I have been a Facebook member for years and I have always enjoyed it and still do. It has brought me long lost friends back, it has reminded me about birthdays and sometimes, published postings have made me crazy.
For me, it’s very important only to publish what I can stand up for and I think I have been doing it from the beginning. I enjoy making my comments on some postings, and I have plenty of times got into a bit of heavy arguing with people I don’t know, when they have found me totally wrong in my opinions. I like that and I don’t mind when they try to prove me wrong, sometimes with very rude comments.
I, and many women with me, receive friend requests daily from men telling us how much they want to become our friend, but unfortunately their friend request doesn’t come through. “Can you please add me as your friend?”
Normally these men claim to be surgeons, working for the UN, or engineers working on an oil rig at sea, or highly ranked military officers posted in Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria or Somalia. Most of them pretend to be a widower, their beloved wives have died of cancer, in car crashes or just disappeared. Many of them have a child or even several children.
The men normally look very handsome and masculine on their profile photos and they can’t wait to find a kind, loyal, supporting wife and stepmother to their much beloved children, who are mostly in boarding schools or alone with only a nanny.
Sometimes you notice how they let Google do the translating into English and when you point it out, the most common answer is; “But honey, I’m texting so fast, so it’s natural to make mistakes.”
You can only laugh.
I have made it a bit of a game to text back these men, and it’s so interesting to see how they proceed and how they are trying to convince you that they just adore you and can’t wait for their contracts to end so they can come to meet with you.
I have had men sending me photos of the most elegant apartments or villas, asking me “Honey, do you like my furniture and decorations?” or “When we move together, you can of course, change it to your taste if yours is different from mine.”
I must say, some of them have a great taste when they search for the right images. Once, I was texting for months with an engineer, who was working for many years on an oil rig. He told me at an early stage that he has a wonderful daughter, studying robotics in Hong Kong and that she, who had never heard about me, would love for me to become her stepmom. Of course, here you have to smile.
In a way, I admire how they put their stories together. It needs lots of fantasy.
Sometimes it takes months before the question comes; “Honey, as you know, I’m in the middle of the sea and I have trouble transferring money from here. Could you please help me out? I will, as soon as I come to see you honey, pay you back with interest.”
The most common request I have received is to help pay the fee for the boarding school. I’m often wondering how many other women they have sent these requests to after a while of texting? I can imagine, if you are a single, middle aged woman, that you might enjoy feeling admired and wanted and I do think that many women do send money, at least once.
When you are asking the “surgeons” why, if they are so good doctors as they often say, they don’t have a job in a regular medical clinic or hospital?
The most common answer is; “But honey, you must understand how much we doctors can do for people in e.g., Yemen or Afghanistan. Here we feel really needed and we do such an important job here.”
Normally I then ask them back: “But in your high position and being so needed, I assume you must have quite a good salary. I am sure you have your own computer or laptop – it must be easy for you to do internet banking?”
Long silence…..
“Honey, it is very expensive having my child in boarding school, you must understand that and if you love me as much as I love you, please help me out.”
My next question, how on earth can you say you love me, you have never seen me, just been texting for a short time?
“Oh honey, I feel that you are through your writing a wonderful woman with a huge heart and I do trust you and also trust you will help me out.”
Here I normally block the person.
Several times, they then try to find you on other platforms.
Many of these scammers, especially the men pretending to be surgeons, get offended and insulted when you point out that they have to look for themselves and that they should be ashamed of asking a woman for money.
It is quite interesting to see how long it takes before they start to beg for at least just a small money contribution. Sometimes they have a lot of patience and it can go months before they ask you for help and you see it in their writing, when they get close to ask the question. It is then, it’s time to block them.
I think it’s not so common that female scammers pretend to be in big need of money from a male victim, but I don’t know. Anyway, it’s rare that you see a woman texting a man in a normal posting on Facebook, that she has tried to connect with him, but failed.
When someone writes that they have tried hard to become your friend, but you have not received a normal friend request, then you can be sure, it’s a scammer.
On the What’sApp platform you can see the country code from which country the message is sent, and believe me, it is mostly a Nigerian number and you know you might as well block the person immediately if you don’t feel like playing with them.
Now people might say; “How can you be such a racist, there are good people in Nigeria too”. Sure, but those good Nigerians don’t send you these kinds of messages and eventually end up asking you for money.
To me it has become a play and a game, but you must be alert and play your cards cautiously. Never reveal actual information that they could use to contact your family or friends and pretend they are a friend of yours.
