In April 2020, I met Nick* online. I thought he was genuine and caring. How wrong I was.
Like me, he had been in a marriage that didn’t work out. After a few polite messages, we exchanged numbers and began speaking over WhatsApp.
Initially, they were just sweet interactions but we quickly began speaking over the phone. I initially found him too soppy as I was only just getting to know him. He would say things like I was ‘special’, ‘beautiful’, ‘the one’ and that he was the ‘luckiest man’ to have found me when others were ‘foolish’ to let me go.
We began sharing each other’s stories and it seemed like he was listening, understanding me, and I felt that we were connecting. We both wanted to be in a long-term relationship, which included marriage if things worked out. Marriage is often an area that I have found men don’t always commit to.
It led me to believe that Nick was a nice, genuine guy who also seemed to be successful with his own business. He said he was a US national but lived in the UK in a house that was previously owned by his dad (an area near to where I lived).
Little did I know he would turn out to be a romance scammer.
Looking back, Nick was clearly getting to know me and saying all the right things that fitted into my thoughts about relationships. We shared songs as a way to communicate our feelings. Mine were originally about me being cautious – Good Heart by Fergel Sharky and More than Words by Extreme – whereas his…
