My recently widowed father (72) is planning a trip across the country to meet a woman who he claims called him by accident and with whom he has since built a romantic (remote) relationship. Here’s what he’s shared with me:
- He received a “wrong number” call from a woman that led to a number of other conversations online and on the phone that started to take on a romantic tone.
- He believes she is real because he has checked her out online, including validating that she is indeed the CEO of her company, is 40 years old, and is originally from Taiwan. Haven’t seen this myself.
- She says she runs this company with her brother in Canada and her father back in Taiwan. The details of the company were not clear to me.
- They have exchanged photos but not video because her webcam is not working.
- He is planning a trip to Los Angeles (from the East Coast of US) in a few months to meet her in person. She said her driver will pick him up at the airport.
- No money has been asked for or sent, according to him.
This is obviously a scam, right? But, without there being an ask for money I can’t figure out the angle and haven’t been able to convince him to disengage.
It is either going to be an ask for money to help her overseas family or a “can’t lose” investment in her company. I’m guessing she’ll back out of the travel plans last minute so they never meet OR he’s going go there and have his organs harvested.
Does anyone recognize this scam? What should we expect next? Has anyone else successfully talked their elderly loved ones out of one of these?
She’s probably going to say her car/something broke down and she needs money ASAP to meet him.
Also, lol @ CEO of a company that doesn’t have any device with a working camera…This alone is enough honestly.
Every cell phone for the last 10+ years has a front facing camera and internet connection.
Last time I saw that happen, it took all of 30 seconds to walk one office over and appropriate that laptop
Hey OP, don’t know if you’ve seen this because it just came out today, but it’s another deep dive into the world of pig-butchering scams. As soon as I read it I thought of your post:
If your dad really is the target of a pig-butchering scam, it’s likely that any woman on the other end of this is not doing it by choice but living in horrific, brutal conditions, unable to leave, and of course will never see any of the money he sends. As others have said, the scammers will hire models, or even use other trafficking victims, to do any video or photo proofs required. There is no upside.
I don’t know if this kind of argument would reach him, but I’m giving you the link just in case you can ever use it: the lives of these women trafficked into this kind of scam work are beyond horrible, and the faster you can educate your dad on the reality of it, the better. Also, it might help if you could arrange for him to see this thread: there is a lot of power in seeing almost a hundred comments all saying the exact same thing. Best wishes to you both.
Some variety of a so-called Pig Butchering Scam.
Among your other points, a wealthy 40 year old CEO looking for romance is going to pick a guy below her age, not one who’s 72.
Pretty sure the only organ they’ll harvest is his wallet but they can cut pretty deep financially, and break his heart.
Know any real women who might make a better match for him?
What should we expect next?
Likely she will cancel the trip at the last second and claim to have a work or family emergency. Then she will need money.
Or shortly before the trip she will share an investment opportunity and offer him to join her in it. It will turn out to be fake.
Or both.
Hey now. There’s also the “lure someone to a remote location, kidnap him, and beat him up until he transfers you a bunch of money”.
That’s very unlikely. These romance/pig butchering scammers operate from outside the USA and have no interest in attracting the kind of attention such an attack would bring.
Planning the trip is almost certainly to build trust and make the relationship seem real. All with the goal that the target willingly gives the scammer the money. If he goes to Los Angeles after she cancels, there will be no driver to pick him up.
Scamming old people has grown into a massive and well organized industry that brings in billions in profits per year. It is a huge problem that has continued to get worse. As others have said, this is 100% a scam. They will inevitably use any number of techniques to extract money from him. It is very possible they already have and he just hasn’t told you yet, it is not uncommon for the victims to be secretive about what the scammers are getting them to do.
Yeah, OP’s dad has probably already gotten instructions to hide anything problematic.
“You know I wouldn’t ask you to hide anything from your kids, but don’t tell them about this one thing. It’ll just upset them and they won’t understand how it is for us”
Man, if I had a nickel for every time I saw this:
Wrong number ✅
Beautiful Asian woman living in LA ✅
Owns her own business, jewelry/fashion design/finance ✅
Mysteriously keeps the conversation going even when told it’s a wrong number ✅Tries a romance angle to suck you in to a crypto “investment” in 3-2-1…
Typically run out of boiler room call centers in Myanmar using, essentially, slave labor:
Good opportunity for him to say he doesn’t have the money right now, can she buy him the plane tickets and get himself a nice little free trip to LA. She’ll obviously say no, and boom he’s out of it.
He won’t want to get out of it.
But this particular method might get him to realize “she” wouldn’t spend a dime on him, and that might raise some doubts…
Yep. When the mark turns the tables and becomes the one with the “broken wing” it changes everything.
It’s a great way to smoke out people in your life who take up a great deal of your own time and resources, like this scammer, but do not actually give a shit about you: when you are unable to do for them as usual because now it’s your own wing that’s broken, and could they step up and carry their own weight right now, they clear out entirely and wait to come back when they think you’re ready to give again.
OP here. This is part of my issue with this whole situation. He’s not a dumb guy. He knows better. Or knew better. Always been good with money, always had a cynical view of any institution (correctly, as it turns out). In addition to figuring out how to get him out of this I need to come to grips with the fact he’s not the same man who I knew.
Scams work for a reason. More often than not, it’s a right place right time thing. I consider myself a pretty smart guy too, but I remember a few years back I gave my ssn to someone running the “you’re about to be arrested” scam. Realized it before I gave them money, and ssns are all leaked by now already (freeze your credit)…but that was a bit of a wakeup call (heh).
I was tired after a long day, I was annoyed, and I’d had a few beers at that point. I was in a susceptible mindset when the phone rang. It happens. Scams are designed to short circuit your thinking, and with some scams being “smart” makes you more susceptible. It’s a question of experience.
I know that 23 yr old cosplay models that love videogames and want me to rate their new bikini for some design aren’t adding me on discord…but if it was my first day on discord, I might think that’s normal.
Edit: actually I think this might be the approach you should take–make it very clear that you don’t think any less of him, because this happens to everyone. Falling for a scam doesn’t make you dumb, it’s a learning experience. Many people that fall for scams keep giving up cash because they feel stupid and ashamed, don’t make him feel stupid and ashamed.
I’m sorry to hear that your extremely stupid father is about to lose the family a lot of money that could have gone toward important things because he’s too stupid to set his loneliness aside for 5 seconds and look up this very common scam. My condolences.
Whoever’s downvoting me wants your family to become worse off than it is.
If you are the target of a long con like this, you don’t need to be extremely stupid to get scammed. I reckon thinking that you are too smart to get scammed is pretty ironic.
Believing a CEO cannot acquire a webcam in 2026 would require distinctly below average intelligence.
