When Everyone Was Right About the Con Man

My friend thought she'd found love again, until she discovered her partner was a con man

Image By Prostock-studio at Envato Elements

“Get over here now! I’ve found a locked cash box that he left behind and I need you to pick the lock!”

“Be there in 10,” I replied as fast as my fingers could type with one hand holding my phone.

I often pride myself on my special set of skills that I’ve acquired that see me as the go-to friend my people call on when they need their dirty work done.

Background checks? Past relationship history? Bad tax credit? Served prison time?

I can find it all.

However, I could never find out anything about him.

Scammers, swindlers, and the stories we love to watch

Poet and author, Beau Taplin wrote, "Some people are magic, and others are just the illusion of it."

This statement has been linked to explain how, as a society, we need to be wary that what we see on social media shouldn’t be taken at face value.

We all know this. We see it all the time.

We see it in the heavily edited images that people post on Instagram, in the long-winded and nauseating paragraphs people post on linkedIn, and even when certain celebrities are exposed for not being the people the public once thought them to be; we nod and and accept that it’s impossible to know everything about everyone.

We are living in a time when it’s never been easier for someone to pretend they are someone they aren’t. Looking at dating apps and websites, they are rife with images of both men and women having taken a photo from their finest angles. They have bios that have been written and glamorised by ChatGPT, and you only need to turn on your TV to hear stories on the news about how a scammer has siphoned away the life savings from some poor, vulnerable, and unsuspecting victim.

Scammers, con artists, and charlatans are getting their moment in the spotlight right now, and thanks to our fascination with imposters, discovering someone you know is leading a double life is trending in the zeitgeist.

In the last few years alone there’s been a huge hunger amongst us for true life stories about how the scammers got away with their crimes. Just think of the story of Anna Delvey in Inventing Anna, Belle Gibson in Apple Cider Vinegar, The Tinder Swindler, and of course one of the most famous story of love-scamming, Dirty John.

While each story is different, the people in these tales all have one thing in common, that they are all master manipulators.

There were no red flags, or were there?

When my good friend found out recently that her boyfriend of three years was actually a con man, it seemed so impossible to believe. After all, only other people get scammed, and we all like to think we are too clever and savvy to be deceived or exploited.

When she met him, she had finally put to bed all the mess left behind by her ex-husband. Although she was still muddling her way through the financial fallout of her marriage, mentally and emotionally, she was in a great place.

My friend had been married to her ex for almost twenty years. They were a super fun couple who shared a huge group of many friends, they lived a great life and everyone loved hanging out with them.

However, in the later years, things changed. Bad choices were made, mistakes that seemed to large be fixed sat un-repaired and where there was once love, respect and a strong bond turned into contempt, apathy and scorn, which ultimately led to their divorce.

As one of her close friends, the demise of their marriage was not surprising to me. And neither was the way she picked herself up and carried on with her usual zest of life and gusto.

My friend is the epitome of strength and resilience. She is wickedly hilarious, talented, and a survivor. Once she is fed up with sitting in her rumination’s, she excels in pulling her shit together and moving forward.

She was always going to be okay, and optimistic. Which is how she found herself sitting at a bar one night with another girlfriend, with no cares in the world while slamming back gin and tonics and commanding the room with her sense of humor.

He approached her.

He engaged her in conversation.

She was looking for nothing but a good time, and that night, he walked into her life and showed her something about himself that appeared to be missing in her life, in ways she didn’t even realize she was craving. And it was all so much fun in the beginning.

Too good to be true

In 2022 alone, nearly 70,000 people reported falling victim to romance scams. In 2024, an estimated 58,734 people in the US fell victim to romance scams, experiencing losses of $697.3 million.

It’s easy to sit back and judge when we hear these stories, however, it’s impossible to believe that that many people who have been effected by romance scams are all of low intellect, desperate and needy.

In a study into the psychological characteristics of romance scam victims, it was found that, “Romance scam victims tend to be middle-aged, well-educated women. Moreover, they tend to be more impulsive (scoring high on urgency and sensation seeking), less kind, more trustworthy, and have an addictive disposition.”

My friend is a smart woman. In fact, she is one of the most socially aware and intelligent women I know. She is also someone I would describe as a person who has a highly addictive personality.

Intrinsically, I understand this personality trait. I would describe myself in much the same way. After all, when something feels good, it’s natural and human, to want to do it all the time.

And what feels better than falling in love?

What feels better than having an admirer take an interest in you, compliment you, and make you feel like you are the most important person in the room? Especially after going through the breakdown of your marriage.

Getting scammed isn’t about being gullible; it’s about being human.

Despite my friend having survived a tough time during her divorce, her optimism and belief in love unfortunately made her incredibly attractive to him, a scammer.

From the outside looking in, it appeared that my friend’s relationship with him developed at warp speed. That night that they met at the bar, quickly turned into them barely spending a night apart.

Unlike many other middle-aged men in the dating scene, he called her every day. He texted her in between phone calls, and he responded to her messages immediately. He was attentive, empathetic,c and seemed to prioritise her and their communication.

Cianna Garrison explains how it might have been his empathetic performance that manipulated my friend into falling for him. Romance scammers “have a high degree of empathy and use it to manipulate others. Empathy is another weapon in their arsenal to get people to trust and believe in them, and can make it even harder to spot their true intentions.”

All this led to feelings. How could it not? And when we are in the early days of catching feelings, it’s so easy to focus on the positive attributes of a new partner, and dismiss the negatives, or any potential red flags that might pop up along the way.

Was his ‘love bombing’ a red flag? Was the fact that they shared many common interests, enjoyed each other’s company, and accepted each other’s children into their lives something our friends should have been concerned about?

Mounting Concerns

My friend's older brother and his wife thought so. And I’m sure you can imagine how my friend received her brother’s concerns when he chose to tell her that there was something about him, that he didn’t trust.

Instead of thanking her brother for his amount of care, she saw him as the asshole who was crapping on her happiness. Moreover, my friend took personal insult to anyone who might question her boyfriend’s ethics or values, because to admit he might have some skeletons in his closet undermines the confidence and ego of any smart, intelligent, and successful woman.

My friend’s brother could no longer hide his disdain for her decisions when a year and a half later he had moved into her house. Even more troubling for her brother was hearing about how my friend and him were actively looking to purchase a new house together.

“What do you know about this guy? What does he even do for work? You only just finalised your divorce! Don’t you think it’s too soon?”

Question after question that fell on deaf ears and only pushed her further into his perceived drama-free arms, and arranging more open for inspections.

Suspicious stories

For us friends, witnessing our close friend being happy again was a great feeling, only there were a few in the group that weren’t being entirely honest about their take on our friends’ new life direction.

While most people begrudgingly accepted the new guy, there was talk.

Con artists have a talent for convincing people into believing the unbelievable. And when being introduced to your friend’s new partner, there is often little reason to doubt their story. However, some of the stories that our friend shared about him did seem to border on the dubious.

He often talked a big game about his accumulated wealth. He spoke with bravado about business deals and successful investments, and of international household name companies with which he had strategic dealings.

He threw minor Easter Eggs into casual conversations that were designed to be examples of his economic prowess. Each nugget that came out of his mouth about his past successes, grew in grandiosity, and at times, did seem fabricated.

There was his yacht that was being repaired in the south of France, his vineyard in Italy that was failing to produce wine, his vast property portfolio that didn’t seem to include a fixed home address, not to mention his status as a champion athlete in a world-renowned sporting competition, that he surely had achieved before time had caught up to his present-day physique, which was more Teletubbie than Iron Man.

And then there were his connections. Our city is a large place, but in many areas, people are connected through either their families, their workplaces, their sporting clubs, or the schools they once attended. He seemed to know everybody in town, worth knowing. He could name-drop as though he were personally immersed in the inner circle of our city's movers and shakers. And yet, when his name would come up in conversations amongst many of the elite folk, said to be his buddies, the blank faces as to who he is spoke more volumes than anyone who may have uttered the word ‘Who?’

In truth, even my close friend questioned some of his tales. She had been a former actress and was also a brilliantly talented screenwriter, therefore she had a PHD in crafting interesting scenarios and never let the entire truth get in the way of a great story.

However, despite his showmanship when it came to the stories he told, she always saw the humorous side to his tall tales. She never completely doubted him, but she also having such a great time being with him that she also didn’t put too much stock in what may have been between the lines.

Fabrication or manipulation?

Scammers often create a fabricated life story and persona to make their lies seem more believable. And while my friend’s older brother was openly questioning any and all information spread out before him, there was only one other friend in the group, who we'll call Jackie, who possessed an admirable amount of bravery, or stupidity, in getting to the bottom of this man’s undeniable mystery.

Instead of using the usual online resources which are readily available to those who enjoy moonlighting as super sleuths, Jackie decided to take the bull by the horns and attempt to get the real story from the Teletubbie’s mouth.

Her meritorious mission had all the ingredients for a perfect interrogation.

After enjoying a few red wines with our friend one evening, Jackie found her composure and opportunity when he waltzed in at the end of a long day, probably spent wheeling and dealing. She sat across from him, armed with nothing but a cool head, a burning need for answers, and a mental download of amateur interrogation techniques that would make NCIS proud, she was ready to get answers as if she was the special guest star in her own personal episode of Criminal Minds: Romance Division.

Her plan was to begin the interrogation with a method used by real criminal investigators. It was known as the ‘Reid Technique’. She wasn't going in guns blazing. She wanted to be careful to make no accusations. The plan was to ask just a few "innocent" questions, adding in a couple of gentle nudges toward the truth, and the occasional well-placed sigh of disappointment to let him know she already knew everything, and most importantly, she just wanted to understand why.

Why all the mystery? Why all the lies?

She’d started by playing the long game, this was easy after the amount of wine she’d drunk that evening.

“Look, I know your intentions towards my friend are pure. And I’m not here to judge, it’s just that some of the stories you have told everyone are just not adding up. I want to understand how you have become so successful.”

This was the setup. She made him feel safe. Appealed to him as a friend wanting his guidance. Just a chat amongst friends, while making sure that he believed she'd perhaps misunderstood him. She was hoping this would be how the confession cracks would begin to form. After all, when a con artist thinks they’re still holding the power, they get sloppy, don't they?

To say Jackie had receipts was an understatement. She was ready with a list of his grandest statements. She had also prepared a long list of counterarguments, too.

She’d thought ahead to if he pulled the “you’re crazy” card, and she was well prepared enough to flip the script and hit back with calm, loaded questions like:

“So, where did you say your vineyard was in Italy again? Was it near Tuscany (one of Italy’s most famous wine regions) or did you say it was in the Tenuta Vistaluna Region (A totally made-up name and place that does, in fact, not exist)

Jackie even had her eyes trained for any fidgeting, shifting gazes, or a nervous swallow, all little body language giveaways that say, “I’m lying and I know it.”

Jackie wasn’t just there for a conversation. She was collecting data points. Jackie needed hard evidence to use to present her case to our friend that would prove she was in a relationship with a scammer.

Above all else, she wanted him to know that her doubts and her interest in investigating him weren’t ever going to go away. Despite any potential reaction from him, she had planned to wrap up the conversation with something along the lines of, “Look, I’m not completely doubting you. I just want the truth before I speak to anyone else, such as some of our mutual social connections you’ve mentioned. I mean, you wouldn’t want people drawing their own conclusions based on misinformation, right?”

Unfortunately, Jackie’s interrogation was all completely derailed when he’d sensed from the get-go that he was about to be exposed. He didn’t even let her get a word in to get started.

Instead, he behaved like an overbearing misogynist and began to pick a fight with the women. He accused them of being drunk idiots who were annoying him, and he instructed Jackie to go home so he could get some sleep.

And although the planned interrogation had completely fallen to shit, it wasn’t all without some success, for many seeds of doubts were now busy marinating in my friend’s head.

With her brother and now Jackie, staunchly against him, my friend had backed herself into a corner where she’d grown tired of the greatest showman and now needed some answers for herself.

The financial unravelling

Con artists are skilled at keeping up their façade for months. He was no different. At the 18-month mark, they had rented a new home together to accommodate each other’s children from their previous relationships. To any outsiders who might have looked in they appeared like one big, happy, blended family.

And they were happy.

Their children got along famously, so many of the usual issues that may bring stress upon a home filled with different personalities, didn’t seem to be major problems for them.

However, there was one nagging issue that had now festered for so long in my friend’s mind that she was begging to find impossible to ignore.

Money.

Con artists usually pretend to have wealth, and as we know, our yacht-owning Teletubbie had bragged about his billionaire-level finances from day one. The thing was, my friend never saw any of this money.

She never saw even a photo of these properties he claimed to have (he did show her once at the beginning a full spreadsheet with email from his accountant of his trust portfolio he’d set up for his exwife and kids - fake fake fake ), and that was enough in her eyes. I mean, as if you’d fake that for the amount of money that my friend had…she never met one high-flying Forbes rich-lister he had claimed to be best mates with, and three years seemed an incredibly long time for a yacht to still be under repair.

With the amount of money she was paying in rent, school fees that needed to be paid, car insurance that was increasing each year, and just the day-to-day costs of running their home and providing for their blended family, my friend started to feel like she was increasingly hemorrhaging money.

Another thing about con artists and scammers is that they often create scenarios that require financial assistance.

A few months previously, he had told her he had to shut down one of his lucrative Australian-based businesses. He’d admitted it was no longer successful, but had said he now wanted to go in a different direction and build a tech company from the ground up.

Naturally, this new business he was said to be building was occupying a lot of his time. He was barely ever home. Each night, he’d tell my friend he was at business dinners or taking late meetings.

His absent behaviour had become unusual, and when my friend would ask any questions about his new company, or their finances, she would be met with avoidance or vague answers. There was never any personal disclosure.

There was however, an enormous decrease happening in my friend’s savings account. When she began to bring up the topic of money, or more specifically, her money and it’s whereabouts, he told her that right now all his money was tied up in the new business.

This new business was the perfect scenario that required financial assistance. Her financial assistance.

When he first began asking her for money, it was under the pretence that she should be investing in his new tech company because the payouts where going to be enormous.

Then there were a few times he would ask her to give him $5000 here and there, for incidentals of which he always promised to “pay her back.”

More and more of her money was being siphoned away from her, and she was rapidly reaching both her financial and emotional limits.

The Fallout: Shame, Confusion, and Loss

It was no surprise that once my friend began asking too many questions, their relationship began to deteriorate.

Every discussion that involved money, or even their once promised future plans resulted in an argument. He became distant and gave up on taking any accountability. He would blame her for spending too much, or not managing their financial responsibilities properly. He gaslit her on every concern she expressed and left her questioning her own sanity.

Until the night she cracked.

So there she was, sitting across from him, equal parts composed and furious, ready to get the answers she more than deserved.

“I’m not here to fight. I’m just trying to make sense of everything. You say you love me. You say we have a future together. But some things don’t add up, and I think I deserve the truth.”

At first, he played it cool. Disarming smile, casual body language, his piercing blue eyes gazing through her with the usual bravado and charm. He leaned back on his chair, sipped his wine and shrugged slightly.

“What are you talking about? This is what you do babe… you get stressed about what you’re spending and take it out on me.”

Ah, yes, the gaslighting began. Right on cue. She’d expected this might be the way he’d play.

Every time she presented a concrete example, the phantom new tech business, the rapidly depleting money, the business dinners that never lined up, he expertly twisted it back on her.

“You’re really going to throw that in my face after everything I’ve done for you?”

“You never trusted me. That’s always been your issue.”

“You’ve clearly been talking to your brother, or that friend of yours, Jackie. They are poisoning you against me. They've never liked me!”

What she hoped would be a moment of revelation quickly turned into an emotional tennis match, where truth kept getting volleyed back at her, repackaged as her fault. He questioned her memory, her emotional stability, her motives and did anything to keep the spotlight off himself.

And when that didn’t fully work, he tried another famous tactic: playing the victim.

“I’ve just been under so much pressure lately. You have no idea what I’ve been going through.”

“You think this is easy for me? You think I want any of this?”

Somewhere between his clap-backs and his projection, it became painfully clear that he wasn’t going to crack. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfying confession she’d hoped for. Because con artists don’t confess. They distort, distract, and deflect until you’re so dizzy and disorientated, you start to doubt your own reality.

He stood up and began to walk away as if nothing had happened. No shame. No remorse. No attempt to set the record straight. Only throwing out a vague comment about how “he hoped she’d get the help she needed,” which honestly should be in the Gaslighter’s Greatest Hits album.

Before he walked out the door with his keys in his hand, he turned to her and said, “I can’t do this anymore. I haven’t been happy for a long time. It’s over. I’ll be back in a few days to pick up my stuff, and you should start looking for a new place to live.”

There was no misunderstanding. No, “Maybe it was a mistake.” That was it. It was over.

This man, who built a relationship on lies and then tried to bury her in them, was done. He walked away, leaving nothing but a stack of unopened mail and a locked cashbox.

Breaking and entering

That’s where I came in to save the day.

As promised, I hightailed it over to my friend’s house, to tinker with some casual breaking and entering, as well as try to help her get some answers.

After expertly opening up the locked cashbox with nothing more than some paperclips and pliers, we were supremely disappointed to have only broken in to discover a bunch of fake designer pairs of knock-off cufflinks. It shouldn’t have surprised us that his accessories were as fake as the grand stories he had told.

All his attempts to craft a believable narrative were shattered once we opened his pile of letters.

Apart from his unusual financial arrangements, all we found was proof of his uncontrolled debt, unpaid taxes, overdue utility bills, unopened tax correspondence, and a bunch of unpaid parking fines and speeding tickets.

This all proved that he was very much the con artist she’d been unknowingly dating for three years, and he was bankrupt.

He may have walked away without having to own up to the truth, but she walked away with something far more valuable: clarity and closure.

The real cost of a good story

There’s no doubt that my friend has been through the ringer thanks to this guy. However, unlike many emotional accounts that have been shared by other victims of con artists and scammers, my friend is the first to say that she doesn’t regret a moment she had with him.

She admits that she honestly had some of the three most enjoyable years of her life.

She enjoyed their relationship, despite much of it being based on lies. She enjoyed the time they spent together, when she wasn’t having to doubt where he was or who he might be with. And at the time when her family was trying to warn her that things didn’t add up with all he had said, she still went home to a man who did show her love and made her laugh. My friend is no fool; she knew even early on that he was a showman, but often when the good times roll, we don't want them to stop. Even if we know in our hearts the show is over.

Con artists are master manipulators, and anyone, no matter how smart, strong, or cautious, can easily get caught in their web. And sometimes, their web is shiny and fun. Just like falling in love.

While we all enjoy a captivating con artist story on Netflix or in podcasts, it becomes a different experience when it happens to us in real life.

It’s betrayal, heartbreak, and real financial and emotional damage. It’s shame wrapped in confusion, and the slow, painful process of trying to figure out how someone could be so calculated , not to mention the amount of hours berating oneself over how you didn’t see it sooner.

But this story, like many others, isn’t just about what was lost. It’s also about what was found.

My friend walked away from that relationship not just with clarity, but with her dignity intact. She might have been misled, but she wasn’t broken. Her strength lies not just in surviving him, but in choosing to tell her story with honesty, humour, and heart.

Because when you shine a light on deception, it stops being shameful. When you tell the truth about what happened, you take your power back.

And if her story can help someone else, someone out there who might be sitting in that same fog of doubt, desperately trying to ignore red flags, or wondering why their gut won’t shut up, then sharing it becomes not just an act of healing, but a public service.

We’re all vulnerable in love. That’s what makes it beautiful. And unfortunately, that’s also what makes it dangerous.

So be kind to those who’ve been duped. Don’t judge them for your perception that they were blind to the truth. Ask the uncomfortable questions when things don’t feel right. Trust your instincts. And if your gut says you’re dating a Teletubbie in a Gucci suit, maybe listen.

Because the difference between magic and the illusion of it might just be the price you pay to find out.

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