Moore Style - Advocating For Victims of Romance Scams with Debbie Montgomery Johnson

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

In a world where we are more digitally connected than ever, it's important to be aware of who we are talking to. Debbie Montgomery Johnson, an advocate for victims and survivors of online fraud, never would have guessed that she would have been involved in a romance scam. After two years and one million dollars, she is here to share her story in hopes of preventing this from happening to someone else and to help others going through it. She joins us today to talk about the red flags to look out for, why we need to protect our identities, and how we can take our power back if this happens to us.  Debbie’s story reminds us that this can happen to anyone and that despite the shame you may be carrying, it is important to speak up if this happens to you. Tune into this episode and then share it with a friend so more people can become aware of this topic! In this week’s episode, we discuss: [01:22] About Debbie Montgomery Johnson [03:17] How Debbie started to speak up for victims and survivors  [06:49] The impact that becoming a widow had on her life [13:14] How she met a criminal on an online dating website [19:13] Red flags vs “pink flags” and amygdala hijacking [24:15] This fraud goes beyond romantic relationships [29:28] The mental health impact on the victims of these crimes [31:11] Why we need to protect our identity and notice red flags on social media [34:20] How to defend a stolen profile or identity [36:01] Meeting the criminal who took advantage of her [40:05] The worst part of the entire experience [46:12] The red flags to look out for [53:31] Taking your power back [55:21] “It’s not catfishing, it’s fraud” [58:29] What keeps Debbie going [1:00:29] There is a need for more laws to be in place [1:03:57] “Beware and be aware” [1:08:48] Debbie's favorite date   Connect with Debbie: Website  Facebook SCARS Facebook LinkedIn

Hi, everyone. I'm your host, Celeste Moore, and you are listening to the Down and Dirty podcast, aka the Double D's of dating. This is a podcast for navigating the ins and outs of modern midlife dating. Here, we will discuss the challenges that men and women face in today's dating world. Like many industries, this one is forever changing, and I believe this platform will help those who need or want it. Today, it is the best time to take control of your desired outcome, whether it is a marriage, significant other, life partner, or just to gain the confidence in dating once again. Every other week, we will dive in and talk about different viewpoints that seem to be challenges in today's dating arena. So let's get into today's episode.

I want to welcome everyone. This is the Down and Dirty Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Celeste Moore. And I just really wanted to say thank you for all those people that continue to listen and hello to all your new listeners out there. Before we jump into today's episode, I would love to introduce my guest today and her name is Debbie Montgomery Johnson and she is a victim's advocate founder of the woman behind the smile incorporated director the society of citizens against relationship scams which is also known as scars she's a number one best-selling author international speaker entrepreneur and a podcast host she is a woman on a mission. And in her book, The Woman Behind the Smile, she shares her personal experience

with a love that turned into betrayal and financial disaster. And she removes the mask of shame and shows others how to do the same. Many of us have something we're hiding, something we're ashamed of, something that through no fault of our own or through our own making keeps us hidden from each other and the world. She also is the president of phenocomplete.com. It's a vitamin supplement company that provides an alternative remedy for the pain of neuropathy. And her background is diverse. She is working from a paralegal and a senior bank branch manager to being a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer serving at the Pentagon and with the Defense intelligence agency. Real quick, she has appeared on the Dr. Oz Show, CBS This Morning, Mel Robbins

Show, the Tamron Hall Show, WPEC, CBS Channel 12, and WPTV NBC Channel 5, in addition to being featured on the National Geographic's Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller. Thank you, Debbie, for being on today's show. I really wanted to let the audience really know who you are, where you're coming from. And like you said, there is quite a diverse background here. Thank you for coming on the show today. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. There is quite a lot in there, but for everybody to kind of learn a little bit about you, I'd love to kind of start at the beginning, like where you decided to tell your story and how are you speaking up for those victims and survivors? At the very beginning, it was really difficult to talk about it. My mom and

dad were an integral part of it. And we can talk about that, but they actually were, I got them involved in it. So they were with me the whole time. They were with me when it all fell apart. They were with me during exciting times. But I chose at that point not to tell anybody because it's very embarrassing when you've had such a background as mine and backgrounds of anybody. Let me get this out here. This could happen to anybody. It could happen to everybody. And I used to say, you know, if this is going to happen to you, be careful, blah, blah. But most people are sitting there going, well, this has never happened to me. I'm too smart. This has never happened to me. So turn it around and think about what if it were to happen to your mom and dad or

to your sister, your best friend? It could happen to a husband or a wife. I mean, I deal with a lot of people that this happens with. So when I was actually at a business conference talking to a couple of my friends at lunch and one of them mentioned online dating, she tells me I rolled my eyes at her. And again, I had not told any of these women what had happened. They knew about the two-year relationship and then all of a sudden it kind of stopped and I stopped talking. But when she said something about online dating and I rolled my eyes at her, she said, come on, yeah, what's the story here? And so I told them, just these couple of women at the table. And they said, Deb, you have to tell that story. You have to let people know. And I didn't want to. I was like, oh

gosh, I don't want people judging me for what happened. And then one went on to say, well, my mom was taken for $80,000. And another was I was in a Ponzi scheme, not once, but twice. And then the last one is a really good friend of mine said, look, I was dating a guy and she was going to get engaged. And it turns out he had a family somewhere else. So I had all these women telling me these stories and no one's talking. And I'm like, guys, if we don't speak about this, the woman next door to you could be going through the same thing thinking she's alone and at that point I knew it wasn't about me anymore I knew my story was important but I wasn't alone anymore and I had great support so over that weekend I crafted kind of a pitch to the girls and at the end set I

invited them to the premiere viewing of the movie the woman behind the smile and they're like when's it coming out and I said I really just made that up and they're like oh no no you have got to now bring out this story because too many people are being taken and they need to know that there's support out there and they're not alone. And that's when the mission opened up, when I realized it wasn't about me and that it could happen to anybody and it was happening to everybody. But the statistics have it that three out of a hundred are going to report it. So if you can imagine that the scammers, criminals, they're not scammers, the criminals are laughing their way to the bank because they know that people don't want to talk because of our victim blame and shame.

And I went through that, but I had such support from my friends and I lost a few friends over this, but my true friends and the women that entrepreneurs that I was working with and men too, they were just like, oh my gosh, Deb, how is this happening? You've got to let people understand it and not take it personally that, you know, you were stupid or you were this or that. That's not the story here, because obviously from my background, I'm not a stupid, vulnerable woman. I was in a spot that I became somewhat vulnerable because, to take this back to the reason I ended up starting the date again, is my husband, Lou, passed away suddenly back in 2010. And this was part of the story, too, because, you know,

here we're rocking along. We've been married almost 26 years. I have four children. And I kept thinking, well, life's pretty, you know, pretty good being married that long. You always have your issues, but he walked out of the door one day and he was going over to the West coast of Florida to, he had a race car and he was going to get it tuned up. And so I kind of kicked him in the butt and said, get out of here. I'll see you tomorrow. And tomorrow came and I was at a meeting and my phone was turned off. And when I went to a break and turn my phone on, I had about 11 messages and some of them from my mother, my dad, my oldest son. And I listened to the message from my son. And he said, mom, dad just died. I'm coming home to take care of everything.

Now I just seen my husband the night before. And when I got that, I had to listen to my parents because they're on the West coast of Florida too. And they're like, dad, you know, we'll take care of everything over here. And, and my mind just, I think probably just shut down. And the only thing I thought I was my youngest was 15. And I had to get to him at school and high school before he saw this on social media. Everything gets put out there so fast. I did not want him to read about his dad dying on whatever the kid's social media was at the time. And so that's when life just kind of spun. And the other thing was, I was working for the school district, basically for benefits. And he was running a company that was paying all of our bills. I wasn't part of the

company. I would sit there and watch him. But all of a sudden, now I was expected to run his company to keep the roof over our heads. And so it was an extraordinary time. And fortunately, I had a lot of support from people, friends and clients who I reached out to and said, I've got some really good background, but I have no idea what Lou's doing here. I don't have diabetes.

I don't have neuropathy. Can you help me out? And everybody was really great. And for about six months, I was running on anxiety, energy, you know, not sleeping much because you don't think about this either until about midnight when you're in bed alone and it'd been first time in all those years that the other side of bed didn't move. And that would be the time when I would get really angry at him

dying. She'd get angry at somebody dying, but I'm like, this wasn't part of the plan. So it really threw me into planning and saying, you know, the what ifs, don't take for granted that, you know, the company's going to keep going on, that you can pay your light bills. The most extraordinary thing that happened is two months before that, he had aged out of his insurance wealth into the next, you know, next group. And his insurance was going to go from $100 a month to $500. And he said, I'm not paying that. He goes, that's too expensive. I'm not going to pay that.

I'm sitting there going, well, gosh, we've got four kids. We're running the company. We have investments, but I didn't want to argue either. He was a very bold, bodacious, you know, it's my way or the highway sometimes guy. and I just, I didn't want to argue. So I didn't tell him that I hadn't canceled the insurance, but when he figured out that I hadn't canceled it, he called him up and he canceled it. So two months before he died, he canceled our life insurance policy. Oh man. And I'm sitting there going, okay, so now what do I do? I have to figure out how to run this business. And I did. I'm still

running. It's 20 years now, but it was an extraordinary thing. And I don't know that most spouses, husband or wives, could do that after losing the spouse so quickly. But for me, it was, you have to do it. You have to keep it running because your job is not going to pay the bills. And so I did that for six months with both jobs until I realized that one month's worth of company was a year's worth of working at a school district. And I quit the school district. I ended up leaving the school district. And that left me a lot of time at home because the company is an internet business. I was running from home. The only time I would get out of the house is I would go to the gym to swim. And I did that because I could cry and no one would know I was crying.

And I was very methodical in my laps and I would be doing the backstroke, looking up at the ceiling and I'd be talking to Lou. You know, I'd be asking questions like, where are your passwords? You know, how do I do this? All those things that I wanted him to tell me the answers to and figured them out. But it was just a time where no one would ask me what was wrong if there was water running down my face. And I also got in pretty good shape at that point. Because, you know, you don't eat, you don't, it's very difficult to exist when you're thrown into that situation with no notice. Even when you have notice, I mean, most widows are, I think the average age is about 55. so the men you're dealing with they got a plan on you know what do you do with your families how do

you take care of your families if suddenly you're gone and protect them most of my girlfriends you know who are married to men who have their own companies never would have been able to run their husband's companies so i've gotten on those guys i say you make sure your insurance has paid up regardless of age right because it's important you know you don't want to be worrying about not having the water run or the electricity turned off because you can't pay the bill and that that does happen but I threw myself into the dating openly after my girlfriends said you need a life my life was work my life was watching sad movies at night you know it was pretty sad because all my children except for the youngest were out of the house the youngest was playing football and

and he was a freshman in high school. And I'm like, your job is school. You do what you need to do. My job was work and try to figure out how to run the business and keep myself going. And until my girlfriends finally said, hey, you need a life and it has to do with dating. I'm thinking, oh, no. This 52 and all the anxiety of 16 came flushing back, you know, rushed back. It's you're not pretty enough, smart enough, skinny enough. All those not enoughs until I talked myself into like, this is ridiculous. You've had an incredible career. You're okay. Just try it. And at the time, this was back in 2010, 2011, it was online dating. And I was very cheerful to look into faith-based ones. I figured those would be the safest.

And I had so many friends that had met their significant other spouse or whatever through online dating. I figured, well, what the heck? And I even went to my mom, because I figured if she's the most skeptical I asked her and she had a close friend who had met her husband through online dating so mom was all for it I'm like okay this is fun and so that's how I jumped in on a dating site and here's an interesting thing might be interesting to your men that you're working with is that the men 55 and older 55 to 65 they lied about everything online you know their age their school their all this stuff and I didn't meet a couple of them in person after the fact and I'm like why do you lie about your age I'm gonna find out you know or

their height I'm 5'8 you know I didn't want someone 5'7 sorry guys you know so that just floored me and then the pictures and you work a lot with their profiles they had what I called the wife theater t-shirt i see men serious i apparently it's not pc anymore but that's what i relate to that's what i call it in front of their motorcycles with other girls hanging on their on their shoulders and i'm like oh my gosh this is not what i want my husband was a former air force officer he was a breeder at the chief of staff for the air force in the pentagon he was brilliant i wanted someone that knew how to write knew how to speak knew was intelligent educated and a business person. And so when I found that profile, he happened to be from England. I'm

thinking, oh, great. I love traveling. You know, I love overseas. And so he had the family. He was a widower. And I did see a difference between the guys that had lost a wife and the guys that were divorced. The guys with divorce seemed to have a little more baggage that they would bring along in the sense of expectations and maybe a little bit of anger towards what happened, where the guys that were widowed and you know this may or may not be true but I knew that when you lose a spouse suddenly like that or even if you've lost a spouse through death there's a different feeling you look at life a little differently and you put things that are important like family and being together it's more important than like running off to some vacation somewhere

so I was really looking I found the guys that were the had lost their wives intriguing now When I look back, given what happened with the story, some of that intrigue was probably part of a playbook. But this was a two-year event. This was not a one-time go on a date. This was a two-year thing that I got to know his story. And he started off in Houston. That was kind of safe. Not too far from where you are, right?

And so he was an international business and here's the, this is a red flag looking back, is that he moved me very quickly from the dating site to Yahoo chat. Today it would be WhatsApp. It would be some sort of messaging service. It could even be more of like online or on your phones, some sort of, not Zoom. They're not going to do any video calls necessarily, but talking more. I didn't really talk to him a lot on the phone. That wasn't the thing. There was no texting back then. It was all Yahoo chat, which was new to me. And it was extraordinary because it was instant messaging. And I love to write. And I found it a little easier for me to talk to him through

writing rather than speaking in person. So that was me. Particularly since I'd been married for so long, I really wasn't ready for in-person relationship. I wanted to get to know somebody and I wanted to hear his story. I wanted to hear about his wife dying. And that was really interesting too. In this whole scenario, I got to know his sister and his son. Those were all, they were all characters, his attorney, they were all characters brought into this story. And as a former Air Force intelligence officer, I was like, oh, great. Her name was Mary. I would talk to Mary on Yahoo chat and I'd be asking her questions about him and asking him questions about her, trying to put this whole family scenario together. And then I would talk to his, when I

say talk, it was through texting, through writing, okay, through writing on Yahoo chat. It was one night I had three or four message blocks open and I'd be going back and forth between them. I type really quick. So I'd be talking to Kenny, his son, about what was for dinner and, you know, what was Aunt Mary doing? Because the story had it where Kenny was living in England with his aunt while Eric, Dr. Cole, was over in the Far East. He had gone from Houston over to Malaysia, was moving trees from Malaysia to India. Interesting fact, I had investments in hardwood trees in Costa Rica. He didn't know that. That was not a public knowledge. So I knew a little about what he did, and I checked out his social media. It wasn't really

social media. He gave me the website to the company, and I checked it out at the very beginning. it was legit. I called them. Did you have Dr. Eric Cole as a contractor? Nope, he doesn't work for us. And my mind, I started rationalizing, well, if he's a contractor, then maybe he's not worthy on their books. He's a contractor. He's not an employee. And so there was always a plausible reason why something happened or what was who he was, what was going on. And I learned a lot, but it went into it too, being a little, I was cautious and it developed someone into a business relationship where he would ask me about my company and help me write a business plan. So there was not just the romance, although that was there. And that was kind of exciting. Again,

you know, the validation of who you are and he's got great words and we would listen to music. He would send me a song and I would send him back one. And there was really a love story in the making, which got the endorphins going. And it's what we call now the amygdala hijack, you know, the brain, my heart ruled my head. And so looking back, yeah, it looked really, I should have had those red flags. I called them pink flags because there was always a reason why something didn't work out. He was very good at coming up with a reason why. And I would do my homework. I would look at pictures he sent and I, you know, it could be he'd give me an address and I because I wanted to send a card to his son. I would look up the address. I would look on on

the Google Maps and I would try to figure out from before I was an imagery analyst. I would look to see if that could be a house or really living above a storefront or something to try to put some validity to the story. People say, well, you know, why didn't he come to see you? Well, the point in the very beginning was during the holidays, he was supposed to be here by Christmas and I had made hotel reservations for his family and he was going to make flight reservations and the canceled it multiple times. So it was that expectation. And then I can't get there. Something's come up. And so it was the up and down of the emotions. And that was that, that was important because I knew there's always emotional baggage going on in a relationship.

It got distressing when, you know, so far into it, it was like, I'm going to get there. I'm going to get there. And when he asked me for help at the very beginning, it was a couple of weeks in. Here's another eye opener, which I didn't think of back then, because when I went into online dating, I'm thinking, well, isn't great. There's a lot of guys here. We probably need some more. He had a friend.

This is the story. His friend was an engineer and he was out of the country. He was having difficulty getting onto the paid part of the website. And he said, would you mind sending a check to the company, to the dating service, to get him in? Like, not at all. It was under $100. I'm like thinking at that point, well, the more the merrier, you know? More good guys, better.

Silly me. So I sent a check to the dating site. The next request was a power of attorney request. And this is where we started getting into business. Because I know from a company point of view that sometimes you don't get paid until after your job is done. And he was having difficulty getting the job finished. And there were some legal things. And at the end, whatever, he was going to get paid a pretty good amount of money.

He was going to be coming here to the States. And so he needed my help. And his attorney wanted me to have power of attorney. So, again, as a former paralegal, I had some understanding about that, but not the international stuff. So when they asked me to help them out, I did. It was expensive. And I sent that first amount of money through a Western Union. And as a former banker, I really kind of went, eh, I didn't know much about Western Union.

I'd only heard things about Western Union. And I think, I don't really want to do this through Western Union. But it was the only way to help them out. And at that point, I'm like, OK, I'm going to help you out. I found Publix. I went to the grocery store, did the Western Union thing. But I sent it to, he was in Malaysia. I sent it to him in Malaysia, but it was to somebody else.

and I'm like, for his benefit. So I said, why am I sending it to this gentleman? And he said, because he's native here. He works here. He's got an account. They know him. It'll be easy for him to get the money and he can give it to me. Again, plausible reason. I said, that makes sense. Western Union has since been sued for first off, not vetting me as a client a little bit more saying, you know, do you know this person? Have you seen this person? And really validated who he was. And then I believe that some of the Western Union franchises were actually owned by scammers and criminals. Wow. Don't quote me on that, but I'm pretty sure that's what was happening, especially over there. And so, again, I thought it was legit. I talked to his attorney

through chat. I even tried to vet his attorney. I wrote a letter to the international attorneys in London and said, do you have an attorney named Peter? I can't remember his name now. And there she wrote me back and said, no, we don't have anybody registered by that name. And when I questioned that, again, it's like, he's international, he's contracting, you know, he's independent. I was like, so those pink flags should have been red flag. I don't mean to interrupt, but yeah, thank you for clarifying because I was going to ask you the difference that a pink flag versus a red flag. And the pink flags are almost the scarier ones. they are. And Dr. McGinnis, who's the founder of SCARS, Tim and I talk a lot. He said,

Deb, they weren't really pink flags. It's just, you had been hijacked. Your amygdala had hijacked. You saw what you wanted to see. You heard what you wanted to hear. And this comes into, you know, don't blame the victim on this one. Because after, the only thing I said wrong that I did wrong was at the very beginning, I said, hello. Everything from that point on, these, we're not calling them catfishers. We're not calling them scammers. We're calling them organized criminals. They know exactly what to do. They have playbooks. They've been trained in universities on what to say. They work in teams. It's not one guy. You know, that's the one thing when I meet with new victims, it's all, well, my guy, you know, he did this. It's not a he, it's they. They are organized crime. They have

tons of money, trillions of money. And now they've got artificial intelligence. So they are so far ahead of us. And, you know, even though I was well-trained, I should have, could have, should not have been the one to be taken. But if I could be taken, I figure anybody can be taken and it can happen at any moment. And it's not just on dating sites. It's on words with friends. It's on LinkedIn. It's on every social media platform you can imagine. You know, um, today, this is really interesting with the younger folks is that there's a term called pig butchering, and that has to do with investments in cryptocurrency. So the romance part of it doesn't really have to be there because in a romance scam like this, in a romance fraud, it takes time to develop that

relationship. In the pig butchering investment scams now, it's pretty quick because someone befriends you and they're like, hey, you know, I'm working with these crypto investors and it's really fun. I'm making some money. You want to learn how to do it? And a lot of people are saying, yeah sure i'd love to learn how to do it because that's that intrigue of you know i always call it chasing the money i like gambling if i can make a little bit how can i do it so it's it's abbreviated but again they're so good they fashion websites to look like real websites you know they create accounts they that you send the money they show you a profit you might even get a little back they get you to get a little more in and then all of a sudden poof they're gone

and with crypto it's very difficult to get that back there is a way now that we are working with a prosecutor in california and some of the federal courts federal investigators whatever are able to what they call claw back that money now if they can follow the wallets but it makes for a very angry victim because they're younger they've grown up on the internet they think they're safe we all think we're safe. I'm looking at you. We've never met in person. I'm trusting who you are, you know, but you might not be you. And so that's the thing. When people get online, they're very trusting of the person that they see, they talk to, they write to, and that we let our guard down. That stranger danger is gone. And that's why we're getting

sucked in in such a tremendous way right now. And it's happening very quickly. What took two years to happen to me is now I see it in women that, you know, three or four months, these guys are really up their game and it's devastating emotionally and financially. You know, the women that I work with are, you know, 55 and older and some are retired. They've lost their retirement. They've lost their homes. They don't know where to go. They don't have the family members that are blaming them, you know, saying, why did you do this? And I want to say, look, it's not the victim's fault. They have been manipulated. Yes. And I hated that when I went to the FBI and they said, well, you're a victim. You've been manipulated. I'm like, I'm not a victim. But

you are. You are. And y'all can be at some point. And this is very difficult to fight against because if this if these criminals are in Nigeria, in India, in Ghana, in some place that we can't get a hold of them, it's very difficult to prosecute. It's happening a little bit easier now because they're employing what we call in business money mules or package mules. That might be a victim like me who's lost all of my money, but I'm still engaged and connected with this person. And now he asked me to take a check from somebody else. He'll have me use my bank account to have a check or something sent to me and said, can you, I had a woman here in South Florida, her scammer said, Hey, I'm having some money put into your bank account. Can you go and

withdraw it and then send it to me in Bitcoin. Well, yeah, she did it because she wanted to help him. She didn't know the ramifications of it. It turned out to be a government check from another woman in Arizona. Oh, my gosh. I don't know how they did that, but I saw her bank account and I was like, what did you do? She goes, I went and I withdrew the money and I went to Bitcoin and I sent the Bitcoin. Well, now she's become complicit. She's become that money mule. she was on assistance here so it could have affected her florida benefits and her why do you have the six thousand dollar check come into your bank account that's income and she's going to have some irs problems but the money got pulled back because the lady in arizona needed her money

and now my friend had given the money away and needed to pay things back and she didn't want to tell her family she won't tell her son who she was living with so she was having his fortitude you know i was like this is devastating and people are committing suicide over this because they are so desperate and no one's helping them. No one understands it. And at the time, you know, this was during COVID that that one happened, to do a police report, we couldn't even go to the police. Couldn't walk in. And when you do walk in and they're sitting there laughing at you, it shuts you down immediately. So there's a lot of work we're doing with law enforcement and with victims advocates, especially in police departments, on how to not get the money back, but just get a

report none so that if there's maybe some state assistance you can get, you have a report, an official police report that you've reported this. And that's the first step. And the next step is to go to your bank because otherwise they're going to come after you. They're going to close your accounts. They're going to freeze things. They're going to hold you responsible for that money. And it's hard. So these ladies just give up and they're angry and they're sad and they're alone. And it's devastating. So I don't want that to happen. And that's essentially why I started speaking up at the very beginning, is that if I could be there for one person, you know, just hear my story and be aware that these stories you hear, these guys that are coming across as military

drive me crazy because I was former military. My kids are active duty military. I mean, those guys are not going to ask you for money. They're not going to ask you for a plane ticket to get home. There's not going to be a U.N. doctor working in Syria that you have to help. He's not going to be an oil rig and needs your money. You know, somebody on an oil rig is making good money. There are certain stories, a lot of stories, that they just change the characters around a little bit. But with that, those pictures that you see are pictures that they've stolen from Facebook, from Instagram. We need to be better in protecting our identity on social media. We don't need 50,000, 50 million viewers or friends or whatever. You know, on Facebook, I don't know how many

friends i have but how many do i talk to a dozen yeah we don't need friend requests because that's what these guys are doing they're getting into women's groups and becoming mutual friends they will act as a woman wow men be careful this is why men are bad victims necessarily because they first off are angry that a woman has they've been taken they're angry that they were trying to help. And they've been duped. And the third is that there could be a whole lot of men behind that picture. And now they're just like, ah, what have I done? Totally embarrassed. We'll never talk online. The scammers, there are women now, but there are primarily, I think, primarily men. They will present themselves as a woman and they will get to know you. And then once they become,

you know or they become a friend of a friend of a friend who's in your women's group now they've got access to the women's group and you start getting friend requests and you'll see oh they're a mutual friend of sally and jane whatever and you're just gonna say oh they know them so i'm gonna friend them now they're into that group you know when i get those requests now i contact my friends that are mutual saying do you know this person because i'm getting this scammer feeling here. And I think you need to block them because we're all so quick to accept friend requests from people we don't know. Don't do that. Yeah. You don't know something. And it could be a cloned account. I mean, I've had multiple accounts under mine. And when I reported them, reported them as

a scam, mine got shut down. And to get that open back up was incredibly difficult. So be really, really careful. Close down your social media profile to protect yourself. So limit it to friends. We are public. Most people are not public. They don't have to have public pictures. If you think about this, my scam situation involved a young boy. Well, guess what? The scammers know that women my age love family. So let's create a family. Let's go in and we're going to pull his pictures out. We're going to pull pictures of kids out. We're going to pull pictures of dogs out. We're going to create a family profile. And now we look legit. But all those pictures were stolen. All those people now have become victims of identity fraud. And I was

interviewing a fellow from the UK the other day who's a public personality. And all of his stuff was, he was a victim, but he doesn't, he says, I'm not a victim. I'm like, but you are because people are going to find out who the real person is. And they're going to go after you because now I think you, the real person, has been the scammer, and you're not. Can I just be for one quick second? I know it is quite a lot, but so his identity or his pictures were stolen, and he was who they think is the scammer, right, in that situation. How do you prove that that wasn't you?

Very difficult. There's a fellow named Brian Denny. Brian is a former Army colonel. He and I were on the Mel Robbins show together. brian retired from the military and never expected his life would be defending his pictures ever his family gets called his wife was called his daughter is one of his kids was called out by women saying you know your husband is scamming me and he's like it's not me you know anybody that's a public personality has probably had their picture stolen and they probably have

the FBI or legal team working to insist. But it's very difficult because you can't get those pictures off Facebook, for instance. It's very difficult to get those scammer profiles pulled down. And the scammers know that. They absolutely know what to do. And to defend yourself is very difficult. Most people just say, I don't want to deal with it anymore. Stop. But I've had some guys I know, they actually go out and they hire publicity teams to say, it just came out recently on the camera October 3rd was it was a romance scam awareness day I'm having a brain cramp on it but one of the dating companies linked up with a very high profile actor I can't remember his name right now and his profile had been stolen so he was coming out saying it wasn't me it wasn't me

that did it you know right that most people aren't going to believe that because for for a year or two. I don't know who the picture belonged to, the guy that, you know, scammed me. I know the real criminal that revealed himself to me was a young, dark haired, dark eyed, dark skinned young man from Nigeria. And that was unusual. The end of my story, the way it crashed and burned is that he came on one day and it was September 10th, 2012. My birthday. Yeah. Oh, 11th. So I'm like, burn oh man no came on in the morning and was writing to me and said how do you feel about forgiveness well we've had many spiritual kind of conversations over the years so i'm like okay i just jumped right in and for hours we talked about it got disconnected and and then came back in the

afternoon and he said what can we revisit i said yeah what's going on and he says i have something to tell you that's going to hurt you and i'm thinking you don't have to do this he says i have a confession to make. And that was like a gut punch to me because I had heard that once in my marriage and it wasn't a good thing. And so I was just like, oh my gosh, what is this all about? And he goes, I have to confess. This has all been a scam. And this is through writing, right? And I'm like, I don't believe you. I don't believe you. Where's Eric? Where's this? Where's that? I said, where's the money I sent you? I said, you're lying to me. You have to prove it. He said, okay, on yahoo chat there is a camera i've been asking that for two years and he said i'll show you how

i can come on live i said do so imagine this i'm sitting here in my office i have dual screens i have a picture of my handsome brit on my screensaver and up pops this little corner camera and now i'm looking at this dark haired dark eyed dark skinned young man with a huge smile on his face and it's like i hit a brick wall and i was like oh my gosh now what do i do how do i get him now. And I let him talk. I wanted to find out, you know, my Intel hat kicked in, right? It's like that in an instant, my story now was behind me. And now it's like, what do you do to catch this guy? Because I watched a lot of FBI shows and I worked with the government. What can I do to get him? And he's like, Deb, I know you're upset. I know you're angry. He said, I'll try to pay you

back. Please don't turn me in because I take care of my siblings and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, which may be part of the story there are a lot of families that have been pulled apart over in Nigeria and you know these young kids might be being supported by their brothers who knows I don't believe it for a second now that that wasn't part of the story but I'm looking at him like how can I get him how can I catch him and so I kind of carried on but the night I called my parents right away and they came over and we went right to the FBI because in those two years I loved to I had 4,000 pages of journal that I had created and had them printed in books thinking I was going to have family history for my kids. And I took that as my binder of records because the

financial hit here was over those two years, I had given him over a million dollars. I didn't have a million dollars. I found it. I found it through investments. I found it through selling jewelry. I found it through however I could find it. And it wasn't all at once. It was, you know, little bits and big bits all over two years. And so I took all that to the FBI and they were very kind to me, but said, Dem, you've been a victim. There's nothing we can do. And on a side note, in Palm Beach County, in Palm Beach, more men get taken for over a million dollars than women and they will never tell because of what it was before. Because they're embarrassed. They're embarrassed. They're angry. And they're just, you know, they're business people. We're not going to

say that we've lost all this money. And so when they said that there was nothing they could do, I shut down. I'm like, if the FBI can't do anything, then nobody can, right? And so that's when I shut down and said, okay, I lost my retirement accounts. I had to work with my accountant. I was going to have huge tax bills. Had to figure all this thing out. And I did. It it took years and the worst part for me throughout this whole thing was that I had been asked he had asked me to get other people to help fortunately no one else said yes except for my mom and dad I'm their only daughter you know out of four kids and I work very closely with my parents and I did ask them for a hundred thousand dollars and that my dad over two years he's like this

couldn't possibly be a scam it's been two years you know this guy's part of the family and so when it fell apart, that's when I felt responsible for. How can I take care of my mom and dad? And it's been how many years now? It was 2012. So it's been 11 years now. In those 11 years, I paid them back multiple times and was able to help them. You know, we bought a home for them. But morally and emotionally, I've been paying them back ever since. And that's what happens is the criminals will pull you in and they'll pull your family in. But then on the other side, they'll say, don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody what you're doing because they're going to tell you now they're going to be naysayers. Just listen to me. And they isolate you from

friends and family. Fortunately, they didn't isolate me from my mom and dad. And my accountant knew what was going on. And he was kind of like, yeah, when it gets here, we're going to set up corporations. And so he kind of pulled in on the story. Also, I was a former banker. All my bank friends knew what was going on. When I'd go in to send a wire, they were right there with me. And it was very fast. It's like, get this done, get this done. And there's a red flag. If there's this urgency to send money, to get it to them quickly, there's a reason for that. They don't want anybody to slow it down. And they want to get that money fast and they want to know that it's coming.

After the fact, I went back to the banks and they're like, sorry, that was your problem. now that's changing because the rules we are trying to get best practices in two banks on how to speak to people that you think are possible victims because as soon as you start to shame them or say hey this is a scam they're going to shut down me i went to another bank most people wouldn't do that but i was a maker i knew finding my way around it but you can't shame someone or say you know this is stupid we think there's something wrong here you have to be very delicate in how you speak to them, or you will lose your customer. And most banks don't want to do this. In Europe now, especially in England, they're making it a law where the banks are going

to be responsible for the loss. And they don't want to be responsible. So that might have slowed down the risk, if you can imagine. But it's interesting, but it's a devastating thing that people take lightly and they shouldn't because it could be anybody, you know, married women. I have husbands calling me saying my wife is in love with somebody and she wants to like clean out my bank accounts. Or we've suggested people go to attorneys and say, get your house in your own name, men, you know, title your home in your name, get your accounts separated. You know, when you see this happening and you'll know, you'll feel it. It's not just single people. It is married people. It is breaking up families. And it starts on a gaming site. You know, it's

unfortunate. You know, it's unfortunate, too, that I've heard of this story that you speak about is happening more and more, or maybe it's just the more and more people are coming forward and actually speaking about it. Right. And that's really scary. And you said it was over a two period. When you think of a romance scam or some type of scam, it's usually, oh, it's a phone call or maybe two phone calls, but it's not. No, it's not. They really get to know who you are. And it was interesting. I think it was last February, but it was the two shows that came out. Oh, yes. The Israeli guy. Tinder swindler

the other one was the young gal that was German I can see her anyway when those two came out and I'll remember that in a minute but in the Tinder swindler they really blamed the victims

they turned them into gold diggers and it wasn't the girl's fault you know none of them in the other show the girl she was the swindler you know the scam artist and they made her look like a Robin Hood because she was going after the big business guys.

And I'm thinking... Oh, Anna Dalby. Yes. Something Anna. It's Anna Dalby. But that wasn't the name of the story, was it? No, it's not that that's her name. But it was.

Yes. And so, again, the way they treated the victims in those was devastating to victims. You know, first off, nobody has to blame me more than I blame myself. Right. I can forgive him. I can forgive others.

To forgive myself for getting involved in this was very difficult, and it took a lot of years, you know. To forgive what I did to my parents still bothers me, even though I know I've taken care of everything for them over the last few years. It ruins families. It hurts friendships, and it's all over greed. It's over money. And they don't need a million dollars.

They need $250 from a million people. And it's like throwing that net out there. You know, that fishing thing, it could be business. It could lead to trafficking. You know, they're going after kids now. And you're like, well, what can they do with kids? Well, kids have access to their parents' credit cards. Yes.

All they need is the money. All they need is the numbers from the credit cards. They don't need the cards anymore. They don't need the gift cards. They need the numbers on the back. It's very fast. And poof, the money's gone. And so they are very skilled at what they do.

They're not stupid, you know, Yahoo boys sitting in a cafe somewhere. These are college graduates sitting in business offices in cities across the world, and they know what they're doing. And we probably train them, you know, they become the best salespeople and their job is to get our money. And they're very good at it. Very good at it. So you had mentioned quite a few red flags that you just kind of brushed off or what

you call pink flag. what can people listening here today, because it is kind of a blurry situation, right? It's not so black and white because of the way they get to know you and the way, like you said, the way that they're working in teams and they're very, very good. They're educated. What are some things that you would maybe a couple bullet points that you would tell people here to really pay attention to? Well, if you really are looking for a relationship, have a dating buddy. Have someone that is a little, it could be you, have someone that is a little objective, more objective than you, because once your hormones start going, you just lost it.

You know, you're fair game to them. So have somebody that's looking at the way they're speaking. I mean, the stuff that was written to me was very articulate. Okay. But the very first email I got from him at the bottom, and I still remember this because it was odd to me. He goes, you can call me Eric Cole. This is the guy who's got a PhD. I'm thinking, what an odd way to say my name is. Yeah. And when I called him on it, he's like, well, that's a Franco lingua. You know, I'm from Europe and I'm thinking, okay. So he, you know,

but that was a flag right there because that was unusual for me. That's not the way somebody says my name is. Right. If they start, and I saw this on your blog, if they start to profess a little bit of emotional love and stuff too quickly, that is definitely a red flag because that's what they'll do. That's when that's that amygdala hijack. And for me, it was a little bit scary because I'd been married for so long and I wasn't ready for someone to say, you know, you're so pretty, you're so smart. I'm falling in love with you so quickly. And I'm like, are you sure? And he even had a son. And one of the stories, it's not his son, but in the story, he asked if he could call me mom very quickly and i'm like really he said i'm not your mom though

i know it in the story he lost his mom when he was young but you know as a mother that was really intriguing but a little scary at first like i really didn't want to have any other kids my kids were grown but i said if that makes you feel better sure that was part of it so again you know they're bringing you into their family they're bringing you closer emotionally and that's hard. The red flag, don't send money. Well, obviously, you know, it looks obvious, but even that small amount for the dating site, that was to see if I'd be willing to do it. We all need to be watching our bank accounts. Watch for those $1 that get taken out. You know, watch your savings accounts. I heard a lot of older women, you know, they have savings accounts, but they don't put

them online. They don't pay attention to them. Well, you might have a caregiver. You might have somebody that has access to that. All of a sudden, those bank accounts are cleared out because you're not paying attention to them. So watch your accounts regularly to make sure there's no crazy stuff going on. Oh my gosh, there's so many things to be careful about. But from a single point of dating point of view, just look and see who their friends are. Do a social media look. If you can't find anything about them online, then I would say that they're either a criminal or they were for the ABCs, which I did. It was DIA, FBI, CIA, the agencies where you can't have a profile everybody's got something out there about them yes but do it on yourself too you know

put a google alert out there on yourself so that if something's written about you it'll pop up that might be interesting for you i do it for me so that anytime my name shows up somewhere i see what's being written about me their names yeah it is and when i went very public on tv and stuff even now you know something will come up on an interview and then i'll pop up in a google alert showed up. I've been in newspapers in Nigeria. My name was popped up because the stories here are getting rewritten overseas somewhere. So that part's interesting. So be careful with that. Lock down your social media stuff. Be careful with your pictures. For me, I never put pictures of my grandchildren up there because I know, you know, those can be stolen. All those pictures can

be stolen. If my daughters and daughter-in-laws want to do that, that's up to them. But I don't do that anymore. And I tell them, be really, really careful because those Facebook pictures are so easily right-clicked, downloaded, and then reused. It's very simple to do that. Don't accept friend requests unless you know these people. We don't need 5,000 friends because we don't know who they are. If someone happens to get into your friend list and you're looking at them, look at their friends. In my Instagram account, I'm not on Instagram, but I'll get a notice every now and then saying, you've got followers. I went on one day and there was a 400, there might be 399 were scammers. I'm like, holy moly, I don't know who these people are. It is not easy to get

them off. You can't do a clean sweep of all those accounts. So just protect your social presence online and work with someone like you. I mean, I'm going to promote that. How to find somebody you can trust because dating online, I mean, all the kids, my single kids are doing it. They've all done it. I did it. But like I told you, I've, you know, I've been married for eight years now and my honey and I found each other's to a friend who was a matchmaker. At that point, it was after the scam and I needed to be able to trust somebody. I needed somebody that was going to tell me the truth. And my husband did that on our second date. He sat me down and said, my friends told me not to tell you this. And it was nothing bad, but it was something very

vulnerable. And I said, you know what? You're the first man, other than my father, in the last two years to tell me the whole truth. Wow. That was amazing. That was my second date with him. I never dated anybody after that. So that's really important. Being truthful is really important. It's very, very important. And I think especially too, as women, we need that safe space to feel vulnerable, to open up, to trust, to 100% love. And I'm so glad that you found out with your husband. That's really a beautiful story. He just texted me and we're actually going out walking. When we started dating, we'd go on walks and we would hold hands. We still do. You can't be mad at somebody, you know, or have some, an issue going on if you're

holding their hand. It's really opened us up to talking about everything. And we still do that. Yeah. The second time around is very different for me than the first. And because I'm at a different stage in my life and it's extraordinarily loving and sweet and just kind and considerate. But as far as the online stuff goes, just really be careful. And there are certainly some don'ts, which we brought about here, but you want to be able to open yourself up to people, but just be careful of who it is. And here's the biggest thing for me was that if you haven't seen the whites of their eyes in person within two weeks, it's definitely going to be a scammer because after two weeks, they know how to reel you in. And it's hard to get out of it once you're

in it. And for most of the women, they end up broke or broken. And that's when SCARS comes into play as a support group is we are there to support in groups. And we have a lot of stuff online. It's actually romancescamsnow.com. We get victims to report. It's so important to take your power back. And the first thing you can do is report it and realize that you're not going to get the money back, but you can take your power back and not have these guys, you know, hanging over you. But it's devastating. And just think, you know, if it's your mom or your daughter or whoever, it's a devastating thing. Hard to stop these guys because they have so much money and they are so far ahead of us technologically. And it's interesting working with a lot of the

financial organizations. I'm actually going up to New York next week to speak with the head of NASDAQ. They're looking at it from a financial services point of view. Now they want to look at it from the impact on the victim and the family and the society. If you think about the amount of money that has left the United States alone in scams. We are funding terrorism. We are funding, you know, trafficking. We are funding all this stuff, not knowing we're doing it. Obviously, I would never send money to someone like that. But unfortunately, this money is being used for really bad stuff yeah and so in in addition to hurting us personally it is hurting others around the world and it's got to stop yeah so i i love love scars i love it that is

is it something that every time someone report say their their scam does that help like you said you know the fbi when you went in and they were like oh there's nothing we can do i mean do you think the more voices out there saying this is happening, this is happening more and more, that the legislature, you know, or the government, they will have more, how do I say it? Well, they will actually do more for the victims? The goal is to have that happen. A few years ago, we had better luck in the government than we do right now. But it depends. Some of the states, federal judges are really looking into it. It essentially becomes elder abuse over about 60, I think. I was out in Texas for a federal court case sentencing. And because the victim,

who is actually a woman I've gotten to know, was over 65, she was one of 99 victims, but only one who came to court. Again, they couldn't travel. They couldn't get there. They were embarrassing to us. She came with a victim impact statement and she read it to the judge in front of this young Nigerian who was caught in Texas, up in Dallas. And it changed the sentencing from five years to 14. There was an impact. And what I found incredible is the first time I'd actually seen what the FBI could do. Because so many of the victims are like, I went to the FBI, they said there's nothing they can do. And you leave there thinking, no one's helping me. No one can do anything in this particular case the FBI had done a forensic analysis of they had the

ring videos from your front door they had videos they had packages they saw addresses they brought in the post office they saw all the exchange of money and how these guys bought cars bottled cars and then shipped them to Nigeria so they're essentially laundering money and it was incredible But if my friend hadn't reported, she wasn't the only one. There was others who had reported, but it opened it up to where 99 victims were discovered through bank accounts and through emails and through stuff. It was extraordinary, but that doesn't happen usually. So the more people that understand that it wasn't their fault, that they were taken

by criminals, organized crime, if they talk about it as fraud rather than scam, it's not catfishing, it is fraud. It's criminal fraud. Bankers will understand that. Law enforcement will understand that. Scams are like, you know, silly you, shouldn't have gotten involved. It's serious financial business. And so it's hard to stand up and speak up about it, but it's very empowering when you do. And what, you know, I, I can see the progression of a woman that's been, you know, the scam was revealed a week ago versus one a year ago, unbelievable change in confidence. And I can do this, you know, like instead of, well, poor me, you know, I'm going to lose my home. I'm going to lose my apartment. I'm not, I can't live anymore too. I can get a job, you know,

driving Uber. I can do something else. Cause you can imagine someone who's 65 was thinking they were going to retire and now they have to get another job. Wow. It's tough, but you can do it. You know, it's empowering what you're doing, you know, and it's also, yeah, I totally agree. For me, I mean, I can feel it when I start talking about it. And there are days when I'm just like, oh, enough of this. I don't want to be the voice in the face of the victim anymore. You know, it's turned into being an advocate, a survivor, a thriver, all those things. But when I get an email from someone who said, Deb, I heard your story and I wish I'd heard it before. I'm like, shoot, we're not doing enough. And so I need everybody. And I thank you for doing this

because I can't do it alone. Scars can't do it alone. The organizations that are out there, you know, we're not out there trying to find mugshots and we can't shut down the scammers ourselves. It's more important for us to be there to support the victims so that they can keep them living, that they can find that, you know, we might have to change our expectations on how well we're going to live, but we can make it. We can find assistance. We can find people to help support us. And, you know, in my case, I found a darling husband who had been there to help me. You know, the greatest thing for him was to listen to me and to support me in the opening up of the story, because he knows how important it is for me and how important it is for other

victims. I mean, one of his college friends had a man working for him, and he overheard this man talking about his wife doing something. And because he'd heard my story, he realized that she was in the middle of a scam, and it was affecting the fellow working for him. So he had his friend call me and say, can you talk to my wife? It was a dicey thing. I had both of them on the line. He was ready to throw her out of the house, get divorced and all this. Two years later, she's in our support group. She's doing great. She's found a part-time job. Their marriage is good. They're figuring things out, but it could have gone sour. But only because my friend who heard the story heard him say something. Most people aren't going to say anything. Your best

friend is never going to tell you that she's been scammed. I didn't. My girlfriends didn't know until I came out with my story and they're like, whoa, how'd that happen? That was because you're very intelligent and you're smart. And when you say something like that, I mean, it's got to feel shameful. You're so vulnerable. Being a victim is one of the most, there's not a place that you can be that's more low than that. No. And 50 years ago, where I am now, or where I was 10 years ago, in domestic abuse cases, they would walk into the police department with a black eye and they'd be laughed out. So go home and be nicer to your husband.

You walk into a police department today with a black eye and they're either arresting him or her, whoever's the beaten up person. So we're at that point, you know, it's going to evolve over time when people really understand, when law enforcement really understands what is happening here,

that it's not, you know, I arbitrarily gave a million dollars to a Nigerian. I didn't do that. You know, I would never have done that in my right mind. So it's something that they need to understand that it's happening. And with everybody being online and feeling so safe, we have to change this scenario. When COVID hit and my grandchildren were totally online for school, here I've got six, seven, eight, nine-year-olds that are growing up on the internet, not knowing how to protect

themselves. I mean, even at the very beginning when the school sites were getting hacked, you know, what are the kids doing? They don't want screen time. That nine-year-old will do anything possible grandma what do i have to do what's my job today i said okay so why because i want to get on screen time they want screen time they're going to get on here and what i worry about is that 16 year old girl that's playing lacrosse over at the local high school and she put pictures of herself out there and at three o'clock she's playing lacrosse every pedophile in the world knows where she is what she's doing and where she's going to be and can get there and boom she'll be gone or her parents even know it. How scary is that? It's so terrifying. I have a 16

year old. I understand that as a parent, as even a human, you know that children are being trafficked and there's got to be more laws. There's got to be some protection. Well, I mean, because this is the way of life, right? It's not going anywhere. It is. But as parents, you know, we want the kids to have phones. We want them to be able to call us, but we need to know what they're doing with those phones what picture are they putting out there who is seeing their stuff because i was talking with a girl she's probably 16 17 years old and her greatest you know desire was to have all these instagram followers like but why why are you putting your life out there where every good and bad indifferent person is seeing your life and they know where you are why would you

want to do that if that's self-esteem you know they want to be loved we all want to be loved We all want companionship, friendship, and when we are all, you know, hiding behind our computer screens, our friends, companions, we're going to come from online presence, and the skimmers know how to make videos. If you think about it, how many Netflix movies have we watched over the years? And they're from Spain or from Denmark or whatever. We're hearing English, but they're speaking Spanish or Russian or something. And our heads and our ears are hearing what we want to hear. That's what's happening. That's a great way to put it.

I could be looking at you and you could be speaking French, but I hear English. So I'm thinking, yeah, Celestis, you know, if you speak in English to me, we don't know. And with the artificial intelligence and the whole, all this new stuff, we just can't trust what we see. Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up again, because I mean, I don't know. And I don't know if you have the answer, obviously. But the scary part is, right, everybody's taking their profile picture, make me look like I was in the 90s, make a professional photo of me.

Obviously, they're beautifully created and curated. but it's like is that me is that not me i mean and that's even scarier yeah absolutely absolutely and the the thing is tim and i were talking the other day about uh how they're creating these videos and how they're creating characters that are just off a little bit so if you look at it you can feel that they're not real but they honestly look real they look like real people and then it turned out to be you know some created thing online and i don't understand artificial intelligence i know i've used it some for some writing and you know right prompts and stuff but the whole video stuff i mean it could change online relationships and they're good at

what they were doing before but you know if there's a way to be even better they're gonna do it because they just need a little bit of money and once they've got a little bit they can keep going and going and going because they're pulling on your heartstrings. Yeah. And I know really quick, I just wanted to thank you for touching base on the Bitcoin issue. Because right, romance scams are huge. I think it's the biggest scams online. But it's also where Oh, yeah, I made a little money doing this. And then to give you a little bit back. That's a very common thing to now. So just don't send anybody any money. I mean, that's pretty much just the bottom line, the bottom line, right? And even be careful, like if you're buying a home, make sure that you know

exactly who you're sending that money to. The real estate scams have been incredible where they set up an escrow account, right? And then you think that you're buying a house and your money's gone somewhere else. Don't trust, you know, don't click on links. The banks are not sending you a link to say, hey, do this. I check my banks every day. But my parents, they can get an email, a USPS text, postal service text. Your package can't be delivered. I said, dad, don't you dare click on those links. You know, don't open those up.

The way they're going to get us is in that moment where we don't take a pause. We're busy, we're fast, and we're just clicking. And you just do it instantly. Yeah, I did it on Facebook Messenger, thinking I was helping out a girlfriend. And I clicked on it, and then boom, all of a sudden now they've taken over my Facebook profile,

changed the password, and I got locked out. And I was so mad. I was doing something for Christmas. I was getting travel reservations and I had a minute where I wasn't paying attention and poof, got me. So take a pause, people. Oh, so annoying, right? And to try to get my stuff back was incredibly difficult. So if it looks too good to be true, like my grandma used to say, sleep on it.

I like that. Take a pause. Just take a pause. If it's really real, it'll be there tomorrow, the next day. the scammers will push you very quickly. They want things done very quickly because they know if you pause, then you'll probably stop. So thank you so much for sharing your story. It takes huge courage. And I know you've been speaking about it for a while, but I really want to say thank you and thank you for all that you are doing for victims and your voice,

because it's really important. And I hope everybody here listening, we all have a voice. we all can do something, even if it's, like I said, just letting people know about these things and what they do. And the more people they know, I mean, it's not going to stop it, but it will definitely make us more aware of what's going on because I think that's really important is educating. Well, that's basically become my tagline recently. It's like, beware and be aware because it's through education and nobody likes preventative stuff. You know, we all want to cure for something. We don't want to take a vitamin tablet. We want a pill to fix something. This is not going to get fixed unless we start talking about it. And I can't do it alone. Scars can't

do it alone. We do it together with you and with others that are raising awareness. And we just need to keep our ears open. Listen to that person. I met a lady in an airport one time. I overheard her talking to her mom about how she'd been sending money. And I said, I hate to butt in, but please, please, please, please be careful. And I told her my story. And I said, it happens to the best of us. Yeah. Don't let it be you. Don't let it be that. Don't you be the next one. I'm so glad. One last little question that I ask all of my guests, and we are just a little curious. What was one of your favorite dates and what was it? My favorite dates? Well, I actually go back to the second date with my honey. We were at Denny's and we went to have breakfast for dinner

at Denny's and we're there for four hours just talking. We talked about everything and we got out to the car and he actually gave me my first kiss through the window. I love it. And that was the last day with anybody other than him. And it's one of my favorites. It's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. It's been such a pleasure. I hope everybody here has really learned something and, you know, read her book, check everything out. I'll have all her information on the show notes so that you guys can check it out. But if there's anything else you'd like to share, go right ahead. Just again, thank you. And if anybody is a victim or knows a victim, please have them contact me,

either at the Women Behind the Smile or if it's a legitimate victim, you write to me at debby, D-E-B-B-Y, at thewomenbehindthesmile.com. I do answer emails personally. I will get people involved with SCARS, again, the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams in our support groups. It's really important. But just be aware of what's going on out there and know the pink flags, know the red flags and listen to the red flags, listen to your gut. Yes. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. Come and hang out with me on Instagram at Celeste Moore Image. Let me know your thoughts on today's episode because I always love hearing

from you all. You can find all the links and resources in the show notes of the episode on my website, CelesteMoore.com. Okay, that's all for now. I'll see you in the next episode. See you next time, friends.