Deceived by my language exchange partner

by Anonymous
(France)

I am French and I met my scammer on a language exchange website. He claimed to be Scottish, a civil engineer on a long stay in Dubai for a real estate project, a widower with two little girls to raise. No parents or siblings.

We were in contact for 2 months via WhatsApp. He called me every morning, was not stingy with words of love, promised to meet me as soon as his project was finished. I received pictures of him, of his daughters... I was under his spell.

One evening, he sent me a link to a song he liked: "Count on me" by Bruno Mars and told me to listen to it and that I would understand. Then I didn't hear from him for 48 hours. When he contacted me again, he was hospitalized, had been assaulted and had had his bank card and passport stolen (although he still had his phone, sounded strange to me).

The situation degenerated over the next three weeks. He supposedly had no medical or repatriation insurance linked to his Mastercard, his bank could only issue a new one if he came in person to Edinburgh to sign and fingerprint it, the embassy was dragging its feet about renewing his passport... He had no cash left and ended up asking me for help to be able to eat and get around. I hesitated and then considered making the transfer he asked me for.

As he didn't have any ID, the money had to be transferred to the hotel manager, with whom he got along well. I already thought it was suspicious. But when he gave me the details of the MoneyGram account, I was amazed: the recipient was in Burkina Faso! I burst out laughing alone behind my screen...

No way for me to make the transfer! I claimed to have an urgent family problem to deal with. I let our "love story" drag on for 2 weeks, during which time he kept begging me to help him. I was in love but ended up blocking him. Scammer or not, I preferred to stop this comedy before I fell victim to it.

His name is Jodie Monguai. He was my friend from miles away. I'm pretty sure he was a scammer too.