Multinational Crisis Part 2

Let’s go into the wild, where we don’t know what lurks in dark corners. Swamps, quicksand, and creatures, waiting to devour you, await. They will hunt you, subdue you, and then ravage you. Sounds fun, right? Didn’t think so.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you read any of this series, this, part two is the one you read. The internet. What can I say about the behemoth that we have created out of a little man slighted by a little girl. This happened and revenge was taken in hand, to soothe an ego. What can I say to that? Good for you. I don’t think so. But there it is. What was created to spread horrible gossip, has created a landslide of media outlets just like it. Where the goal is to show off, aggrandize, and shock, in order to be shown off, aggrandized and to shock others, into a drone like state of worship.

Don’t misunderstand me, it has its merit, but they do not outweigh the detriment. Yes, you can connect with family and friends around the globe, and in real time, without exuberant phone bills (that is what we used to have before they went the way of the dinosaurs, for you youngsters out there). It can give us fast information and news, that we would not search for otherwise, but you still need to research on your own for the veracity of the information. Most of us do not bother and we read drive by commentary and posts, as if they are factual scientific evidence of truth. They are not in anything close, in most cases. Just a single sided view of one perspective. So, information in social media is unreliable, truth. A vast majority of the content we consider news is geared to manipulate your views, also true.

The social media that was in the beginning is no longer. Now we have a location where we all go to be over inundated by ads, while you attempt to chat and share with family and friends. The ads, all focused on information that is purchased from them, along with your personal habits, to pinpoint what you will most likely click or purchase. Want to test that theory? Do a search a day or two on something and watch how everything you see will relate to that search.

My point is, that social media could have been a safe and fun place for people to interact, but it’s one long commercial or black whole that sucks you into a deep dive on something you didn’t know you couldn’t live without. Worse still, it has created a generation, and generations coming, of attention seeking, lazy kids, that think they can get rich or famous without hard work and education, by showing skin and body parts to strangers. All this is done for likes, click, comments. Get enough and the media lets you make money at it, no matter what degrading thing you do for it. That is where we are in the world. Sad.

This has made this addictive drug, a mine field of predators and prey. It's a place where someone can create a profile, let’s say of an innocent eighteen year old boy, who chats and woos a girl of similar age. Secretly, he may be a forty year old pervert or worse and how would you know? Unlike sites like Patreon, or Indeed, and a few others, there is no documentation required to make a profile of any age. Yes, some have verified badges that make you feel safe, but you are anything but. Verified, only means they pay the entity to show something that says you are authentic and real. It is pay for service. The scammers and cons are paying for that service which is now giving you the false comfort of thinking you are not about to get screwed. If you do not believe it, I promise it’s true. One of the many imposters, I spoke with this past year, told me how it works. Basically, if social media refuses to make you use your own name, you can make up anything. And they do.

For instance, I used to jump on social media to find the ever popular memes and have a good laugh. They are the comics of the era. Some are actually brilliant and gut busting, funny. When I would get on, there would be posts, and later reels, that would pop up and I would ignore them for the most part. I would make a comment here or there, or call someone out when I knew the post was inaccurate, and so on.

On one day, I saw a reel or maybe it was a post, of a man. Don’t ask me what he was doing or had posted. I don’t remember. It was that memorable. I know it must have been something interesting, because otherwise, I would not normally waste my time.

I can tell you it was of a little known Italian actor, that was just then gaining steam, publicly in the American market. The next thing I know, and there is a reply from said actor/musician, and a request to chat. I replied sure, in open chat, thinking it would just be a thanks, but then the request to chat privately, came. I was at that time a bit naive. I knew no famous actors would ever engage fans, one on one, but this person was not famous yet. I agreed, thinking the reason was for privacy. It was not.

Asked to speak in another app, for his privacy, I engaged in the innocent chat. At first, it was general chit chat. Who are you? Where are you from? Are you married or have a family? These are things most acquaintances, ask of each other. He then went on to thank me for being a fan and asked how long I had been a fan of his. I was honest. I told him that I didn’t even know who he was, and that it was a drive by comment, I posted. This did not bother him at all.

At first, I thought there is no way, this was happening and real. But the man playing his role, was very adept at his con. He had done his homework online on the actor, knew where the actor was, and any current information, publicized. I began to believe the lies. For a few weeks, he would pop into my messages and ask to chat, and I did. He seemed genuine. Then he hit me with, the I love you, and I went cold. Who does that? who professes love to someone that they have never met or verbally spoken to? I had told this person that I was married and had a son, which did not seem to matter. I had told him my age, which was more than twenty years, his senior, and got the proverbial. “age is just a number.” If you are woman or even a man, take notes. When those words are uttered, consider it, their tell, number one. Most people don’t say this kind of thing.

It continued. I threatened to block his contact, if he continued along this path, and he backed off, only to return to it once again. It was getting old. The one day, he hit me with a situation he was in. He asked for my help, and I listened. His story was, he was in New York on business with producers, and in meeting all day, that he could not leave. Then he said his two sons, were stuck in the hotel and that they were playing video games, but their xbox game card ran out or some such thing, and he wanted me to get them one. And that was all I needed to hear. I knew, what the game was, that very moment.

Saying that he should send a staff member or PR person was a no go. He told me I was the only person he could trust. When asked, why he just didn’t do it on a break or even sitting there, he double downed on the tall tale. He said his accounts were all frozen, get this, because he was trying to fire his manager, He went on to say, since he had a contract, with the manager, that his accounts were frozen until the outcome of a trial.

By now some of you may be having flashbacks to conversation you may have had with a personality online. So let me say this out loud and definitively. THAT DOES NOT HAPPEN. Someone you employ cannot freeze your assets. Not in this country or any other. But he did not miss a step. He said he was not an American and that in his country or Italy, it was different. How many strikes are we up to? Anyway, little did he know, but I didn’t grow up in a barn. I have traveled and studied in my life and I have family that actually immigrated to Italy.

These conversations were not in one day. Every day he gave me more fishing line, little bits at a time, thinking I was his catch of the month. At some point I got fed up with the lies, and I told him to kiss off. He got angry. I told him I knew he was not an actor, and not this actor. I had done a deep dive on this person, and was now well read, so I could decipher lie from truth, and I listed the proof. Silence. I said goodbye, and that was that. but no, he came back and tried to talk to me, saying he missed me, our chats. I told him I was not interested in this game and not interested in speaking to a liar.

That is when he gave up the ghost. He had gotten attached to me and did not want to lose the connection. He asked before he spilled his truth, if I would stay his friend, if he told me the truth. I said I would, not knowing, that I would just not be able to reconcile the lies with a true friendship.

The ugly truth came out. I considered it and I blocked him. I will not tolerate lies. I spent some time thinking about this and I got mad. If he was doing this to me, how many other women was he manipulating? What I found out was incredible. I went back to this persons pages and watched the feed. Woman after woman being asked for private chat, and one after the other acquiescing. I now saw the system. They watch who comments and look for lonely women, older women, and even women a bit younger, and they lure them into this fantasy. I tried to warn some women, and was told off by more than a couple. They thought I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Since that day, I went on a mission to find out why this is happening, how they worked their plans, and if it could be stopped. I lured over two hundred into chatting with little old me, lonely, bored, naive. I found so many ways to listen and then hit them with my proof, that I got good at it. I could tell within a day or two if, I’d get anywhere. The hard asses, I just blew off or told off, but the others were a lot nicer to deal with. Over the year, I got a lot of information out of them and it was not cut and dry as I had anticipated.

Most are very young. Some I spoke with were seventeen, or still in their teens. Some a little older. And I spoke with a few that were in their thirties. While there are many that practice this kind of scam for malicious reason, more of them do it because they are so poor. Not the I don’t have money for dinner out, poor, but the I don’t eat three times a day, kind of poor. The i sometimes go without food kind of poor.

The men who became honest, gave me their real names, told me where they lived, and told me why they scam. The reasons are not what others think. Aside from extreme poverty, a lot of them live in houses with dirt floors, and with multiple family members packed into small spaces. Education is expensive, food as well, and there are no jobs available to them. Jobs, good or bad go to people with deep pockets that can line a government official’s. Most some from larger families and have to take on a sibling when they can manage to get on their own. This is expensive and so, often multiple family members are engaging in the same cons.

Please don’t think this scam game is limited to female target by males. Men get swindled just as quickly, by women yes and by men playing women. Loneliness is not sex specific. some of these cons are very lucrative for the person preying on the naive, making it a huge lure to people who would not normally, engage in crime.

Poverty and extreme poverty makes criminals out of decent people. And most of these people are or were before falling into this business. I did manage to keep some of the acquaintances with a few of the men. I am not sure they ever get to have honest conversations with many people. I did not nor would I ever treat them less, that human and my equals. They are gentle natured and impressionable. Most if not all, told me they believed Americans were all racist against people of color. They know what most think of their nation. That made the sting of guilt less on them when they succeeded.

I schooled them on us, and admitted that yes we have racists, but all nations do. I am not sure what kind of people they have interacted in their lives, but I do know this; when treated with respect and kindness, they are kind and respectful in return. None crossed the line with me once they were out in the open.

These are a struggling people, with no solution, no help, no hope. I have empathy for that. I have known poverty and what lengths you will go to in your desperation. What they do is criminal, for sure. There is no excuse, for committing crimes against others, but there has to be a discussion on how wealthy nations can help poorer ones. We pay CEO millions upon millions. We spend millions on useless things. Nation after nation, discards more than they use, when people out there suffer.

These people are not useless or unintelligent. They want to work and have pride at the end of a workweek. Some want to get through college and get out of poverty, change their lives. Some have degrees and have no work to be found. I met engineers, biomedical engineers, businessmen and students. None were going to get a dime out of me, and yet they still wanted to have a friend. They wanted to be honest and straightforward. They wanted to be themselves and have kind of connection, where they could be open. I gave them that.

I have grown to care for this people. Our country spends our tax dollars on ill gotten gains, on criminal activities , millions on wasteful spending, on the daily. Something has to change. This nations government is keeping its people in poverty, yet keeping their bellies full. They have comforts they do not afford their people. Electricity and hot water are a good example. They have those necessities 24/7, while they ration it out to the poorer areas, like Lagos, giving them energy for a scant amount of hours per day. This is shameful. Someone has to care enough to help people get their footing. I am not saying throw money at the problem. I am saying teach the man to fish, and they will walk away from crime and scamming. The alternative is their decline, to everyone’s detriment.

Scamming is not a victimless crime. The victims are not just the women or men, being manipulated. It extends to the identities they pervert, the industries those people work in, and believe it or not it includes the scammers, young and old. They victimize their integrity, the integrity of their countrymen and the integrity of the sovereignty of their own nation. Cyber crimes, have become a serious world problem.

I part three, I will discuss the women. I’ll give them some tells on the scammer, so they may be able to navigate those murky waters. Let me say this last thing, I know I have taxed everyone’s brain. Men, women, non of them are real. There is no actor that will ask for a private one on one. No celebrity that would need a measly two hundred dollars or more, from the likes of us. Not one. And lastly for today, there is no parent on the planet who would trust a stranger with their children. Don’t buy it for a second.