Well, we had a fun day and a half around here! A guy contacted me on TikTok out of the blue. He wrote, “My only hope is that you will want to be friends with me.” Since I’ve been exposing scams for more than 25 years now, I recently became addicted to the series on YouTube called Catfished. I instantly knew where that conversation was going!

I told him, “Sure, we can be friends!” To add to the bait, I told him that my husband had recently died, had left me a big life insurance policy, and that I knew nothing about the stock market. (Incidentally, my husband is not only very much alive, but he was also participating the ruse. It was HILARIOUS, as you’ll read below.)

Anyway, that line worked! He wanted to keep talking so I gave him my phone number, and told him to contact me on WhatsApp. And, first thing the next morning, he DID!

He said he was Emmit Cahill, the famous tenor in Ireland (who I’d never heard of). Of course, I immediately Googled his name. Yep, he’s famous! Over there at least. I knew I wasn’t talking to the real Emmit so I nicknamed him Achmed, after Jeff Dunham’s hilarious terrorist bomber puppet. Of course, I didn’t share that nickname with the fake “Emmit.”

That was kind of funny (Brian and I were cracking up!) because he sent this to me:

Yeah, Achmed! I already had a name for you!

It didn’t take two hours for Achmed to fall madly in love with me! He said he was 34. I told him, “I’m old enough to be your mother.”

He replied, “Age is just a number.” Yeah, right…

And, it just kept getting better!!!!

13 Real-Life Examples of a Romance Scam

1. DUH! They reach out to you directly on social media or a dating site, and quickly start spouting romantic words. Literally four hours after Achmed started talking to me on Whatsapp:

If a stranger reaches out to you online, DO NOT RESPOND! DON’T BE DUMB!

I want to add that I never told him I loved him. I drew the line on that. He later got upset that I was calling him “friend” instead of telling him I loved him. However, he KEPT sending love messages with hearts and flowers. He went on, and on, and on. At one point, he started sounding like a poet. That was scripted but the horrible typos were still everywhere. Ug!

2. They claim to be either a celebrity, or in the military, or simply overseas for a variety of reasons.

That’s so meeting you in person will be very difficult. They can keep the scam going, and going, and going. You will NEVER meet them in person. EVER!

3. There are so many typos that your eyeballs might start to bleed. English CLEARLY isn’t their native language!

4. They don’t care about any age difference.

5. They are CLEARLY typing from a script. Achmed made the mistake of including too much in a message. He was copying from a script written by another guy. I don’t know who “richard_roland111” is but Achmed was on #7 of the list of stupid questions to ask potential victims.

6. They ask really mundane questions (again, SCRIPTED!) in the beginning. They do this to pretend they are truly interested in you. Achmed wanted to know what my favorite color is and what my favorite ice cream flavor is. Again, it’s all scripted! Another question he asked me was, “if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and try why ?” (Again, notice the capitalization and syntax errors.) Yes, their crappy scripts also have typos!

7. They seem a bit schizophrenic…because what they say doesn’t make much sense at times.

Their writing style may completely change back and forth. This is a sign that one scammer is off the clock, and another one has taken his place. Apparently, Achmed is awake and online 24/7!

Also, Achmed is supposedly a big celebrity. I asked him what kind of car he drives. He said he doesn’t own a car, but hopes to have one someday. That was a stupid answer!

8. They say things that indicate they’re a fragile person (playing on your sympathy). Achmed wrote, “I’d like a partner who understands that discussing my problems makes me feel better.”

9. They forgot what they just wrote. Achmed would often repeat himself, word for word. He was obviously working several potential victims at the same time, and kept forgetting what he’d sent to me.

One example was when Achmed mentioned those problems in his life. I asked him what he meant. He then said he didn’t have any problems.

10. They may emphasize trust over and over again. Achmed kept using the words trust, trustworthy, etc. This is to fool potential victims into thinking the scammer IS trustworthy.

11. FAKE PHOTOS! In almost every case, you can find the photos they sent you online. Right click on the image, and then save is to your computer. Then, do a reverse image search on Google. Click on the little camera image on the right, upload the photo, and click the enter key. Then, go down the page. You’ll see the image was already on the Internet. And, you can often find out who that person really is.

I asked Achmed to send me photos of himself and his house. Within seconds, he sent two pictures of himself (the celebrity!) in different rooms. It looked like he’d changed his shirt between taking the photos. He then sent me a picture of a fancy bedroom. All of the photos came from the Internet. The bedroom photo was a picture from Carrington Manor. Remember the fictional couple Krystal and Blake Carrington from the old show Dynasty? The interiors were fake for the show but it’s a real house in the U.S. and there are pictures of it (and that studio bedroom!) online.

12. If they are pretending to be a celebrity, they’ll mistakenly tell you things that aren’t true. Achmed sent me a picture of “him” holding a dog. I asked him what the dog’s name was. He said it wasn’t his dog. Well, the real celebrity DOES own that dog. Achmed also said he’d never been married. The real celebrity IS married. Achmed kept making really bad, lazy mistakes! I kept asking him questions to catch him making those mistakes. It worked!

13. And, eventually, sometimes days, weeks, or even months later, or in the case of stupid Achmed, who did it within just one day, they HIT YOU UP FOR MONEY! They will use a variety of ways to try to get money from you. Maybe they’re in the hospital, they need groceries, their relative or kid is sick… You name it, he scammers have thought of it! With Achmed, it was wanting me to join his fan club…for just $600-$2000!!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Think about that. Why would a guy who is head over heals in love with me not give me a free membership?

They will want gift cards or a bank transfer. You can issue a chargeback on a credit card. If one of these people DOES ask for a credit card payment, DON’T DO IT! You may or may not get the money back. However, if you buy gift cards, scratch off the silver stuff on the back, and send the scammer pictures, you won’t get your money back. And, if you make a bank transfer, you’re also never getting your money back.

This afternoon, I told Achmed that I wouldn’t feel comfortable meeting him until after we’d gotten to know each other better online. All of the sudden, his demeanor changed. He realized his ridiculous words of love weren’t working, and he immediately changed tactics. No more heart or flower icons for me! He switched to trying to get me to buy a membership card to his (fake!) fan club.

He then told me to email his manager, Fred Jacob, at fredjacob879@gmail.com. Go ahead. Email him. Ha ha ha. I made the link clickable on purpose!

I did.

Clearly Fred, who I nicknamed Muhammad, also has serious problems writing English.

Muhammad ended up sending me the full bank info. It’s a Chase bank account with an American-sounding account holder name, and an address in the U.S. (It’s a very nice house! That scam stuff is really working for them!) Did I report them to Chase Bank! I sure did! I sent them all of the conversations, and told them a scammer is using Chase Bank to rip off American citizens with fake romance scams. Incidentally, yesterday morning, I also reported the scammer to the management company for the REAL Emmit Cahill.

Achmed spent the rest of the afternoon trying to convince me he’s not a scammer…

I stopped responding to him. My last message to Achmed is going to be a link to this article. By the way, just six minutes ago, he looked at my TikTok profile. Too late!!! He should have done his homework FIRST!!!

Please share this post with your friends and family members. Americans are losing BILLIONS per year to these types of scams. Older folks are the most vulnerable! The more people who are made aware of this, the fewer will fall victim!

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