Oil Rig Dating Scam

by Rhonda
(Wisconsin)

As savvy as I thought I was about these scams, I am being duped by someone claiming to be Marcus M Markou, originally from Lucerne, Switzerland, now living in River Oaks, TX for the past 33 years. This guy is also following the same script as many others have reported.

They have their psychological bag of tricks to play on women's romantic side to get to whatever it is they want from you. Marcus is supposedly an oil rig control man currently under a year contract in South Korea. The oil company is CNPC-BHDC from China. He said his father was also an oil rig worker in China, and his mother was a nurse.

He is, according to him of course, a millionaire with a home in an upscale part of Houston, TX called River Oaks. A google search for his name gave no results. I went to the real estate tax website for River Oaks but there were no record results for him. He said he gave his car to his brother from Tennessee when he left for this contract a couple of months ago and would just buy another one when he got back to the states. He claims he will retire after this contract is over because this, along with the other money he has worked so hard to save (claims over 2.2 million) is more money than he will need to live out the rest of his life.

This all started when he sent me a facebook request to be friends. I normally always delete these requests, but because he was such a good looking guy, I went ahead and accepted. Soon after, he started chatting via Messenger. After a couple of days, he requested to change over to Hangouts, which I did. I had never used Hangouts before. At my request, we have attempted video chats a few times, but each time my screen is black and I can't see him, and he says the same thing, that he can't see me, then hangs up and continues texting in Hangouts.

I told him I wanted to see his face since it was such a handsome one, so I get a video chat that is very grainy, not clear at all. For 2-3 seconds, I see this white man with gray hair longer than shown in his "real" photo, and can only see from his nose to his chin. When I told him to move further away from the camera so I could see his whole face, the connection ended. The guy I briefly saw looked similar, he was white, except that his jaw was more square-ish than the photo, and he looked a little older, his hair looked totally gray, not like the photo. It could have been him, but I doubt it. Every attempt at video chatting after that was the same...black screen, no image.

His voice is soft-spoken, he has a cute giggle when he laughs, and reminds me of the way my previous doctor spoke who was from Pakistan. Marcus has an accent more like a middle-eastern guy, not an accent like one would expect from Switzerland, since he said he spoke French while living in Switzerland. I checked that out, and there are 4 languages spoken in Switzerland, one of which is French. They did their research.

He says he met his first wife on facebook, and started dating her after a year. Then they were married for 4 years, then divorced now for 2 years. He says she is currently remarried and will want for nothing for the rest of her life. He says he gave her the world and she repaid him with divorce.

His profile page that I originally saw had several photos, but not as many as one would expect, and not very many friends. His excuse for that was because he doesn't have many friends because of his work on the oil rig. Most of the photos had no likes or comments, but the ones that did seemed to be all from foreign countries like Nigeria, Morocco, India, etc.

This guy tends to get somewhat offended easily when I ask probing questions about him/his life. Constantly asks if I love him and if I really want to travel the world with him as his wife. Sends me love-themed music videos professing his love for me. This morning he sent me a romantic video mixing pictures of my family and him, which kind of creeped me out. He said all the right words to entice me into his web. I fell hard way too fast. All my senses had red flags, but I didn't want to believe otherwise. Bad me.

Through a very good friend of mine, I found out he had been texting and calling another woman in Wyoming. My friend connected me with this other woman, and she and I have been texting and emailing and sharing notes about this guy. Everything is according to the same script. Identical.

Interesting that the likes and comments that she sent me from what she could see on his profile did not match the likes and comments on the profile I could see for the same photos. When I realized that this was a scam for real, I immediately blocked him on facebook, unfollowed him, and deleted all his messages. He sent me a Hangout message asking why I did that and what was wrong. I told him that I found out he was texting and talking with another woman from Wyoming, which he denied, then he got defensive and said he forced himself on no one, and that I could leave if I wanted. I told him I would sleep on it til the next morning.

When I woke up, I had a conversation with the woman from Wyoming, and she said she knew it was a scam but she was stringing him along to see what more information she could get and to find out what his end game was which she thinks is money. I thought about it and decided maybe I would do the same, so I sent him a message saying I was sorry, that I over-reacted, and would he please accept my facebook request and read the posts I had put on facebook. He agreed. I looked at his profile page after that, and he had changed all the photos and deleted his friends except the one from my friend that connected me to the woman in Wyoming.

We have been texting, but it is definitely not the same. He knows it is not the same and is asking if everything is ok and if I still want to be his wife and travel around the world with him. It is harder than I thought it would be as I am wounded.

He told me his birth date was 09/07/59 and he has black eyes. No white man has black eyes. Dark brown maybe, but not black.

I feel violated and I am angry that I allowed myself to be emotionally vandalized like this. Unfortunately, there probably isn't any way to stop it. A documentary would be a great educational tool for other women who may fall prey to these scammers.

I will be asking some final questions tonight, and then will be ending it for good. I can't keep talking to him knowing he is not a genuine person. My gut - and my heart - hurt just thinking about it. I am sure he will ask for money eventually, but I will not wait for that moment.

These scammers need to be stopped somehow. I just don't know how. Information and education will help. Until then, I will continue to delete friend requests from strangers unless it is definitely someone I know or that one of my trusted friends can vouch for.