Written by: Six teams | Editor-in-charge: Pea | Image: Huang Zai
Left slide, left slip, left slip, left slip...
Slide right, match! Pairing successful!
Cecilie matched her "perfect male god" on the dating app Tinder and began a life-changing relationship, going into debt for $250,000.
It's a true story, made into a documentary by Netflix, "The Tinder Swindler."
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
Cecilie is a girl who is very eager for love, and for the sake of narrative convenience, we call her Xiaoli. Xiaoli has loved the story of Disney princesses since she was a child, Belle met the beast, saved him with love, the beast took her to live a dreamlike life, Xiaoli said: "The feeling of being saved by the prince is deeply rooted in people's hearts, even if you know that the story is not true, there will still be a desire in the depths of your heart, and your love will be as legendary as a fairy tale." 」
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
In search of true love, Xiaoli became a heavy user of Tinder, and this time, she met a man named Simon Levev.
Simon seems to be the domineering president who came out of the Mary Sue novel. Handsome, well-dressed, knowledgeable, the son of a diamond tycoon, with more than 100,000 followers on his social media account, photos are full of private jets, sports cars, parties, trips, parachutes... He even has a configuration that every overlord has—a commercial enemy.
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
With him, Xiaoli also experienced a life that only exists in a love novel. Drink coffee at an upscale hotel, the driver drives a Rolls-Royce to take Xiaoli home, and then takes a private jet for a date. In addition to the novel experience that can give Xiaoli in material life, Simon's elegant conversation and deep personality also fascinate her.
Not long after getting along, Simon took the initiative to expose his vulnerability. He said he needed to make a lot of money to feed the team, but diamonds were a dangerous industry; he showed Xiaoli a lot of pictures, someone sent him bullets and a wreath for his funeral, the surveillance at the entrance to his apartment showed someone breaking into his home, the enemy was staring at him all the time, and he would be unsafe if he stayed in one place for too long.
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
Because of sympathy, Xiaoli's love for him deepened, they established a relationship, and Xiaoli decided that she would wait for him in London. Simon lies to Xiaoli that he is leaving because of safety, but in fact, he has already begun to find the next hunting object.
Pernilla, whom we'll call Pepe, was the second girl on Simon's pair. Although there was no spark between them after the first date and decided to be friends, Pepe was already deeply attracted to Simon's charisma.
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
Simon began to have fun with Pepe, he packed parties, took the girls in luxury cars, ordered all the dishes on the menu during meals, and stayed in a luxury hotel for fifteen thousand dollars a night. And these flowers and wine enjoyment, spent all of Xiaoli's money.
Simon sends Xiaoli a video of her bodyguard injured to prove how dangerous they are. The enemy would locate him through the credit card's consumption record, so he had to deactivate the credit card and had to borrow money from Xiaoli.
Worried about her boyfriend's safety, Xiaoli lent out her credit card. Who would have thought that Simon would spend 20,000 US dollars in three days, constantly brushing credit cards, Xiaoli had to keep taking loans from the bank, and the hole was getting bigger and bigger. In the middle, Xiaoli also had uneasiness, but Simon cried about how dangerous he was, while reassuring Xiaoli that everything was under his control, and he also transferred 250,000 to Xiaoli through Credit Suisse.
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
But the money never went to Xiao Li's account, and not only that, simon's attitude toward her changed dramatically, and she realized that it was over between them. Xiao li was carrying a huge debt and was collected back and forth by 9 banks. She called the credit card company and finally learned from them that Simon was a "professional fraudster."
Losing Little Lily' cash cow, Simon begins to cheat on other girls, and Pepe soon receives a video of the same. Worried about her friends, Pepe also lent her credit card to Simon. Simon took the money and flew to other countries to find the next victim.
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
Seeing this, we understand that Simon is a man who lives by fraud, he is not the son of a rich man, nor is he the president of the company, and Simon is not even his real name.
Born on a run-down street in Israel, this fraudster was arrested and imprisoned in Finland in 2015 for defrauding 3 women, released three years later, and he is still constantly defrauding, changing one name and identity after another, arms dealers, agents, pilots, defrauding one person of money, and then using the money to deceive the next person, and so on.
Because Simon kept fleeing abroad, and the loan was legally difficult to criminalize, Simon would say that his girlfriend had voluntarily given it to him, and he had not been arrested since, and there was little real information about him on the Internet. Because of this, he can deceive people again and again, and even the law cannot stop him.
But this time, the deceived girls decided: We want to stop him.
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
Xiaoli went to Norway's largest newspaper and decided to expose Simon, even if he could not be punished by law, but as long as people recognized the face, he could not continue to run away. The newspaper took charge of the investigation, confirmed Simon's true identity, and contacted Pepe, who was still dating Simon at this time, Xiaoli and Pepe met and decided to unite against the scumbag.
With the help of Pepe, the newspaper took a clear photo of Simon, and then Xiaoli and Pepe stood up to tell their story, and they did not hesitate to expose their real names and chat records to prove that this matter was true, and finally formed a report about the "Tinder fraud king".
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
When girls unite, they are no longer passive victims. The story went viral, and everyone knew about Simon's ugly face, including Simon's then-girlfriend, Ayleen.
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
It was a very serious relationship for Erin, who had lent Simon $140,000. When she saw this article, Erin decided that she was going to get her compensation back, and she was going to send the liar to jail.
Pretending not to believe in online reports, she continued to make love to Simon, and then took Simon's clothes and hung them online in the name of raising money. Everything about Simon is fake, but in order to wrap himself, his clothes are real luxuries. Of course, the money sold will not flow into Simon's pocket, and the desperate Simon finally reveals his sad and ridiculous true face.
Finally, Erin also provided the information she had set up to the police, and Simon was arrested at the airport for forging a fake passport.
Erin contacted Pepe, who contacted Xiaoli, and the three girls cheered for a common victory in three different places.
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
After reading it, although happy for the girls, I also feel angry about why someone is so evil and uses the kindness of others to carry out harm. Even more alarming is that emotional scams like this happen all the time.
Using feelings to deceive each other into transferring money is a kind, and there is also a kind of "pig killing plate" that everyone is more familiar with, which also uses the trust of the other party to induce the other party to participate in investment or gambling. In January this year, a Jin woman transferred 22 times in a month, transferred a total of 920,000 yuan to an investment platform recommended by her online dating boyfriend, and finally was detected by the anti-fraud center to be saved by the account abnormality.
There are enough tragedies, and there are always people who condemn the victims in such incidents, saying that deceived women worship gold, are stupid, are easily confused by love, and deserve to be deceived. Xiaoli and Pepe have been attacked by netizens, which makes it difficult for them to understand, "We just want to help others."
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
And in fact, online scams do not distinguish between men and women. After the news of Simon's scam was published in Norwegian newspapers, many victims around the world called to say that they had also been deceived by Simon, including many men, who regarded Simon as a good brother and lent him money.
In addition, according to the "Research Report on The Trend of Online Fraud during the Covid-19 Epidemic" released by 360 Security Brain, the proportion of men being deceived during the epidemic is higher than that of women, especially pornography fraud, with men accounting for 95.6%, mainly brought by "naked chat".
Bystanders open up the god perspective, naturally feel that the scam is easy to see, but when you are really in it, you may also make the same choice, everyone before being deceived feels that they will never be deceived.
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
Reporting such an incident is not to make us harshly criticize the kindness of the victims, but to hope that everyone can be more vigilant. The documentary shows us the usual routine of emotional liars.
The first is the packaging image. Fraudsters will package themselves as very attractive people, good looks, good figure, may not see the job but the salary must not be low, the circle of friends is full of famous car watches, fitness, travel, pets, business meetings and other photos that highlight the identity and financial resources. In order to create a sense of mystery and avoid being recognized, he may be doing professions that are rarely accessible to everyone, such as peacekeepers, officers, and agents.
The perfect person has it, and the next step is to build feelings. Fraudsters will continue to output positive emotional value to the other party, especially when the other party is lost, providing comfort and companionship will further enhance the sense of trust.
Scammers also have a lot of action and verbal offensives. When Xiaoli and Simon are together, they will receive flowers from him every three to five minutes, and they will chat every day, and Simon will say "good night", "I miss you", "I love you", "I can't wait to see you", "I want to start a family with you", express love, make promises, and let each other fall in love.
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
It's not enough to like it, scammers can also inspire empathy and guilt. When you have sympathy for the other party, and you will feel guilty if you don't help them, it is easier to be led by the nose by the other party. Simon reveals the past to Xiaoli, making people feel that although this man is strong, he is very lacking in love, so Xiaoli moved his heart of compassion. A girl who has encountered Tinder scammers said in an interview: "It seems that because it is you, he exposed this weakness, so as to deepen feelings and trust, hit the girl's sympathy, and feel that he is very special." 」
Xiaoli's feelings about Simon ▲ Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
In fact, after combing through this, it is more obvious that emotional fraud is invincible, because there are indeed people who live a good life, and indeed some people's conversation gives people a very warm feeling, they are not necessarily all liars, some clues can tell us the truth, such as the other party never agrees with the video, and has not met to ask you to transfer money or take you to make money, once the money is mentioned, we should be alert.
Stay sane and don't believe the investment information sent by netizens who have never even met, or the request to borrow money.
Make good use of the network search function, in order to install people, many people will buy picture packages from the Internet, you can search for each other's avatars and circle of friends photos to see if it is a network picture; after knowing each other's occupation, you can also search for each other's company to understand the situation.
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
If you want to enter a relationship, you should let your relatives and friends know the situation of the other party in time, and let your relatives and friends help you consider it.
In short, don't let yourself get caught up in the situation where the other party knows your own information, name, ID number, home address, but you don't know anything about the other party, which is very dangerous. If you encounter an abnormality, timely alarm handling.
Finally, don't forget to download the National Anti-Fraud Center APP!
We should not trust strangers we know on the Internet, but we don't have to completely deny online dating. In this documentary, although the three girls were cheated of a total of hundreds of thousands of dollars, this story makes people feel not despair and fear, but can harvest a force after watching it.
Because the girls did not complain about themselves, but quickly cheered up after tears, determined to defeat the bad guys, each of them received a personal threat from Simon, they were afraid, but still plucked up the courage to confront him.
After the release of this film, there are also many girls in China who spontaneously gather together, they tell their experience of being deceived on Weibo, Douban, and Xiaohongshu, and hang up the accounts of scammers to wake up other girls.
In addition, after experiencing such hurt, girls still choose to believe in love, which is the behavior of the brave. At the end of the documentary, Xiaoli said that this matter has nothing to do with Tinder itself, she will still use Tinder, and she will always look for true love.
▲Image source: "Tinder Scam King"
I sincerely hope that all those who bravely pursue love will not be disappointed, and those who use emotions to deceive others will eventually be punished.
I love the world.
bibliography
Open Pineapple Finance. On The Detective and Soul, there are also "Tinder Fraud Kings" [EB/OL]. (2022-03-08) []. https://posts.careerengine.us/p/622763bd07f9e22269ff6103.
[2] BBC NEWS Chinese. Loneliness under the epidemic situation encounters online "love cheaters" to cheat money[EB/OL]. (2021-01-19) []. https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/world-55700439.