I met this scammer on the Vietsingles website. His name is Andy. In his profile, he is 48 years old with a picture of a handsome mixed nationality guy. He asked me if I mind because he is younger than me when I mentioned that I am 52 years old (my real age is 51). He said he has a Vietnamese father who died when he was a little boy, and his mother is Ukrainian. For the reason of losing his father, he couldn’t speak Vietnamese at all. For the first time chatting, I let him see my picture by mistake because I saw the picture he used for Viber. He was surprised because he found I am much younger than my real age (this condition is true), and asked me many times my year of birth while we continued chatting, maybe because he thought I was scammer like him.
He said he was from the U.S. and works as self-employed as a civil engineer in Tennessee. He said he is widowed for five years with a Ukrainian wife and has a son seven years old living with his mother in Ukraine since he lost his wife because he has to work as a businessman, so he could not take care of his son. For the story like that, I found something not real but I didn’t say anything. I know about Vietnam, there won’t have a lot of Vietnamese men that would go to Ukraine around 1965-1971 to marry a Ukrainian since during this period, the country was in WAR. I chatted very shortly with him and tried to stop when he asked me if I wanted a serious relationship and to get married soon, or I was looking for a friend
He called me the next days after the first chat, and I tried to speak Vietnamese with him, and he seemed not to understand at all what I said. However, I found he had a Vietnamese accent from North of Vietnam. This scammer was very patient with me since he sent messages to me many times a day, and he tried to chat with me at least one hour before we go to bed. He acted like a jealous man when I didn’t answer his message or go on Viber.
The romance continued every day with lots of love between us until he announced to me he would leave the U.S. to go to Cyprus on a ship for his business, and this trip would last for 21-26 days. I was sad, and he said he we would keep in contact because he would have WiFi on the ship. During the first day on his ship, he acted like he missed me a lot and asked if he could fly to see me at my place after his business travel. However, I told him I would come to meet him at his place when he would be back home in the U.S. After telling him about this decision from me, I told him he was an important decision in my life.
But that was the end of our romance since the next strategic day he sent me a message he was crying for two hours because his son fell from the stair and was unconscious until the time we chatted (kind of 5 hours already). He said with panic that he could not do anything since he was on the ship now, and he didn’t want to lose his son. I was nervous too, so I called my friend, who is a surgeon, to ask his opinion, but he was in the operating room, so no answer. But in between, I joined another friend who is a physician and I now knew what I should ask as results of the investigation when Andy contacted me again. When I got Andy’s message, I just told him that his son might have an intervention to avoid cerebral pressure increased, which may cause brain injury. Instead of telling him the name of the intervention, I said ”operation”. And oh my God, 15 minutes after, he said he needs money since he received the result from the doctor in Ukraine saying that his son should get an operation right away, and the cost was for $15,500 U.S. He sent me the bill with the name of the hospital that I could not find with Google Map in Ukraine.
Moreover, the name of the hospital in Ukraine is in English, the bill is in English, but the patient file number was not on the bill, even the address in the U.S. was not complete (no address, just the zip code). Even the doctor’s name is an American one too, and not a Ukrainian
Andy begged me to send him any sum I could to his friend in the U.S., and he would send money to Ukraine via the RIA system. So I began to feel this story was a scam, and I refused to help him. I was absent for a while to get my own reflection about his story. I came back five hours later and asked him about the head scan of his son. Oh my God, I received a scan of a cerebral tumor but no traumatic injury around the skull. I said to Andy that since this moment, I know this was a scam and no romance anymore.
He still argued that he got stressed, which is why he asked me for help, but he didn’t want this problem to affect our relationship. The next day, he called me many times, but I said I will stop with him now. He sent me a message saying I didn’t have the right to tell him those things that hurt his feelings, and he hoped that the Good Lord would bless me for the good deed I have done in my life. Two days after, his picture in Viber disappeared, and he has never shown up online under the name of Andy anymore.
At the end of my story, I feel heartbroken because I am a victim and I am a lonely divorced woman. Fortunately, I worked as a health care professional, and I can check fast the information the scammer sent to me in time, so no money lost.
Liliane
Canada