would I ever have previously considered myself vulnerable, however this experience has shown me just how vulnerable I actually am and this alone has weakened me greatly as a person. I am empathic, sensitive to other people’s needs, I love deeply and am fiercely protective. I had always prided myself on my honesty, integrity, loyalty, inner strength and fairness towards others.

Previous to this abuse I trusted pretty much everyone at face value until such time as they gave me reason not to, now I trust no one and I honestly feel like I will never be able to trust anyone again, particularly within a relationship.

This is not a man who just dated me with good intentions and it simply didn’t work out – this is a man who deliberately targeted me, meticulously groomed me (at the same time as others) and deceived me into having sex with him, then gained additional gratification in completely messing with my mind & my emotions to devalue me. Internally I am still screaming, but no one can hear me. However know I have to be strong for the sake of my children…and I will be.

The thing is with him is that he is clever; a brilliant academic who has a Masters Degree in studying manifesting & human behaviour within the Maritime domain. He understands psychology in depth and the power of the mind, he knows how to change peoples perceptions in the way that they think and act, he knows exactly the way the mind can be re-programmed quickly. He uses these skills in his coercive control of women and I have to say he uses them well.

I look back now and I cringe, how on earth did I fall for that?…but I did – hook, line and sinker 😢. I have used online dating in the past as I’ve already said, but I have never got into deeply personal conversation prior to meeting a man, and certainly didn’t think it remotely possible that you could fall in love with someone before even meeting them, but with him I did, and I fell quickly. He made sure of that. However what I have subsequently learnt is that the messages that Steve was sending me were not love, but what is referenced as ‘love bombing’ a well known and documented tactical move of narcissists to quickly gain control over you and your emotions.

I honestly had never had such feelings for someone I had never met before, I couldn’t believe that this was happening or even possible – finally I believed I had met the man of my dreams and what’s more I foolishly believed that he felt the same way too. When we sat in a restaurant together enjoying a lavish dinner during our first date, he looked he straight in the eye telling me he had absolutely no doubts that this was all perfect and I totally felt the same way. Little did I know as we sat in the Citizen M Hotel, Rotterdam later that evening, chatting, laughing and being what some would describe as ‘loved up’, Steve was sending photos of his G&T to his next victim with a text saying “warming up for your visit”. Just two weeks later he took her to exactly the same hotel!

I am very much one for taking things slowly and if things don’t feel quite right from either side, one half will finish it – end of story and no harm done.

Part of my abusers mind games was the constant reassurance that the relationship was still perfect and that he was smitten, even though in practice he seemed to be withdrawing from me. His words and actions didn’t mirror one another, if he wanted to end it then he could have done so very easily and that would have been the end of it.(I even gave him the chance to do exactly that…twice). No, that was far too boring for him, the ‘carrot & donkey’ scenario was all part of the coercion & mental control. Just in me having to question ‘are things still OK between us?’ made me also question myself as to whether I was appearing too needy? (Definitely not my usual style, yet something which he clearly thrived on as he would have gained a sense of power over me.

My full story is told in an earlier blog, so I am not going to go over it again, but in just a very very short period of time Steve had totally manipulated my mind, and after he had deliberately strung me along for several more weeks and then ghosted me it triggered all sorts of emotions within. Initially when he vanished after saying he was going on a business trip to Singapore I was worried sick that something bad had happened to him, then came a sense of confusion and non belief; this man who had claimed to have such strong feelings for me, made promises and plans for both our short and long term future together. I felt SO stupid realising that I had been set up in such a way and had blindly walked straight into his trap. I had told my parents all about him over Christmas, told friends I had finally found ‘the one’, booked tickets for him to attend a big awards ceremony with me for which I was a judge and had told several colleagues about the ‘new man’ I was bringing with me. I suddenly could not even face going, my stomach was in knots, I felt physically sick as the reality dawned on me that I had been deliberately targeted, groomed, used and ghosted – as suddenly everything fell into place.

His coercive control left me with debilitating anxiety attacks and suicidal thoughts, don’t ask me why, the mind can do funny things. I wasn’t just devastated that a short term relationship had come to an end, it was the reality of being groomed and abused in so many senses. Feeling totally violated & vulnerable, realising I could have potentially put my children at risk, not only of the possibility of either being groomed themselves, but of them becoming motherless if he had infected me with H.I.V (something which I don’t mind admitting I am paranoid about given the fact my brother died of AIDS at 37 and why I am generally over cautious about safe sex) My abuser assured me that sex with him was safe, he told me he was single and not been in another relationship for over a year – and I foolishly believed him.

If you have never suffered with anxiety/panic attacks then this diagram might just come close to trying to describe them: The invisible hippopotamus sitting on your chest was particularly poignant for me, and even now when it hits me, I feel like I can’t breathe.

My life hasn’t always been easy, I was in an physically abusive relationship 21 years ago, and two years ago I had a bad breakdown. I had worked hard at re-building my life TWICE, Steve knew the details of both these low points in my life because I had trusted him enough to share. He knew that I was perhaps ‘fragile’ and yet it did not deter his path of abuse and destruction, in fact looking back he used this to control my emotions even more. He knew that in me learning to love and learning to trust again were big steps, he reassured me that I would be ‘loved, cherished and protected, and that he would never lie to me’. Two years ago I had been on the brink of taking my own life (not relationship related, just one of many many straws breaking the camels back). Forming such a strong bond so quickly with Steve was a huge step in the path of that recovery….but with his deception and grooming now exposed, the walls around me came tumbling down, each and every pore seem to open an old or new wound, and emotionally I crashed. I’m not afraid to say “I was a mess”

One mans grooming triggered so much pain that I cannot even begin to write it in a blog; new hurts & past hurts, I had to re live past trauma and grieve my brothers death all over again…..all of that and so much more.

Thankfully I recognised the signs of where I was this time, I wasn’t going to put myself or my children back to where I was two years ago and hence I immediately sort the help I needed to deal with & recover from falling victim of an online predator (the emotional and physical side of the abuse)

I HATE taking any kind of medication and pills, always have. I wasn’t going to start pumping my body full of anti-depressants and suffering with god knows what side effects as well, but the fog which fell around me was debilitating for several weeks along with the anxiety and panic attacks, inside I was screaming as I felt so humiliated and disgusted with myself that I just wanted to hide from the world. I couldn’t do justice to my work, my family, to life in general. I just wanted to hide from everyone and everything..and for a while I did.

I consider myself lucky, I have the most amazingly supportive family (including my ex-husband!!!) and some truly incredible friends. With their help, with determination & will power and with some exceptional counselling, I pulled myself out of that dark hole.

I loathe the fact he still takes up so much time in my head space though, if I could just press a button and delete it all from my mind I would, if I could turn off the anxiety and sense of worthlessness I now have I would.

Life is very different now, it’s hard to describe; almost as if the rawness of the wound has healed but knowing the scars will always be there. Discovering 5 months after my own ordeal that my abuser was also married at the time and had another victim he went on to abuse immediately afterwards only re-opened some of those wounds yet again. However it also made me determined to ensure that no one else falls victim. My abuser has twice tried to threaten and intimidate me with criminal and civil action for exposing him, his own lawyers comments so dangerous and inappropriate that I reported him to the legal ombudsman, as well as bringing them to the attention of the Police & Crime Commissioner and Victim Commissioner. His lawyers despicable and highly irresponsible comments cast a shadow over himself, his company and the entire legal profession which he represents. It’s truly no wonder with people like that in the legal world that so many victims are too terrified to report abuse to the police and hence too many offences still go unreported, leaving predators completely free to re-offend over and over again.

Am I scared of my abusers intimidation & threats? NO

Am I scared that he will do this again to other women? YES …….(in fact since writing my first blog I have already been informed that he has moved on to yet another woman – this time it’s Jayne in London, who also has an 11 year old son. I’m still trying to work out why he ALWAYS goes for women with young boys??!)

I can’t change what happened to me, but I can hopefully help prevent it happening to other people, so if I go down then I will sure as hell go down fighting. Fighting for justice, fighting for the protection of other women and for the next generation (his children & mine) and fighting for what I know to my core is right.

This experience has changed me. For better or for worse?, I am yet to see long term. I would have hoped to have healed by now…I haven’t 😢. The longer the pain goes on for the deeper I understand how emotionally damaged I was by this man.

Any trust I have within me has been destroyed, BUT… that has taught me to fully embrace myself as a single woman.

It has brought a greater awareness within me that it’s not just children, the naive or vulnerable people that this happens to, it’s anyone. And it’s made me want to fight for the protection and justice of others. If I can prevent just one person from going through what I have by sharing my story then I know something positive has come from this and that it was the right thing to do, no matter how painful.

I no longer felt I could face the world in the public capacity that my job required, I could have just given up and claimed benefits…I didn’t. Instead I decided to take a year out to fully heal and look after myself for a while. I took my son out of school for a year so we could travel the world and spend some quality family together. This trip would never have come to fruition if it wasn’t for my experience of grooming. I am still overly cautious wherever I am, my normally chatty & open self is not interested in engaging strangers and fellow travellers in conversation as I normally would, but I am still working on myself and still healing. I am hoping that given time my barriers may come down again and I may be able to fully embrace the world as we travel it.

For now though, I am cocooned in love and support from family & friends near and far and for that alone I am still truly blessed.

Go to the blog here

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Mike’s story-When Catfishing claims lives.

Written by his Aunt Maria, here is the story of Mike, a 28 year old member of the Air Force who’s life was claimed after his Catfishing experience.

We live in Alaska. What happens in the lower 48 rarely touches us. The story I am about to tell is not real to me, but my nephew is dead, that is very real.

He died at 28, and by his own hands. He served in the Air Force since graduating from high school. Traveled a bit, then was stationed back home in Fairbanks Alaska. He began online dating and met a young women who said she was 19.

On their first date, immediately he knew she was a minor. He took her to her home and never looked back. He told the leader of his team what happened. This should have been the end…fast forward, he has met a beautiful women, bought a house, very involved of the green dot program for rape and violence victims, had his whole life ahead of him.

Two months ago while at work, authorities came in, took his computer and phone. Explained that they were investigating a minor and his name came up. He then sat staring at the wall in his office for 10 hours. Went home, lined his room with Visqueen and shot himself. 48 hours later, the base commander explained to us…a 14 year old minor was being investigated by the Alaska State Troopers for lying on a dating website and then extorting the men. The commander mentioned four other men were on her list. The troopers were investigating the girl, not the men. They called her a Catfisher. They had her computer and saw everything.

After reviewing Mike’s phone and computer, the troopers and military stated he did nothing wrong…absolutely nothing. He was given full honors, an award, my sister received his life insurance.

Thing is, he knew someone serving 3 years in prison with the exact same story, he thought all paedophiles should be hung. His baby sister is 15 when he found the lier was 14, I can not imagine what went through his head, but promise you he puked. He loved his baby sister.

We now have his phone and computer back, confirming what happened. The other boys have lawyers, but their life in the military is probably over. There is no law against what she did.

Sad thing, I may have her name and I want her to pay for all the lives she destroyed but she is just a kid. That does not change what my family is going through.

Everyone needs to know his story. He was not alone. Who should we blame…all…none?

Maria Anderson

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When Catfishing claims lives. The worst side of Catfishing.

Where I am today is far from the place I was in January 2017. A qualified teacher, then working as a 1-1 TA, fresh from the discovery of my abuser and now, working with law clinics and amazing people who have come into my life from this experience and more importantly helping others who have shared similar experiences.

My world was turned upside down when I discovered the man that I had been dating wasn’t who he said he was. I had put my trust in this sad excuse for a human being and he had abused me in every sense.

As my story began to unfold, the gravity of my experience started to become clear. It was fate he met me though, and me him. I’m a firm believer that ‘everyone meets for a reason, what ever that reason my be’.

After discovering who he really was, my emotions took a deeper spin. This man had made me the other women, something he knew had been my worst experience on the other side of the coin. I loathe cheats. Not all Catfish are married though, it’s a behaviour adopted by many for their own gratification.

Having been hurt so much by the experience and finding it difficult to come to terms with, as there was no closure to have, I needed to turn it around into something positive. I needed to make sure people knew about this and more importantly to try and stop this from happening to other people. The law is a mess and archaic. The police have no training in areas of anything emerging. Something needed to be done and this was what I needed to do, for others and myself.

After a lot of research and thought, the petition was created and with the help of some good friends, a local paper said they would like to publish my story as a warning to others and to promote the petition. The other hope, was that others may, if the publicity was good, alert other women who had been in contact with him. I knew there were more but I didn’t know who or how many.

What happened after that first local paper article couldn’t have been predicted by anyone. On a personal level it lost me my job by a judgemental and incredibly inhumane headteacher and on the other hand it sparked a global press release. In the first few days the national press picked up the story and ‘woman number one’ came forward. In the next five months his victim numbers were growing and currently sit at twelve. Exposure of this behaviour through TV, radio and more articles for magazines was becoming widespread and so was the number of messages I was receiving from victims of other Catfish and from some Catfish themselves.

This part for me was the hardest.

The support side was overwhelming. These are the people this has happened to as well, and they know without question, what it is like to be manipulated and emotionally abused as just a start to the effects of this experience. This is just the door opening and ground work a Catfish does to enable them to use you for whatever motivates them personally whether financial fraud, sexploitation, personal sexual gratification through pictures and videos, drawn from the victim after trust has been built and in our case, actual physical sexual exploitation. These people get it.

The flip side of this is the realisation that thousands of people are experiencing this every year and they are too scared or humiliated to talk to others for fear of judgment from the morons who know no better. Thousands of people are having their lives torn apart by these degenerates who trawl the internet for vulnerable people to exploit and everyone of the platforms, be it social media or dating, are giving them a helping hand. They are free to create full fake profiles and abuse who ever they want without fear of penalty or justice to their victims. There is no justice.

This realisations never hits as hard though, as when your mail pings or you look at messages on your petition to read that another life has been lost due  the lack of responsibility for human life by yet another exploiter and also the platforms that have allowed it to happen by not enforcing the terms and conditions that their users are meant to abide by.

Last year I heard of an 18 year old lad, who gave up on life after being catfished by a girl. You can read Mitchell’s story here . This was the first suicide victim I’d heard of.

The latest victim just a few weeks ago, a 28 year old man. His family broken by his death, left numb and in disbelief at what has spiralled from his experience with a catfish. The family are raw at his loss and it was a 14 year old girl, set up as a 19 year old online that finally ended this man’s belief in the world. He had ended the initial encounter when he realised something wasn’t right  but the butterfly effect of this behaviour some months later meant he was investigated by the military and accused of things he shouldn’t have been accused of. Two days after taking his own life his family were told the investigators had discovered she was a Catfish and had been playing many a game with many military men- but it was too late for Mike. His family are grieving but do not want his life to have been in vain. When they are ready his story will be told.

At 14 years old, this girl should not have even been on dating websites-but how much responsibility will this platform take for Mike’s death? None.

So my question is:

What’s with not having verification? What are the ‘pros and cons’ of being who you say you are?  Blog to follow.

 

 

 

 

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Dear Abuser: I am the revolution you never expected-by Shahida Arabi

Who am I?

I’ll tell you who I am.

I am the light you tried to strangle, the light you tried to stifle in your chokehold but my light bled all over the pages of your book, your preconceived narratives, your filthy words and your attempts to bring terror back into the blank space of my eyes.

Who am I?

I’ll tell you who I am.

I birthed revolution in my bones like the many women that came before me, I ignited flames beneath my skin, using the fiery spirits of women who walked beside me as matches; we breathed fire into each other’s hearts until the world could see us and from the ashes we were reborn.

Who am I?

I’ll tell you who I am.

I am the fear in your hatred, the pain that you tried to use to violate my sacred spaces, rip me apart until I was nothing, but I knew I would always be something, somebody, and now I am. I am layers and layers of the love and power that act as your kryptonite, and with the words and actions of all those who rose with me, I’ll build an impenetrable wall.

Who am I?

I am the thing that nightmarish people have nightmares about, wake up sweating about, thinking about —their furrowed brows tense with self-doubt —wondering if I, and the other warriors I march with could ever come back to life.

Who am I?

I am the restless rebel you tried to bury, the one you tried to pull out by the root and eradicate when she began to grow from the seed.

Who am I?

I’ll tell you who I am.

I am the girl you left for dead thinking she’d always fall and never rise again. I am the girl you cut with your razor blade wrath, the girl you thought would never fight back. I am the girl you underestimated, the woman you tormented, the child whose shackles you tightened.

Who am I?

I think you already know –I think you understand. I am the prisoner you tried to cage, the little girl you made afraid –I am the woman who never gave up, the one who exposed your charade —

Who am I?

I am everything and anything that you will stand against to try to regain control. For every source of darkness, there is a bleeding soul, one that shines so brightly that the entire war zone becomes illuminated.

I am the truth, your karma, the revolt —

I am the resistance, the pieces you tried to keep shattered, coming back together again. I emerge quietly, but I resound loudly —reverberate through your skin. My power was never yours, and it was never yours to take

Who am I?

I am the second coming, of everything and everyone you tried to break.

Dear Abuser: I Am The Revolution You Never Expected