Story: Expertly Scammed!

I'm a simple person. Easy to persuade and very naïve indeed! Some people say that it might be a negative aspect of my personality and after what happened with me during last year, I so happen to agree with them.

I am a school teacher at a local private school. To be honest, dating opportunities are fairly thin and being a shy person I also haven't put myself out that much. It so happened that my friend introduced me to a dating website. I did take a liking to the whole concept of online dating and made my profile on it alongside one of my cuter pics.

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What amazed me the next day was the amount of response I got! My smartphone kept buzzing the whole day during my school hours; so much so that I had to turn it off. But it certainly paved way to my curiosity and the 'girl' part in me. The whole day I kept wondering who might be the guy or even guys that had been pinging me all day. As the school bell rang announcing the end of the day, I rushed home, took a shower, made myself coffee and then it was just me and my laptop- jumping from profile to profile.

A whole 95 guys had shown interest in me. Now it was my job to pick one. There was one I especially liked. He was a Masters in English literature just like me and belonged to New York.

I replied to his greetings and we had really wonderful chat. It is just as if you look in the mirror and find yourself staring back at you. But it wasn’t the mirror here but the guy who was more or less, simply ME! We chatted hours into the night daily. We had read common novels, eaten common cuisines and done so much common that I felt as if I knew him since ages. We even chatted on the webcam. He was what I had expected. A handsome guy in his early thirties! He had a rough look, blonde hair and a sturdy built-up just what a man ought to have.

It had been more than 6 months since we had first started chatting. One day I received a worried message. He said that he was short of money and his father had just been diagnosed with cancer. He asked if I could help him out with some cash for the immediate operation. He would definitely return me later.

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He had asked for around $20,000. I said I would send him as soon as possible and asked for his account number. He gave me one and I transferred 10 grands in it. I said I would arrange 10 more in a couple of days. He thanked me and then disappeared. I thought he might be busy with the treatment and thought better to not disturb him. One day passed another, then another; it became a whole 10 days since I had last heard from him.

I grew worried. Of course, I still hadn’t suspected anything. I took a flight, reached New York, and went to the address that we had exchanged earlier. I knocked and out came a guy with the same name but totally different appearance. He asked me what I wanted. I was too tongue tied to speak. I just turned around and went to the local police station and told them the whole story.

They told me that they had received multiple complaints with the same name and had been unable to trace him down. They said that I was lucky not to have transferred the other 10 grands. I was too dumbfounded to speak.

I had never realized that people masked themselves so expertly. I said goodbye to online dating there and then and thanked God that at least my life was safe and some of my saved money secure.