Your online love partner may be a scammer

Second of three parts (Investigative reporting from Current PH)

Two months ago, Ronaldo (not his real name), boasted to one of his friends that he met a young attractive Singaporean lady with whom he has a budding online relationship. And while they never met, both spent time calling and texting each other, with the young Singaporean women sending him photos of her working out in sexy outfits, and shopping at high end malls.

And Ronaldo, who was 15 years older than her supposed Singaporean romantic partner, was looking forward to going to Singapore to meet her. Their conversations also pointed that sex may be on the table. However, after two months of initiating online contact with the Singaporean lady, Ronaldo broke off contact after he asked his friend who is an IT expert to probe her real identity.

It turns out that the Facebook (FB) page of her supposed Singaporean online lover was fake, with almost all the photos sourced from the page of a real Chinese influencer whose social media platforms were loaded with photos.

From the beginning, Ronaldo already had doubts on the true personality of his Singaporean online lover, as her Facebook page had content covering nine months when they first met online.

When he visited anew the FB page of his Singaporean friend, it was already gone. But the FB page where the photos for the FB page of his Singaporean friend was still there, and had content dating back to 2015.

“The scammer knew how to explore a man’s weakness and make them fall in love. But I had a notion that all of this was too good to be true, and when our discussion on investing in cryptocurrency turned into arguments as I did not want to do that, she became cold. And then she stopped sending messages,” Ronaldo said.

Good thing that Ronaldo was also alert on the possibility that he was about to be scammed, but worries that Filipino men who were desperate for a young woman’s attention could become easy prey for such “pig butchering” or romance fraud scams.

Also, those who post their profiles at online dating sites are easier prey for the pig butchering scammers.

“Dating fraud is all too common. Criminals create fake profiles on websites, apps and social media to target those looking for love online,” the HSBC UK said in an article posted on its website detailing how a woman was scammed of 100,000 pounds.

THE COMMON ‘SCRIPT’

It turns out that the scammers behind pig butchering scams have carefully crafted the “scripts” on how to make men fall in love with a supposed online partner, usually a young and sexy one.

And from the numerous videos and articles published online on the issue, the amounts scammed from the victims are no small change, ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 (P580,000 to P5.8 million at the current peso-dollar exchange rate).

The probe by Current PH showed that the case of Ronaldo is not unique, and there is indeed a script the scammers follow in making their prospective victims fall into a state of “cloud nine” or being in love:

– Showing genuine concern for their health and well-being
– Always sending simple message like if you already ate your breakfast, lunch or dinner
– Sending sweet messages and emojis
– Sending photos, including sexy and attractive ones
– Indicating that they will one day meet with sex a possibility.

What is also disturbing is females also fall victim to such scams, most especially older women who on their online profiles still look like they have money and assets and are lonely.

The male scammers victimizing women use profiles of young and middle-aged accomplished men to undertake the pig butchering process.

In the article posted over the HSBC UK website on how a British woman was scammed, it was revealed that the victim easily connected online with a businessman who claimed had projects in Dubai.

The victim ended up lending up to 100,000 pounds to the scammer.

“Typically, it starts with a fast-moving online relationship, with the fraudster often claiming to be working or travelling outside the UK,” the article stated.

In the Philippines, we have yet to see a substantial number of males or females coming forward to narrate to the media or online how he or she was scammed big time through a pig butchering scam. And the victims not coming out in the open may be ashamed they were scammed.

And if you are reading this article and have an online romantic partner, make sure you are not a prospective pig butchering victim.

Read the first part of this two-part series at https://currentph.com/2024/06/18/current-ph-probe-are-pogos-operating-in-ph-into-pig-butchering/ titled: Are POGOs operating in PH into ‘pig butchering’

(Last past of this series will be about how lack of government oversight is a factor in thriving pig butchering scams)

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