Facebook con5/7/2023 I’ve got my flag wrapped around me, and I was-you know, I just felt, the boys are coming home, and we’re gonna have a great time, I’m gonna show them all about. I had got myself a giant American flag, and I had gotten the windshield markers, “Welcome home.” I go up to the Philadelphia International Airport. So it was $2,500 apiece out of me and my husband’s life savings. He was bringing his best friend home with him too. ♪ ♪ JACK: So at what point did you realize that this really was a scam? - I Western Unioned money, um, for him to come home. Think I woulda knew after the first time. Just totally desperate and totally, like, I had to get something back and-my God. Something happens in your brain, you know? JACK: Felt like you were kind of, what, hypnotized or just you were just totally convinced, huh? - Just like desperate. I’m feeling pretty stupid right now when I look at these now. There was actually a period here, about a week and a half, in which you sent, well, about $4,000, yeah. It was just Michael sent you the name and said, “This is an Army agent,” basically? - Right. JACK: And you’ve never had any communication with these people? - Uh-uh. $500 on September 18th, and then you later sent him more money on October 3rd, which I think was 350. Without her husband’s knowledge, she started to wire thousands of dollars to his supposed contacts in the Army. Renee’s new friend eventually wanted more than iTunes cards and began asking for larger sums of money. Okay, let’s look at your Western Union receipts from your payments to Michael. JACK: How much money in iTunes gift cards did you send? - Probably $1,500 to $2,000. But it started getting ridiculous with the iTune cards. I’m all alone, I’m all alone in my life.” JACK: So when did Michael start asking you for things? - Well, it started out with iTune cards, which I can understand, like, you want to play video games on your downtime. Did you sleep well, my wife? “We got so many things to do in the next few days. JACK: As a retiree taking care of her elderly father, Renee had plenty of free time. He would say, “I love you like that.” It just, like, flowed. I mean, it’s like, you know, he keeps calling me his wife. We went back and forth and then, you know, he kept saying, “Oh, you’re really funny and you make, “you know, you make it easier for me just to know that somebody’s at home that I can talk to.” And how cool is this, that I could really make somebody feel better? He’s a good-looking guy, you know? JACK: So there was some flirting? RENEE: I mean, there was an emotional connection. You know, he just wrote something silly, and then I wrote back because, um, you know, my husband was Army Airborne. ♪ ♪ I clicked on it and I looked at his profile, and he was active duty in the Army. The first message that I got was from Michael Chris. She was telling me how interesting and how great, so I went and got one and downloaded Facebook, because I wanted to be close to my sisters and the kids and the whole family. It just never popped into my head, and my sister had never had a cell phone, and all of a sudden, she was, like, stuck. When did you first get onto Facebook? What happened? - You know, I never even thought of social media. The company’s fastest-growing demographic in the U.S. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ JACK: Facebook is getting older, and so are its users. ♪ ♪ RENEE: I would do anything to make the clocks go back and fix everything. MARIA: I wish I never went on the Facebook. WOMAN: Why hasn’t anything been done? MAN 1: Once you take one down, within 15 minutes there’s five more that pop up. ♪ ♪ JACK: There’s a lot of good that comes from the Internet, but the bad guys are gonna use that to exploit people. You know, like, I really thought I knew this person. This was a long time that we, you know, taking pictures and sending it. We just talked back and forth, and it was, like, exciting. Good-looking guy, you know? Blue eyes, blond hair, buff. You know, it just came up on the Messenger thing, and I clicked on it, and, you know, I saw- it was a soldier. RENEE: I didn’t even know what a friend request was. Transcript Facebook Love Scams: Who’s Really Behind That Friend Request? Scammers use stolen identities to lure victims into online relationships and con them out of money.
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