I was matched with a man named Thomas Steve on a dating site called Mingle. He told me he was from the USA and a soldier who had been deployed in Nigeria. He was handsome and sweet-talking, and I felt like I was in the epicentre of his world.
He started by telling me that his base was attacked, and he had no way of communicating with me. So, he needed me to send him $100, and I did.
Then, he told me he was hungry and had no food to eat, so I sent him another $100.
After that, he told me that he was coughing up blood because he had no food, and nobody would help him. He needed surgery and had no money. So, I sent him $200 this time.
But the lies didn’t end there, although I didn’t know he was lying to me at the time.
He told me he bought food from the canteen, and someone put poison in it, so he had to get medical care.
Then he said to me he was sick and where he was, he had no food or anything to drink, and that he needed medicine, but the doctors wouldn’t give him any and were mean to him.
That was the sickness and hunger part. What came after was a completely different story.
Finally, he got approved for his grant that he was waiting for. But there was a problem: even though he is from the US, he said he didn’t have anyone in the US to send it to him. So, he wanted to use my bank account so that I could transfer the funds from my bank to a bank in Lagos, Nigeria. I gave him my bank account details because I believed everything he told me. His bank transferred the money into my account, but my bank put it on hold because it was fake!
I didn’t know what the heck was happening, but he kept blaming me for holding on to his money, not his grant, but his money.
To make things worse, Thomas’s friends got in touch with me and told me that if I don’t send him the money he put into my account, they would assassinate me, my family and my dogs!
He—himself—then sent me text messages saying my family, my dogs, and my parents have three days to live. He also left me a voicemail and texted me two more times with the same threats.
I was hoping for romance, and I ended up with a nightmare!
Yvonne, San Jose