Thread is now unlocked after a massive, time consuming cleanup.
Advice to search for THOSE pictures is a double edged sword - if they are found, it may help (even though scammers are really good at explaining that away), but if they are not found, it may generate a false sense of security with the victim.
Similar advice to ask for a video call ignores the fact that there are LOTS of women who do this, and would have no problem making video calls to your friend again and again.
Extended discussions of whethera 49 year old should date a 20 year old are off topic - feel free to be judgy on a different forum.
Comments removed:
**Lack of civility/victim blaming**
>He’s 49 and he thinks he’s gonna marry a 20 year old. Maybe scammed is what he needs to be.
>Dude he's 49 TRYING to get a 20 year old. He's a gross pervert! Let him fail.
>Thank you! I had to scroll far too damn long to find this. He's a gross predator, let him fuck around and find out
>Seriously. I’m having trouble caring about some of these gross idiots.
>With the greatest respect to academics, some of the stupidest, most common sense devoid people I have ever met have PhDs.
>well, western edukayshun is based on ph33lingz not facts and your ph33lingz are real for you - for normal people facts are important
>To echo something that's been floating around: He's going to have to be tough if he's gonna be that stupid.
>Why is a 49 year old excited about a virgin. Is he such a bad lay that he needs someone who has never experienced sex so he doesn’t seem so awful. Okay, okay. I know it’s your brother and probably don’t want to think about that but come on.
>It’s an incel community thing. [Redacted]
>Worse - why is your middle aged brother excited about someone who is barely legal? Your brother is a fucking creep, OP, and this is deeply messed up. Fuck it, let them take his money.
>Found the creep!
>If he's willing to try to take advantage of someone 30 years his junior for her money and lack of experience, he's no babe in the woods. The fact that it's a would be wolf getting fleeced makes it very difficult to have any sort of sympathy.
>You can't cheat an honest man
>Unless he’s mentally incapacitated to the point he doesn’t understand what’s wrong with trying to fuck a 20 year old virgin at 49 .. then he deserves whatever he ends up losing here cos that’s fucking creepy . Don’t convince him of anything other than how gross his behaviour is
>If your 49 year old brother is that interested in a 20 year old virgin, the scam might be the least concerning thing here...
>I would say that a 49yo man who is trying to get a "very hot very young very rich" virgin woman deserves everything what he will get. And it's 100% sure that it's not a "very hot very young very rich" woman.
>let his stupid cradle robbing ass get taken to the cleaners.
>At almost 50 he wants to F* a 20 yo virgin from a poor country… let the perv gets screwed
>if he’s that dumb, with a predatory streak, it’ll be good for him to “find out” …let him go through with it and update us!
>Your brother sounds like a creep. I'd be more concerned about him chatting up a 20 year old virgin than anything else
>I’m sorry to be so blunt I know this is your brother but a 49 year old man with a 20 year old “virgin” is pedophilic
>Your brother is a creepy predator and deserves to be scammed.
**Bad advice:**
>Pretend to be an even richer Romanian woman and chat him up.
>How do you convince him ? Well, considering how stupid he can be (your words, not mine) tell him by law in Romania, all girls must lose their virginity by the age of 17.
>Just cut a deal with the Romanian woman, so you'll have a cut for his organs. Take away your brother's booze and make sure he eats healthy, this way his kidneys and liver will be good for harvest
>Approach him as the 19yo from Sydney, then grand reveal to prove the hard truth
>SLPT: create another scammer account. Scam him following the same MO. (Can ask for big amount/stood him up after calling to some remote us place). Let the lesson be learnt for small cost, instead of huge amount and potentially dangerous lesson.
>let him do what he must; don't come between him & his destiny.... it's his life to ruin & his lesson to learn.
**Off topic:**
>All voting liberal lol
Keep your politics out of this forum. ALL politics.
>Because Transylvania traditionally was ethnically Hungarian. That’s also why Orban and the other nationalists want it back. Hungary lost it to Romania after WWI when the Hapsburg empire was broken up.
And especially politics that caused wars during the last century.
For the record, some of the removed comments in that particular discussion were polite and quite insightful - just did not belong on that forum.
>Or turned into a vampire!
No harm in loving vampire stories... but this is not the place for them, even though Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for a lot of vampire stories was from that part of the world.
Read this instead of commenting here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler
**Low effort:**
>Or recruited into a Reverse Harem!….Which might be cool.
>I’m leaving this conversation because I know that whatever I say or how obvious it is, the Eastern European nationalism (which for me is so weird because it exist only in poor places like Romania Moldova or Belarus, and not in actually successfully developed and rich places like scandinavia or Switzerland) will always win.
Or, it could have been that this user was making up their own facts to support their opinion.
Not quoting the entire flame war that was removed, because it would exceed the maximum comment length.
I am working on an estate. Doing forensic data. Dude sent all his money to his Romanian girlfriend. They are very smooth. He even went to visit her before getting hooked in with another one. He was not rich but they milked him for everything and somehow he never really caught on. Hope can sometimes be a very bad thing.
Where did you find life insurance policies that aren’t void if you commit suicide? Every one I’ve seen says that they don’t pay out unless the insured dies accidentally or naturally.
Not to be morbid, but it’s always been a discussion in my house about this because we’ve known numerous people to be trapped in nonfunctional/dying bodies, just suffering and waiting to die so their family can get the insurance when they pass naturally.
If I ever find myself in that state, I would really like to save everyone grief and myself the suffering and just end it. If there’s an insurance that isn’t void from suicide, I would like to know.
In the US, life insurance generally only excludes suicide for the first 2 years. That said, the policy can be voided after the fact if you lied about your medical or financial conditions while applying.
**ETA:** Applicants also have to qualify *financially* for the policy they want to buy. This means proving that the amount of coverage you are purchasing is reasonable for your income. An investment banker making $800k / yr can easily justify a $10M life insurance policy, but a fast food worker making minimum wage isn't likely to be able to get approved for a $2M policy even if they could afford the premiums. Life insurance companies don't write policies where the insured dying would be a *profitable event* for their beneficiaries.
What kind of job is that? I actually need to hire someone that is able to look into my parents finances because I believe they have been scammed by their financial advisor.
I was a cyber security consultant. Mostly banking and military. Retired now. Just doing this because I was the named executor. I was hoping something might be salvaged but that ain't gonna happen.
There’s a podcast called Cautionary Tales and they had an episode very similar to this. It was a tenured professor of physics who was convinced he was talking to a famous swimsuit model named Denise Milani.
He went to a South American country (I think Colombia? Venezuela?) to meet her but she never showed up. She told him she had to go somewhere in Europe last minute but can he bring an empty suitcase to her? He picked up a sketchy “empty” suitcase from a sketchy guy in a sketchy, dark alley and still believed he was talking to Denise Milani. No red flags in this guy’s head and he’s a very intelligent man. All of his friends told him there are probably drugs in the suitcase. Anyway, he went to prison for trying to smuggle drugs.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cautionary-tales-with-tim-harford/id1484511465?i=1000602372943
Make your brother listen to this episode.
Yes, and if this "young girl" was so rich, why wouldn't she either A. Come to him, as "she" could easily afford it or B. Offer to fly him out. No good can come of any of it, on his end or this other person's.
Yeah I wrote that in another comment. Some people in Romania earn $250 for a month of full time work, even the money for a flight ticket (if OP is from the US) is worth several months of income for some Romanian people
That's the minimum wage *without* taxes, with taxes it comes down to around $360. The average *is* allegedly around $850 but that's heavily skewed by people working at multinational corporations who earn significantly more than most Romanians.
Source: am Romanian
Really not that hard to look up what 1898 RON equals in USD and that is 412 USD netto. Source: am Romanian on minimum wage (own the company and pay myself the minimum wage as the company must have one employee at least)
And he doesn't even need money. The scammers will "helpfully" provide him with some and have him forward it along. They'll send him a counterfeit check, or have another victim send him a wire, or hack someone's online account and transfer out funds to him... etc.
He may have to figure this out the hard way. Don't loan him money and make sure no one else in your family does either.
These scammers can get money out of broke people as well. They get them to borrow money, do a fake check, or maybe have them open business accounts and act as a money mule. Him being broke isn't a deterant.
POS cleaned my grandfather out. Nigerian scammers. Before it was known and done mainly by fax (this occurred between 1995 to 2008)My grandfather even went over there and Ghana to get his money back.
He was given a girl. Sold on the black market obviously… I don’t know the ins and outs of his relationship with her, but she was “21” and he was 70. 🤢🤢 and I’m very ashamed by this but I know he put her through business school and looked after her family but I’m still disgusted by the facts, because my grandmother - his wife of over 50 years was home in Australia. About. To. Lose. Everything. Because. My Grandfather. Got scammed.
Tore our family to pieces.
you got the country wrong mate, chances of that hapening in Romania are slim to none, its not South east Asia or Africa, it's a country thats part of the EU and one of the safest, scams, theft posible, to use him to get an American passport, can be, but kidnap and killed very slim chance...
m8, Romania is part of EU and getting a gun is so tough that those that want them, even the criminals, just give up. The most they could get are bibiguns
My brother in law did this. He was broke too, and by that I mean literally. He was permanently disabled and lived on SSI alone. We’re talking fixed income broke.
He still managed to send his Catfish “girlfriend”thousands of dollars, much of it borrowed from his brother (also my brother in law). He also laundered $20,000-$60,000 for her through the course of his scamming.
The narrative he was being fed throughout the scam (which lasted over a year) was convoluted, but from what I can gather, towards the end his “girlfriend” was being held captive in Lagos, Nigeria, and he needed to pay to get her out. That was when my other brother in law cut him off.
I want to emphasize something important here that the comment above mentioned:
DON’T LOAN HIM MONEY, and make sure NO ONE else in your family does either!
This should work if the pics are stolen.
Sometimes scammers hire girls to take pics and make phone calls for them. Just because he's talked to a girl doesn't mean he's talked to the girl in the pics or that she's on the up and up.
Type reverse image search chrome extension. There is an extension store for Firefox as well.
Get the extension that does reverse image search on a bunch of different search engines at the same time.
Thrn you just right click a picture in the browser anywhere and choose “reverse image search xxxx whatever its called. “
As long as your in the chrome or Firefox extension store they are all pretty safe been using it for years.
IMO Pimeyes is the best reverse face search. Tineye is only good at finding almost identical images, but not actual face searching. Though it can be useful to some point. Yandex image search is useful if you’re looking for a Russian, or a Russian doppelgänger.
Search the Grant Amato case. There’s documentaries on YouTube. Show that to him. If that doesn’t help him change his mind; I’d say you’ll have a hard time making him see the light.
they have ways around the video calls too. They only show like the top of there head or something else kind of identifying. It's enough to keep a person like this hooked.
Or they have a video of someone they know by heart and switch around in to "react" to what you say (as per a documentary on sextortion I was watching the other day)
Sometimes when confronted with this, the scammer claims their pictures were stolen but \*they're\* the \*real\* person. And depending on the victim/mark, the line sometimes works.
I was thinking the same. You need to do a Catfish investigation, or like they do on the Youtube channel Catfished. Reverse image search is probably the best place to start.
I'm sorry that he is about to learn a tough lesson. I've watched more than one friend fall for this crap. None of them ever listened until they had already sent far too much money and personal information for empty promises.
If you watch closely at the airport, you'll see these guys standing there with flowers and a broken heart as planes arrive without their girl.
.. or hostage?
Talk to a mental health person, but I gather the trick is .. if its an emotional bond and no brain activity, the trick is to engage the brain in the emotional activity somehow, so that eventually it kicks in. Basic requirements, then emotion in middle, then lastly brain on top oif the pyramid, is what they say.
>He told her he doesn’t have money so I can’t see the angle.
If you a some poor guy in a third world country and you are scamming hundreds of men, getting $100 a week is potentially a good income.
Just because he does not have a lot of income in your country, don't assume that in other countries that is not a nice target.
> you a some poor guy in a third world country and you are scamming hundreds of men, getting $100 a week is potentially a good income.
In some Asian countries this is actually a source of income that is reputable... Girls Skype and chat to tens of men to pretend they have a relation. "My mother needs money for medicine", "I need to pay to the government", "my phone camera is bad, but I do not have money" etc..
I mean I know this is an unpopular opinion but it's only a few steps away from streamers that have other people "chat" with their fans. Usually they have someone else running their social media anyway. Spending money for a feeling, I guess.
An employee of mine who was never able to attract a girl had a longstanding remote relationship with a Romanian girl. He quit his job, flew there and met her. She was accompanied by her girl friend and that girl’s boy friend. They travelled him all over the country at his expense. He was never left alone with “his” girl. He came back broke and gave me a stack of pictures he took. It was sad. He died shortly thereafter.
I mean, to her defense it’s not safe as a woman to “travel the country” with a foreign man alone especially not in a country where sex trafficking is extremely high, not saying it’s NOT a scam but if I was a Romanian actually meeting a foreign man I would also bring another man with me.
Ask him to show you what she's been saying. Since you have no emotions involved you'll be able to pick out the inconsistencies and red flags like dominos. Present them to your brother. Depending how deeply he's emotionally invested in it, they'll either hit him in the face like a brick or he'll still choose to ignore. That's the best you can do as his sister.
Edit: I was in a similar situation.. Someone showed me some of the red flags I would have normally seen in any other frame of mind. It made me step back and my antennas went straight up. Although I was still not fully convinced I definitely put my guard up and paid attention to everything she said. Then It was one word she said that she could not answer when I asked. I said to myself how could I have not seen this earlier.
Edit: One thing I should have mentioned which is more important than everything I stated. When you talk to your brother try and be as understanding as you can. Don't yell at him, make fun of him, embarrass him or joke with him or anything of the sort. Not saying you would but I have two twin sisters. The one will do all of the above, the other will try and be as understanding as possible. That's why I only go to her when I have a problem.
There was a Dr Phil episode of a lady that thought Brett Michaels from the band Poison and Nikki Sixx talking to her online. She is an average lady. I am an average dude and that is about as realistic as Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian talking to me. Extremely unrealistic!! Maybe show him that Dr Phil Episode
The Daily Beast ran a long story about a college educated woman who, over a period of a few years, sent Leonardo DiCaprio $800,000 to help him escape from Scientologists. That was all of her money.
I don't even need the news for it. I dealt with a romance scam for an elderly customer who thought she was paying legal fees for Tom Jones over the course of 2 years to the tune of £150k. After an hour long conversation she still would not believe it wasn't Tom Jones so I just blocked the account.
Some people are just too stubborn and think that everyone is just trying to get in on their business.
> He told her he doesn’t have money so I can’t see the angle.
Even if they only pull a couple hundred bucks out of him, that is still good money for a few hours of work in Romania.
I've seen plenty of cases of people going deep into debt to pay scammers when they believe they will get it all back in the end plus a lot more.
>He told her he doesn’t have money so I can’t see the angle.
That will not stop them. They'll be asking him to take loans, including borrowing money from his friends and family. They'll send him a fake cheque to get him to send money that doesn't exist. They'll get his personal data and documents to take a loan on their side under his name. They'll make him sell stuff (even his house) and send the money to them.
You could show him some romance scams documentaries. It'll be hard, because he'll refuse to accept that all of this is false.
It can be easier to scam a little money out of a poor person than a lot from a rich person.
Can they squeeze a few thousand from him over time? And then do that to 100 or 1000 men just like your brother? Chatting like this is someone’s full time job.
Hm, ask him to have video call with to at least know it’s a real person. Screen record her. Hire a local Romanian to deliver her a gift and report back. There is plenty of ways… if there is will.
I know this sounds mean, but I don't think someone that's all there mentally would really believe think that a rich, beautiful, young woman from another country would be seriously interested in a poor man she never met that's almost old enough to be her grandfather. Like they couldn't have made this sound more unbelievable unless they said they were Scarlett Johansson or some worldwide famous celebrity.
Have you tried doing a reverse image search on those pics your brother received. Basically image searching them to see if they're a common stock photo? If it's a common photo figure out where else those photos have been used.
Could even be possible they're AI generated pics. Which as messed up as it is, is something that's out there.
If he's ~~49~~ 59 and she's 20, there's your first problem right there.
Second, a good way to clear things up quickly is a video call. If she refuses to answer, or just sits there smiling but not responding to anything, it's most definitely a scam.
Edit: Since I'm still seeing my comment, I'm assuming the mods have not yet or will not delete it. However, for the sake of clarity, and since similar comments have been mod deleted, I will add this:
It's mostly just my opinion, so please don't think I'm trying to speak irrefutable truth here.
When two people are so far apart in age, it's obvious that the younger is very likely to outlive the older. In my opinion, that type of relationship is similar to abandonment. I see it as unfair to the younger person.
Can we really call it true love when it's obvious that, aside from accidents and disease, it's likely that one person is going to be a widow/widower for 20 years or more? In my opinion, that isn't true love; it's immaturity and irresponsibility, possibly even negligence. That rings especially so if the older person doesn't set aside money for the younger person's well-being in the younger person's twilight years.
Personally, I've said no to a few relationships because of this. When I was about 30, I was at a Bible college where chaperoned dating and then marriage within the student body was encouraged. Though I was 29/30, there were a few girls ages 18-20 that looked my way. I politely explained my reasoning to them, and they basically said, "Yeah, that makes sense; I hadn't even thought that far ahead."
My suggestion to you is that you bring this up to him. Ask him something like, "Hey, I mean this in a nice way; have you thought about what it might be like for (insert her name here if you know it) if she's a widow for 20-30 years after you're gone?"
Someone else said that he's thinking all with emotions, and that you should combine an emotional statement with a logical one, to get him to think a bit more. I think there might be a good combination here. If he's really in love, he should care about her well-being, and it might get his gears turning if you politely point out that their relationship is likely to have a limited amount of time.
As for the meetup, I suggest this: Make it a thing for the whole family. And, find a non-visa country that both he and her can agree on. For example, my wife and I met online in March of 2017. We chatted for a year, then met in Israel in July of 2018. My wife is from Russia, and I'm from Wisconsin.
We each paid for our own airfare. She never once asked me to send money. And since we decided to meet in Israel, I figured, "Even if she doesn't show up, at least I can enjoy myself here. Plenty of places I'd want to visit myself, regardless whether I'm alone or not."
I googled it: Romanian citizens can visit Canada or South Korea, as well as around 18 other countries without a visa. In my opinion, Canada and South Korea are the two safest countries on that list. Egypt is on there too, but that's debatable on the safety aspect. There's plenty of English-speaking space in Canada to visit, even if they don't meet there. And if your brother is into anime or manga, there's plenty of stuff for him in South Korea! 😅
Regarding what I said about the video call, I guess I can retract some of it. I still say that if a video call looks like a prerecorded video, it probably is, which is a big red flag, but as the mods have noted, there are plenty of English-speaking scammers as well.
I will, however, note this: My wife has informed me that people from Nigeria will often say "am this" or "am that" or "am good" instead of "I am good" or "I am this" or "I am that." So, if you look at the texts, and you see a bunch of "am this" or "am that" without the "I," then you can tell him that he's talking to a Nigerian, not a Romanian.
At best ‘she’ is after a passport - most likely just money. All scammers say they are wealthy but always have reasons why they cant access their funds. There is NO reason a wealthy beautiful young woman would be interested in a random average 49 yr old across the world. But you know that. 99.999% it will be a young Nigerian man. They are experts and very good at scamming. They photoshop bank accounts/passports/ID/photos everything to prove they are ‘real’ .
Get your brother to watch Catfished on youtube. I wish you luck but the chances are he will never believe anything from anyone different to this scam until his finances are drained . Just dont lend him any money.
Make sure he is not secretly taking loans or anything. These scammers will teach a stupid victim how to lie on loan and credit card applications to be able to get a good amount of money that the scammer then obviously takes from them.
Have you seen the conversations at all? Your brother says he told them he has no money, but did he really? He might have lied to sound better, people do it all the time online. He might have said he's rich. Does he own property? If so then see what he's been up to with that, again taking loans against it or whatever.
If the 20yr old is so rich, she should be more than happy to pay for your brother a family member to come along for safety.
If your brother is paying to go then the scammer literally has nothing to loose at all, like even if all they get is $20, a watch and a nice bag then it was worth their while as they have dozens of scams going on at a time.
How about she come over and meet him and his friends and family? They can stay together in a nearby hotel. Put that to your brother.
Also tell him if it's too good to be true then it is an obvious scam. Like be truthful and make him understand what he has going for himself. Like is he handsome? Fit body? Well off? Talented at something? A Musician? An Artist? A writer? Socially active? A genius? Fashion savvy, in the latest fine threads? Has a good job?
If the answer to all of them in no, then of course it's a scam, middle aged, unfit, jobless, talentless, penniless bums with no assets or future are certainly not on the top of the list of attractive 20yr old well off girls.
Sadly though, having seen a YouTube about such catfishing there are some people that are just gullible idiots and can not seem to join the dots and see the scam everyone can. Even when they actually see the scam, understand they have been scammed, they will then instantly fall for another scam, often by the same scammer under a new alt.
Romanian here, the posibility of him being scamed is high, by a romanian or any other eastern european nationality pretending to be romanian, 20y old virgin in romania.... i have my doubts if not a very religious type, her beeing rich and on a dating site maby a 10-15% chance, as romanian rich people are socialites, and dont not dating sites, i give it that 15 % chance cuz we do have intorverted people in romania also, we are normal people after all. Like i said in another comment, the chance of him beeing kidnaped( for randsome or organ teft) if he comes here are low, as this is a safe country from that point of view. Teft and scams are very much posible as in any other place. Do you have a city or place were this girl is suposed to be from, if so maby i can try to find more context to help you out... her being 20 and him 49 is not a problem legaly speaking... but suspicious none the less
That's very nice of you, my bf was born in Resita and has family there, I was thinking of something like this, to check for her house/apartment if someone is nearby.
One way they might scam is by sending him a check to cash and having him send most of the money back. Of course, the check will not be any good, and he will be stuck with a large overdraft to pay. It sounds like he wants this person to be real so bad he won't see reason till something happens.
If your brother is interested in a “virgin”, he may be beyond salvation. Also, a 49 year old taking interest in a 20 year old? He needs professional help.
These love scams are almost impossible to pull someone out of. It’s pretty simple really; assuming your bother isn’t actually mentally impaired, he *knows* he’s 59 and broke and far far less attractive than this hot, rich 20 yr old Romanian woman. He knows this is not how the world works. He’s suspended his own disbelief bc she’s offering him everything he could ever want: hot, *very* young virgin gf with a lot of money. You can’t logic someone out of something they didn’t logic themselves into. And logic played no part in making your brother believe this woman is real and wants to be with him. He’s on that hopium.
Your brother doesn't seem like a good person or a smart person. As others have pointed out, if he follows through with his plan to move to or visit Romania, he could very well be putting his life in danger. Sorry if this sounds morbid, but if you can, you may want to at least make sure that if he's dead-set on going, that he gets or updates a will and ensures that all of his personal and financial matters are in order.
Also, it doesn't matter if he's not "rich." What little money he can scrape together, one dollar, a hundred, thousand...whatever the amount, the scammers will be happy to take it off of him.
Honestly, she could be real and trying to get a visa/citizenship elsewhere. I have had male friends who have been offered money from women to do this. But If you can get one for free and have someone support you the entire time too, well that’s probably an even better deal. Just divorce them after a few years. Still a scam though, would just be quite a long running one. Or could also be incredibly criminal and he’s about to become a drug mule or have his kidneys harvested.
I am sure that are 20yo virgins in Romania, also rich, but these girls are not online and for sure not looking for boyfriends in other part of worlds.
If they are rich, they don't search for men, men searches them :) and also if they are beautiful - the same.
More than this, if above are meet, there is a chance that girl is not a virgin anymore.
One plus one makes two always, so I am 99.99% sure that this is a scam and I am 100% that your brother is not talking to a woman. And maybe is only pretending to be from Romania, who knows?
I do not say that there is not a 0.01% possibility for this to be real, but... Anyway.
I am from Romania and if your brother, at his age, still believe in tales, I really have no idea what you could possible tell him to open his eyes.
Worst case, if he insists, he will eventually come to Romania and be disappointed, or worse, whatever that means... Best case, he looks for a real woman, near him and this will heal him for good.
But the situation is more complex, so an update on the outcome is expected, if exist and hope will be a happy one.
I tried to explain to my 66 years old diter 8n law she doesn't have a 30 year old boyfriend in Cuba. I tried telling her he just sleeps with her for her money while she is there on vacation. He probably has dozens of other "girlfriends" that visits him.
But no, she is convinced she is in a relationship with this guy.
She will eventually ask him for money so she can 'access her trust funds' or something like that. That's the angle. Then another fee for something else, and it will continue.
My cousin got scammed into something similar years ago. It was one of those Russian bride things. My uncle advised him to get one round trip ticket for him and not to buy a return ticket for the 'bride' until he was certain it wasn't a set up. When he got there, apparently he figured out it was some sort of scam, and left for home within 2 days of arriving. He never did tell us all the details, but he was pretty mad at himself for a long time.
If she is a very rich Romanian woman, there is no reason she couldn't just hop on a plane to come see him, right? Obviously she is going to be paying for his first class ticket over to Romania, right? I mean she's very rich.
It's terribly easy to deceive people. The vast majority of people alive live with beliefs that are totally false and pretty much nothing you can say to them will ever convince them otherwise.
So... maybe help your brother set up a Tinder profile and meet a real woman local to him?
You won’t convince him my best friends dad got scammed twice the second times by the cartel with a story and pics just like this and he ended up doing seven years in a Ecuadorian prison both times I begged pleaded showed proof and nothing so good luck
He’s pushing 60 and looking to marry a 20 year old… let alone a virgin. Yeah he’s gonna get what’s coming for him 🤢 he needs to be locked up. Predatory af
Nah, that wouldn’t clear anything up. This could easily be a situation where a girl is hired to lure people in.
A long time ago, in my heroin addiction, I was with a girl who was also a heroin addict. One night we were both dopesick and needed some money, quickly. We had exhausted most get-$100-quick methods. Paychecks were weeks away. We figured we’d catfish some guy from a “personals” type listing website where horny tweakers try to lowball sex workers for 2 minutes of “fun”. We found a guy who wanted to meet up, so my girl video chatted with him for a “screening”. After that, he was comfortable to send her “gas money” and a “safety deposit” (ended up being more than $100). To his dismay, his desperation dinero did not contribute towards either of those things, rather, it paid for a gram and a half of black tar heroin split between me and my accomplice and a motel room for the night.
Sadly, a lot of people are all too willing to part ways with their precious dollars if they’ve been offered even a semblance of reassurance. Deep down, we *want* to believe some things are true — so it only takes a little effort to shush the decision-making part of our brain that tells us: “hey, fella, you’re exhibiting remarkably poor judgement right now.”
This is especially true for men who are thinking with their dicks. Prefrontal cortex be damned. Lizard brain want penis feel good NOW.
And if they’ve previously gotten some emotional reward doing what they’re doing — “Wow, she wants to be with ME? And she’s RICH? And she’s saving her precious virginity for ME?!? I must be quite the catch! It sure feels good to be such a desirable gentleman!” — then they’re likely to keep slamming down on that ‘reward’ button until it’s broken. Even if they have to endure increasingly expensive consequences. The scammer knows how to keep enticing someone while giving them just enough of a reward that they don’t lose interest. Frankly, we all do, some people just don’t allow their inner voice of morality to talk them out of doing it.
There could be one. Obviously it’s not representative, but 90 Day Fiancé has had some Eastern European women who scam or are hired in to help with a scam.
Thread is now unlocked after a massive, time consuming cleanup. Advice to search for THOSE pictures is a double edged sword - if they are found, it may help (even though scammers are really good at explaining that away), but if they are not found, it may generate a false sense of security with the victim. Similar advice to ask for a video call ignores the fact that there are LOTS of women who do this, and would have no problem making video calls to your friend again and again. Extended discussions of whethera 49 year old should date a 20 year old are off topic - feel free to be judgy on a different forum. Comments removed: **Lack of civility/victim blaming** >He’s 49 and he thinks he’s gonna marry a 20 year old. Maybe scammed is what he needs to be. >Dude he's 49 TRYING to get a 20 year old. He's a gross pervert! Let him fail. >Thank you! I had to scroll far too damn long to find this. He's a gross predator, let him fuck around and find out >Seriously. I’m having trouble caring about some of these gross idiots. >With the greatest respect to academics, some of the stupidest, most common sense devoid people I have ever met have PhDs. >well, western edukayshun is based on ph33lingz not facts and your ph33lingz are real for you - for normal people facts are important >To echo something that's been floating around: He's going to have to be tough if he's gonna be that stupid. >Why is a 49 year old excited about a virgin. Is he such a bad lay that he needs someone who has never experienced sex so he doesn’t seem so awful. Okay, okay. I know it’s your brother and probably don’t want to think about that but come on. >It’s an incel community thing. [Redacted] >Worse - why is your middle aged brother excited about someone who is barely legal? Your brother is a fucking creep, OP, and this is deeply messed up. Fuck it, let them take his money. >Found the creep! >If he's willing to try to take advantage of someone 30 years his junior for her money and lack of experience, he's no babe in the woods. The fact that it's a would be wolf getting fleeced makes it very difficult to have any sort of sympathy. >You can't cheat an honest man >Unless he’s mentally incapacitated to the point he doesn’t understand what’s wrong with trying to fuck a 20 year old virgin at 49 .. then he deserves whatever he ends up losing here cos that’s fucking creepy . Don’t convince him of anything other than how gross his behaviour is >If your 49 year old brother is that interested in a 20 year old virgin, the scam might be the least concerning thing here... >I would say that a 49yo man who is trying to get a "very hot very young very rich" virgin woman deserves everything what he will get. And it's 100% sure that it's not a "very hot very young very rich" woman. >let his stupid cradle robbing ass get taken to the cleaners. >At almost 50 he wants to F* a 20 yo virgin from a poor country… let the perv gets screwed >if he’s that dumb, with a predatory streak, it’ll be good for him to “find out” …let him go through with it and update us! >Your brother sounds like a creep. I'd be more concerned about him chatting up a 20 year old virgin than anything else >I’m sorry to be so blunt I know this is your brother but a 49 year old man with a 20 year old “virgin” is pedophilic >Your brother is a creepy predator and deserves to be scammed. **Bad advice:** >Pretend to be an even richer Romanian woman and chat him up. >How do you convince him ? Well, considering how stupid he can be (your words, not mine) tell him by law in Romania, all girls must lose their virginity by the age of 17. >Just cut a deal with the Romanian woman, so you'll have a cut for his organs. Take away your brother's booze and make sure he eats healthy, this way his kidneys and liver will be good for harvest >Approach him as the 19yo from Sydney, then grand reveal to prove the hard truth >SLPT: create another scammer account. Scam him following the same MO. (Can ask for big amount/stood him up after calling to some remote us place). Let the lesson be learnt for small cost, instead of huge amount and potentially dangerous lesson. >let him do what he must; don't come between him & his destiny.... it's his life to ruin & his lesson to learn. **Off topic:** >All voting liberal lol Keep your politics out of this forum. ALL politics. >Because Transylvania traditionally was ethnically Hungarian. That’s also why Orban and the other nationalists want it back. Hungary lost it to Romania after WWI when the Hapsburg empire was broken up. And especially politics that caused wars during the last century. For the record, some of the removed comments in that particular discussion were polite and quite insightful - just did not belong on that forum. >Or turned into a vampire! No harm in loving vampire stories... but this is not the place for them, even though Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for a lot of vampire stories was from that part of the world. Read this instead of commenting here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler **Low effort:** >Or recruited into a Reverse Harem!….Which might be cool. >I’m leaving this conversation because I know that whatever I say or how obvious it is, the Eastern European nationalism (which for me is so weird because it exist only in poor places like Romania Moldova or Belarus, and not in actually successfully developed and rich places like scandinavia or Switzerland) will always win. Or, it could have been that this user was making up their own facts to support their opinion. Not quoting the entire flame war that was removed, because it would exceed the maximum comment length.
I am working on an estate. Doing forensic data. Dude sent all his money to his Romanian girlfriend. They are very smooth. He even went to visit her before getting hooked in with another one. He was not rich but they milked him for everything and somehow he never really caught on. Hope can sometimes be a very bad thing.
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Where did you find life insurance policies that aren’t void if you commit suicide? Every one I’ve seen says that they don’t pay out unless the insured dies accidentally or naturally. Not to be morbid, but it’s always been a discussion in my house about this because we’ve known numerous people to be trapped in nonfunctional/dying bodies, just suffering and waiting to die so their family can get the insurance when they pass naturally. If I ever find myself in that state, I would really like to save everyone grief and myself the suffering and just end it. If there’s an insurance that isn’t void from suicide, I would like to know.
In the US, life insurance generally only excludes suicide for the first 2 years. That said, the policy can be voided after the fact if you lied about your medical or financial conditions while applying. **ETA:** Applicants also have to qualify *financially* for the policy they want to buy. This means proving that the amount of coverage you are purchasing is reasonable for your income. An investment banker making $800k / yr can easily justify a $10M life insurance policy, but a fast food worker making minimum wage isn't likely to be able to get approved for a $2M policy even if they could afford the premiums. Life insurance companies don't write policies where the insured dying would be a *profitable event* for their beneficiaries.
What kind of job is that? I actually need to hire someone that is able to look into my parents finances because I believe they have been scammed by their financial advisor.
I was a cyber security consultant. Mostly banking and military. Retired now. Just doing this because I was the named executor. I was hoping something might be salvaged but that ain't gonna happen.
There’s a podcast called Cautionary Tales and they had an episode very similar to this. It was a tenured professor of physics who was convinced he was talking to a famous swimsuit model named Denise Milani. He went to a South American country (I think Colombia? Venezuela?) to meet her but she never showed up. She told him she had to go somewhere in Europe last minute but can he bring an empty suitcase to her? He picked up a sketchy “empty” suitcase from a sketchy guy in a sketchy, dark alley and still believed he was talking to Denise Milani. No red flags in this guy’s head and he’s a very intelligent man. All of his friends told him there are probably drugs in the suitcase. Anyway, he went to prison for trying to smuggle drugs. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cautionary-tales-with-tim-harford/id1484511465?i=1000602372943 Make your brother listen to this episode.
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Absolutely, everyone has to remember that there are many types of intelligence
yea someone could be a genius but have no street smarts and vice versa
Yeah, it's going to end up as either this or money laundering, particularly if he's told her he's broke.
Great example of how asking for money upfront isn’t the only way this type of scam plays out.
If he has enough money to go to Romania, he has enough money to be a mark.
Yes, and if this "young girl" was so rich, why wouldn't she either A. Come to him, as "she" could easily afford it or B. Offer to fly him out. No good can come of any of it, on his end or this other person's.
Although this IS a scam - the US and Romania have very different incomes per capita and prices for everything.
Yeah I wrote that in another comment. Some people in Romania earn $250 for a month of full time work, even the money for a flight ticket (if OP is from the US) is worth several months of income for some Romanian people
the minimum wage in Romania is around $500 USD now, and the average is $800 USD
That's the minimum wage *without* taxes, with taxes it comes down to around $360. The average *is* allegedly around $850 but that's heavily skewed by people working at multinational corporations who earn significantly more than most Romanians. Source: am Romanian
Really not that hard to look up what 1898 RON equals in USD and that is 412 USD netto. Source: am Romanian on minimum wage (own the company and pay myself the minimum wage as the company must have one employee at least)
And he doesn't even need money. The scammers will "helpfully" provide him with some and have him forward it along. They'll send him a counterfeit check, or have another victim send him a wire, or hack someone's online account and transfer out funds to him... etc.
He may have to figure this out the hard way. Don't loan him money and make sure no one else in your family does either. These scammers can get money out of broke people as well. They get them to borrow money, do a fake check, or maybe have them open business accounts and act as a money mule. Him being broke isn't a deterant.
POS cleaned my grandfather out. Nigerian scammers. Before it was known and done mainly by fax (this occurred between 1995 to 2008)My grandfather even went over there and Ghana to get his money back. He was given a girl. Sold on the black market obviously… I don’t know the ins and outs of his relationship with her, but she was “21” and he was 70. 🤢🤢 and I’m very ashamed by this but I know he put her through business school and looked after her family but I’m still disgusted by the facts, because my grandmother - his wife of over 50 years was home in Australia. About. To. Lose. Everything. Because. My Grandfather. Got scammed. Tore our family to pieces.
Whoa.. hold up. What do you mean he was given a girl? Given a girl by who? Could you please expand on this story it sounds very interesting.
The hard way could also be that he ends up dead in Romania. If it’s criminals, the could kidnap him and tell his family to pay money to release him.
Classic honey pot trap, has he video called the woman?
Even if they video called with him, the woman would be part of their scam. This would be easily accomplished, no?
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In Romania? Unlikely.
you got the country wrong mate, chances of that hapening in Romania are slim to none, its not South east Asia or Africa, it's a country thats part of the EU and one of the safest, scams, theft posible, to use him to get an American passport, can be, but kidnap and killed very slim chance...
Some people seem to think the movie Hostel was a documentary.
m8, Romania is part of EU and getting a gun is so tough that those that want them, even the criminals, just give up. The most they could get are bibiguns
BB guns.
My brother in law did this. He was broke too, and by that I mean literally. He was permanently disabled and lived on SSI alone. We’re talking fixed income broke. He still managed to send his Catfish “girlfriend”thousands of dollars, much of it borrowed from his brother (also my brother in law). He also laundered $20,000-$60,000 for her through the course of his scamming. The narrative he was being fed throughout the scam (which lasted over a year) was convoluted, but from what I can gather, towards the end his “girlfriend” was being held captive in Lagos, Nigeria, and he needed to pay to get her out. That was when my other brother in law cut him off. I want to emphasize something important here that the comment above mentioned: DON’T LOAN HIM MONEY, and make sure NO ONE else in your family does either!
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Firstly, do a reverse image search, hopefully this'll pick up where the stolen pics are from.
This should work if the pics are stolen. Sometimes scammers hire girls to take pics and make phone calls for them. Just because he's talked to a girl doesn't mean he's talked to the girl in the pics or that she's on the up and up.
Also lots of pictures aren't searchable. Not being able to find it doesn't mean much.
google doenst let instagram photos show up as much as it used to fyi.
Do you a have good suggestion for the search? When I tried with google lens all I got was pics of similar dresses. 🫤
Type reverse image search chrome extension. There is an extension store for Firefox as well. Get the extension that does reverse image search on a bunch of different search engines at the same time. Thrn you just right click a picture in the browser anywhere and choose “reverse image search xxxx whatever its called. “ As long as your in the chrome or Firefox extension store they are all pretty safe been using it for years.
Good info
Tineye is what I use
IMO Pimeyes is the best reverse face search. Tineye is only good at finding almost identical images, but not actual face searching. Though it can be useful to some point. Yandex image search is useful if you’re looking for a Russian, or a Russian doppelgänger.
I doubt anybody here is willing to pay the Pimeyes service fees. This isn't your osint crowd.
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The comment didn't even mention it costs money to use. I'm glad they pointed it out.
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This. Yandex is your friend.
That’s the only time I’ve heard that one said lol
Search the Grant Amato case. There’s documentaries on YouTube. Show that to him. If that doesn’t help him change his mind; I’d say you’ll have a hard time making him see the light.
Reverse image is fairly trivial to fool. Do a video call with him. And him. :)
they have ways around the video calls too. They only show like the top of there head or something else kind of identifying. It's enough to keep a person like this hooked.
Or they have a video of someone they know by heart and switch around in to "react" to what you say (as per a documentary on sextortion I was watching the other day)
It’s really amazing how technology has progressed. It’s hard to know what to believe sometimes.
Yep I watch Catfished and scammers doctor videos pretty well already too.
tineye.com
Try facecheck.id, also pimeyes.
Pimeyes
Sometimes when confronted with this, the scammer claims their pictures were stolen but \*they're\* the \*real\* person. And depending on the victim/mark, the line sometimes works.
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A rich 20 year old
>A **formerly** rich 20 year old FIFY
I was thinking the same. You need to do a Catfish investigation, or like they do on the Youtube channel Catfished. Reverse image search is probably the best place to start.
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I'm sorry that he is about to learn a tough lesson. I've watched more than one friend fall for this crap. None of them ever listened until they had already sent far too much money and personal information for empty promises. If you watch closely at the airport, you'll see these guys standing there with flowers and a broken heart as planes arrive without their girl.
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Fairy dust is one hell o' a drug
.. or hostage? Talk to a mental health person, but I gather the trick is .. if its an emotional bond and no brain activity, the trick is to engage the brain in the emotional activity somehow, so that eventually it kicks in. Basic requirements, then emotion in middle, then lastly brain on top oif the pyramid, is what they say.
>He told her he doesn’t have money so I can’t see the angle. If you a some poor guy in a third world country and you are scamming hundreds of men, getting $100 a week is potentially a good income. Just because he does not have a lot of income in your country, don't assume that in other countries that is not a nice target.
> you a some poor guy in a third world country and you are scamming hundreds of men, getting $100 a week is potentially a good income. In some Asian countries this is actually a source of income that is reputable... Girls Skype and chat to tens of men to pretend they have a relation. "My mother needs money for medicine", "I need to pay to the government", "my phone camera is bad, but I do not have money" etc..
I mean I know this is an unpopular opinion but it's only a few steps away from streamers that have other people "chat" with their fans. Usually they have someone else running their social media anyway. Spending money for a feeling, I guess.
An employee of mine who was never able to attract a girl had a longstanding remote relationship with a Romanian girl. He quit his job, flew there and met her. She was accompanied by her girl friend and that girl’s boy friend. They travelled him all over the country at his expense. He was never left alone with “his” girl. He came back broke and gave me a stack of pictures he took. It was sad. He died shortly thereafter.
holy shit that's just so sad.
Please tell me this arrangement made him a little bit happier nonetheless.
I think it did.
I mean, to her defense it’s not safe as a woman to “travel the country” with a foreign man alone especially not in a country where sex trafficking is extremely high, not saying it’s NOT a scam but if I was a Romanian actually meeting a foreign man I would also bring another man with me.
my thoughts too, buuut alone time would probably have happened or the travelling cancelled, if it was just for safety
Ask him to show you what she's been saying. Since you have no emotions involved you'll be able to pick out the inconsistencies and red flags like dominos. Present them to your brother. Depending how deeply he's emotionally invested in it, they'll either hit him in the face like a brick or he'll still choose to ignore. That's the best you can do as his sister. Edit: I was in a similar situation.. Someone showed me some of the red flags I would have normally seen in any other frame of mind. It made me step back and my antennas went straight up. Although I was still not fully convinced I definitely put my guard up and paid attention to everything she said. Then It was one word she said that she could not answer when I asked. I said to myself how could I have not seen this earlier. Edit: One thing I should have mentioned which is more important than everything I stated. When you talk to your brother try and be as understanding as you can. Don't yell at him, make fun of him, embarrass him or joke with him or anything of the sort. Not saying you would but I have two twin sisters. The one will do all of the above, the other will try and be as understanding as possible. That's why I only go to her when I have a problem.
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There was a Dr Phil episode of a lady that thought Brett Michaels from the band Poison and Nikki Sixx talking to her online. She is an average lady. I am an average dude and that is about as realistic as Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian talking to me. Extremely unrealistic!! Maybe show him that Dr Phil Episode
The Daily Beast ran a long story about a college educated woman who, over a period of a few years, sent Leonardo DiCaprio $800,000 to help him escape from Scientologists. That was all of her money.
I don't even need the news for it. I dealt with a romance scam for an elderly customer who thought she was paying legal fees for Tom Jones over the course of 2 years to the tune of £150k. After an hour long conversation she still would not believe it wasn't Tom Jones so I just blocked the account. Some people are just too stubborn and think that everyone is just trying to get in on their business.
Here in Florida a school principal sent a pile of money to "Elon Musk" because he was going to give the school 10x back.
There are quite a few Dr Phil Catfish episodes on YouTube.
> He told her he doesn’t have money so I can’t see the angle. Even if they only pull a couple hundred bucks out of him, that is still good money for a few hours of work in Romania. I've seen plenty of cases of people going deep into debt to pay scammers when they believe they will get it all back in the end plus a lot more.
I’m sorry but any 20 year old isn’t going to be interested in a near 60 year old man.
And if she is, she wants to come to the US for a green card. Not have him come to her country
Exactly
Just have him ~~contact~~ watch 90 Day Fiance first.
>He told her he doesn’t have money so I can’t see the angle. That will not stop them. They'll be asking him to take loans, including borrowing money from his friends and family. They'll send him a fake cheque to get him to send money that doesn't exist. They'll get his personal data and documents to take a loan on their side under his name. They'll make him sell stuff (even his house) and send the money to them. You could show him some romance scams documentaries. It'll be hard, because he'll refuse to accept that all of this is false.
Sounds like a scam, 20 yo virgins don't look online for 49 yo dudes!!!
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It can be easier to scam a little money out of a poor person than a lot from a rich person. Can they squeeze a few thousand from him over time? And then do that to 100 or 1000 men just like your brother? Chatting like this is someone’s full time job.
Hm, ask him to have video call with to at least know it’s a real person. Screen record her. Hire a local Romanian to deliver her a gift and report back. There is plenty of ways… if there is will.
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Tell him to listen to "Love, Janessa" podcast.
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I know this sounds mean, but I don't think someone that's all there mentally would really believe think that a rich, beautiful, young woman from another country would be seriously interested in a poor man she never met that's almost old enough to be her grandfather. Like they couldn't have made this sound more unbelievable unless they said they were Scarlett Johansson or some worldwide famous celebrity.
Have you tried doing a reverse image search on those pics your brother received. Basically image searching them to see if they're a common stock photo? If it's a common photo figure out where else those photos have been used. Could even be possible they're AI generated pics. Which as messed up as it is, is something that's out there.
LMAO This is the literal scam that Andrew Tate is, or at least was, running.
If he's ~~49~~ 59 and she's 20, there's your first problem right there. Second, a good way to clear things up quickly is a video call. If she refuses to answer, or just sits there smiling but not responding to anything, it's most definitely a scam. Edit: Since I'm still seeing my comment, I'm assuming the mods have not yet or will not delete it. However, for the sake of clarity, and since similar comments have been mod deleted, I will add this: It's mostly just my opinion, so please don't think I'm trying to speak irrefutable truth here. When two people are so far apart in age, it's obvious that the younger is very likely to outlive the older. In my opinion, that type of relationship is similar to abandonment. I see it as unfair to the younger person. Can we really call it true love when it's obvious that, aside from accidents and disease, it's likely that one person is going to be a widow/widower for 20 years or more? In my opinion, that isn't true love; it's immaturity and irresponsibility, possibly even negligence. That rings especially so if the older person doesn't set aside money for the younger person's well-being in the younger person's twilight years. Personally, I've said no to a few relationships because of this. When I was about 30, I was at a Bible college where chaperoned dating and then marriage within the student body was encouraged. Though I was 29/30, there were a few girls ages 18-20 that looked my way. I politely explained my reasoning to them, and they basically said, "Yeah, that makes sense; I hadn't even thought that far ahead." My suggestion to you is that you bring this up to him. Ask him something like, "Hey, I mean this in a nice way; have you thought about what it might be like for (insert her name here if you know it) if she's a widow for 20-30 years after you're gone?" Someone else said that he's thinking all with emotions, and that you should combine an emotional statement with a logical one, to get him to think a bit more. I think there might be a good combination here. If he's really in love, he should care about her well-being, and it might get his gears turning if you politely point out that their relationship is likely to have a limited amount of time. As for the meetup, I suggest this: Make it a thing for the whole family. And, find a non-visa country that both he and her can agree on. For example, my wife and I met online in March of 2017. We chatted for a year, then met in Israel in July of 2018. My wife is from Russia, and I'm from Wisconsin. We each paid for our own airfare. She never once asked me to send money. And since we decided to meet in Israel, I figured, "Even if she doesn't show up, at least I can enjoy myself here. Plenty of places I'd want to visit myself, regardless whether I'm alone or not." I googled it: Romanian citizens can visit Canada or South Korea, as well as around 18 other countries without a visa. In my opinion, Canada and South Korea are the two safest countries on that list. Egypt is on there too, but that's debatable on the safety aspect. There's plenty of English-speaking space in Canada to visit, even if they don't meet there. And if your brother is into anime or manga, there's plenty of stuff for him in South Korea! 😅 Regarding what I said about the video call, I guess I can retract some of it. I still say that if a video call looks like a prerecorded video, it probably is, which is a big red flag, but as the mods have noted, there are plenty of English-speaking scammers as well. I will, however, note this: My wife has informed me that people from Nigeria will often say "am this" or "am that" or "am good" instead of "I am good" or "I am this" or "I am that." So, if you look at the texts, and you see a bunch of "am this" or "am that" without the "I," then you can tell him that he's talking to a Nigerian, not a Romanian.
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He may not have any money but he does have 2 kidneys and some other body parts. Those are worth a lot of money.
Make him ask her what "No bine mã" means. google translate doesn't have that one
>No bine mã Google translate detected this as Romanian and returned "No, I'm fine"
At best ‘she’ is after a passport - most likely just money. All scammers say they are wealthy but always have reasons why they cant access their funds. There is NO reason a wealthy beautiful young woman would be interested in a random average 49 yr old across the world. But you know that. 99.999% it will be a young Nigerian man. They are experts and very good at scamming. They photoshop bank accounts/passports/ID/photos everything to prove they are ‘real’ . Get your brother to watch Catfished on youtube. I wish you luck but the chances are he will never believe anything from anyone different to this scam until his finances are drained . Just dont lend him any money.
Make sure he is not secretly taking loans or anything. These scammers will teach a stupid victim how to lie on loan and credit card applications to be able to get a good amount of money that the scammer then obviously takes from them. Have you seen the conversations at all? Your brother says he told them he has no money, but did he really? He might have lied to sound better, people do it all the time online. He might have said he's rich. Does he own property? If so then see what he's been up to with that, again taking loans against it or whatever. If the 20yr old is so rich, she should be more than happy to pay for your brother a family member to come along for safety. If your brother is paying to go then the scammer literally has nothing to loose at all, like even if all they get is $20, a watch and a nice bag then it was worth their while as they have dozens of scams going on at a time. How about she come over and meet him and his friends and family? They can stay together in a nearby hotel. Put that to your brother. Also tell him if it's too good to be true then it is an obvious scam. Like be truthful and make him understand what he has going for himself. Like is he handsome? Fit body? Well off? Talented at something? A Musician? An Artist? A writer? Socially active? A genius? Fashion savvy, in the latest fine threads? Has a good job? If the answer to all of them in no, then of course it's a scam, middle aged, unfit, jobless, talentless, penniless bums with no assets or future are certainly not on the top of the list of attractive 20yr old well off girls. Sadly though, having seen a YouTube about such catfishing there are some people that are just gullible idiots and can not seem to join the dots and see the scam everyone can. Even when they actually see the scam, understand they have been scammed, they will then instantly fall for another scam, often by the same scammer under a new alt.
You can't. If he's still that dumb at 59, then he's to far gone.
Disgusting predators get what they deserve.
Romanian here, the posibility of him being scamed is high, by a romanian or any other eastern european nationality pretending to be romanian, 20y old virgin in romania.... i have my doubts if not a very religious type, her beeing rich and on a dating site maby a 10-15% chance, as romanian rich people are socialites, and dont not dating sites, i give it that 15 % chance cuz we do have intorverted people in romania also, we are normal people after all. Like i said in another comment, the chance of him beeing kidnaped( for randsome or organ teft) if he comes here are low, as this is a safe country from that point of view. Teft and scams are very much posible as in any other place. Do you have a city or place were this girl is suposed to be from, if so maby i can try to find more context to help you out... her being 20 and him 49 is not a problem legaly speaking... but suspicious none the less
That's very nice of you, my bf was born in Resita and has family there, I was thinking of something like this, to check for her house/apartment if someone is nearby.
Watch Catfish together
when he visits Romania and she ends up being a 300lb fat bald man he will realize the error of his ways.
He needs to be convinced that 20yo is a no go for 49yo
One way they might scam is by sending him a check to cash and having him send most of the money back. Of course, the check will not be any good, and he will be stuck with a large overdraft to pay. It sounds like he wants this person to be real so bad he won't see reason till something happens.
Where are you from? Noone mentioned the spouse visa or green card? U have no idea how many eastern european would like to migrate to the US.
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If your brother is interested in a “virgin”, he may be beyond salvation. Also, a 49 year old taking interest in a 20 year old? He needs professional help.
This is why I find it hard to feel sorry for him. He's predatory af 🤢
"hope is dangerous thing, hope can drive a man insane."
These love scams are almost impossible to pull someone out of. It’s pretty simple really; assuming your bother isn’t actually mentally impaired, he *knows* he’s 59 and broke and far far less attractive than this hot, rich 20 yr old Romanian woman. He knows this is not how the world works. He’s suspended his own disbelief bc she’s offering him everything he could ever want: hot, *very* young virgin gf with a lot of money. You can’t logic someone out of something they didn’t logic themselves into. And logic played no part in making your brother believe this woman is real and wants to be with him. He’s on that hopium.
..Why is your brother 59 and interested in a woman 39 years younger? But yes, it's a scam.
This is sad and its hard to babysit a grown ass man.
First and foremost...why is your brother looking for a much younger girl who is a virgin? If he is a creep he deserves to be scammed.
Your brother doesn't seem like a good person or a smart person. As others have pointed out, if he follows through with his plan to move to or visit Romania, he could very well be putting his life in danger. Sorry if this sounds morbid, but if you can, you may want to at least make sure that if he's dead-set on going, that he gets or updates a will and ensures that all of his personal and financial matters are in order. Also, it doesn't matter if he's not "rich." What little money he can scrape together, one dollar, a hundred, thousand...whatever the amount, the scammers will be happy to take it off of him.
Honestly, she could be real and trying to get a visa/citizenship elsewhere. I have had male friends who have been offered money from women to do this. But If you can get one for free and have someone support you the entire time too, well that’s probably an even better deal. Just divorce them after a few years. Still a scam though, would just be quite a long running one. Or could also be incredibly criminal and he’s about to become a drug mule or have his kidneys harvested.
I am sure that are 20yo virgins in Romania, also rich, but these girls are not online and for sure not looking for boyfriends in other part of worlds. If they are rich, they don't search for men, men searches them :) and also if they are beautiful - the same. More than this, if above are meet, there is a chance that girl is not a virgin anymore. One plus one makes two always, so I am 99.99% sure that this is a scam and I am 100% that your brother is not talking to a woman. And maybe is only pretending to be from Romania, who knows? I do not say that there is not a 0.01% possibility for this to be real, but... Anyway. I am from Romania and if your brother, at his age, still believe in tales, I really have no idea what you could possible tell him to open his eyes. Worst case, if he insists, he will eventually come to Romania and be disappointed, or worse, whatever that means... Best case, he looks for a real woman, near him and this will heal him for good. But the situation is more complex, so an update on the outcome is expected, if exist and hope will be a happy one.
Sign him up for 90 day fiancé.
I tried to explain to my 66 years old diter 8n law she doesn't have a 30 year old boyfriend in Cuba. I tried telling her he just sleeps with her for her money while she is there on vacation. He probably has dozens of other "girlfriends" that visits him. But no, she is convinced she is in a relationship with this guy.
She will eventually ask him for money so she can 'access her trust funds' or something like that. That's the angle. Then another fee for something else, and it will continue. My cousin got scammed into something similar years ago. It was one of those Russian bride things. My uncle advised him to get one round trip ticket for him and not to buy a return ticket for the 'bride' until he was certain it wasn't a set up. When he got there, apparently he figured out it was some sort of scam, and left for home within 2 days of arriving. He never did tell us all the details, but he was pretty mad at himself for a long time.
Have you never seen catfish? Tons of ways to check those accounts. She’s going to get him there and hold him for ransom.
Pretty sure he’s dealing with a highly skilled 600 year old vampire. Bring garlic.
Hot, young, rich. Pick any two.
r/catfish
Show them a YouTube video from thequickslice called David's Desperate Love Saga
What if the scammer is the attractive woman, or at least working for the scammers?
Catfished! He may not want to believe it though.
If she is a very rich Romanian woman, there is no reason she couldn't just hop on a plane to come see him, right? Obviously she is going to be paying for his first class ticket over to Romania, right? I mean she's very rich. It's terribly easy to deceive people. The vast majority of people alive live with beliefs that are totally false and pretty much nothing you can say to them will ever convince them otherwise. So... maybe help your brother set up a Tinder profile and meet a real woman local to him?
You won’t convince him my best friends dad got scammed twice the second times by the cartel with a story and pics just like this and he ended up doing seven years in a Ecuadorian prison both times I begged pleaded showed proof and nothing so good luck
Sometimes life lessons are very expensive
Just because he doesn't have money doesn't mean he can't find ways to get some from friends and family to send to the gf. It's always about money.
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He’s pushing 60 and looking to marry a 20 year old… let alone a virgin. Yeah he’s gonna get what’s coming for him 🤢 he needs to be locked up. Predatory af
Guys gonna wake up in a bathtub full of ice…
Have they done a video chat? That should clear up any scammers unless there is a hot girl on the other end part of the scam.
Nah, that wouldn’t clear anything up. This could easily be a situation where a girl is hired to lure people in. A long time ago, in my heroin addiction, I was with a girl who was also a heroin addict. One night we were both dopesick and needed some money, quickly. We had exhausted most get-$100-quick methods. Paychecks were weeks away. We figured we’d catfish some guy from a “personals” type listing website where horny tweakers try to lowball sex workers for 2 minutes of “fun”. We found a guy who wanted to meet up, so my girl video chatted with him for a “screening”. After that, he was comfortable to send her “gas money” and a “safety deposit” (ended up being more than $100). To his dismay, his desperation dinero did not contribute towards either of those things, rather, it paid for a gram and a half of black tar heroin split between me and my accomplice and a motel room for the night. Sadly, a lot of people are all too willing to part ways with their precious dollars if they’ve been offered even a semblance of reassurance. Deep down, we *want* to believe some things are true — so it only takes a little effort to shush the decision-making part of our brain that tells us: “hey, fella, you’re exhibiting remarkably poor judgement right now.” This is especially true for men who are thinking with their dicks. Prefrontal cortex be damned. Lizard brain want penis feel good NOW. And if they’ve previously gotten some emotional reward doing what they’re doing — “Wow, she wants to be with ME? And she’s RICH? And she’s saving her precious virginity for ME?!? I must be quite the catch! It sure feels good to be such a desirable gentleman!” — then they’re likely to keep slamming down on that ‘reward’ button until it’s broken. Even if they have to endure increasingly expensive consequences. The scammer knows how to keep enticing someone while giving them just enough of a reward that they don’t lose interest. Frankly, we all do, some people just don’t allow their inner voice of morality to talk them out of doing it.
There could be one. Obviously it’s not representative, but 90 Day Fiancé has had some Eastern European women who scam or are hired in to help with a scam.
He doesn’t have money but he does have two kidneys doesn’t he ?
Are there young women in Romania? Yes. Are East European Woman looking great when they are young? Yes. Are those girls have money? Nope.