Buyer Beware

The internet is where I met my fiancée who I have shared the difficulties of life with for ten years. We have faced some hurdles along the way but at the end of the day we love each other, and face life together head on. I will admit for me I was incredibly lucky. I had to kiss a lot of toads to find my Prince Charming on the Internet.

Before I met my fiancé, I met quite some characters. One promised forever in a brief period. Because I wanted so bad to “be swept away,” I fell for it. The results were not good. There were those who were just looking for lack of a better phase “friends with benefits.” There are others who were looking for someone as freaky as they were. And the list goes on.

The worst was a character I really should have listen to my gut about as well as my friends. I met him on the internet. We will call him Tony. He used the pick-up line of wanting to know how I got his picture that he took of damage from a tornado that happened in the area I lived in. I straight out told him that it was the picture I had taken. It was not his.

This started it up. An internet friendship where I would talk to him while I was at work at night. Then during the day when I should have been sleeping. It was one of those situations where I did most of the talking. I told him about past relationships, how many jobs I had, and everything in between. I thought it was wonderful Tony remembered everything about me from conversation to conversation. It was something I was not used to. I did not realize he was keeping track of the information to make me a mark.

The first red flag that should have caught my attention what is the fact that he lied about where he lived. It was a November, and I was part of a group for writing. I was writing my novel in a month and had joined a local group that was part of that. They were meeting that night in Warner Robins, GA. I told Tony I was going. Tony talked about how the restaurant I was at was just around the corner from the apartments he lived in.

I told Tony that was nice, but I had to go to work early the next morning. I was just meeting the group and then catching a cab back to Macon after the meeting was over. While I was in this writing meeting Tony texts me talking about that I can meet him at his apartment. This was after he didn't come to the meeting himself. Tony claimed something had come up. I can't remember what.

Stupid me said OK. I would come as soon the taxi picked me up. He texted us supposed address and told me it was in one place, but we found out I that there was no apartment there. There was a guard shack and what do you know is the apartment complex I used to live in many years before.

As a dummy I kept giving the cab driver the instructions Tony was giving me and racking up a bill. Finally, I gave up. I refuse to take any more of his calls at night and the cab driver drove me back to Macon. As a side note even though he didn't think I didn't notice the cab driver took a of couple dollars off the fair. I am very grateful for that. It still cost a lot because when all was said and done it ate up about $85 for the wild goose chase.

I told my son's father about it because I was staying at his house. It was suggested I should get rid of Tony. I didn't need this kind of drama in my life. I really should have listened.

Instead, I kept calling him until I got Tony on the phone. Then turned around and called myself letting him have it. Somehow, I allow Tony to twist it around on me and doubt myself. We went a couple of days without talking. then as if I were a child being taught a lesson I was asked if I had learned my lesson of doubting him.

That caused me to blame myself which I think allowed to be right for the picking when it came to the con. He started calling me with these out there stories and getting me to wire him money to Western Union $80 at a time. All different kinds of sad sob stories. My friend Dawn was the only one who knew what I was doing and tried her best talk me out of it.

Then tax season came. My son father had given me a large amount of money to use to rent a place that I can afford. I made a mistake of telling Tony. He stole the money. It blew my mind on two levels. One was being robbed and two being lied to. I filed a police report and gave a description of as much information as I knew.

During this time, I found out he had police record, then he was on probation from Texas, and I think the icing on the cake was he had a wife who by the way was a bully from my school when I was a teenager. It was all a mess, and, in the end, I had to earn the money back to get a place. I think the worst part was having to tell my son's father what happened.

I won't lie for while I tried to think of all these outrageous revenge plots, I could do but let's face it it wasn't worth the time energy. I did not want to go to jail afterwards. Fast forward a month later I was coming up with all these things to write and for both my blog on Google as well as Salon back. Salon used to have a blog area for writers where amateurs could \ get the practice and build that readerships. I decided to tell about my experience. I made sure to look up the laws and to make sure I did it as legally could do it. Once I found out the rules I did.

I did a piece that put his picture and his name out there. I also put out information I'm getting when I would in touch with the Macon police department. Then strange things started happening because I shared mine piece on my Facebook page, I made sure he was hash tagged in it.

All of the sudden, I started getting messages from women. Some talked about how Tony robbed them. Some talked about how Tony isolated them from their family. In some cases, he got them to sell their home that was in another state and then move wherever he was doing the con.

There are even some that told me about how he had told them he couldn't have kids anymore, lo and behold they ended up pregnant. Once the baby was born DNA tests were given, he was worried by child support. These women he threatened. I decided it might just be a good idea not to reshare or renew the article. If I did rewrite the article again, I would make sure not to put his name or picture with it.

Then it just so happened I was looking through some old Facebook messages and there were some that were sent to me while I was in the hospital about eight years ago. It was funny. The message was a long one from Tony that wanted me to retract what I'd said. He claimed it was slander. I explained that I had been at the hospital and not seen his message until that moment which five years in passing at that point. I wished him well and gave him forgiveness even though he didn't ask for it. I also explained that it wasn't slander if it was the truth and you can prove it. He never wrote me back. I wonder why?

The whole point is I'm lucky that all he did was still more money and embarrass me a little bit. It could have been so much worse because truth be known I had taken a lot of risk just meet up with him. I'm surprised that worse didn't happen to me.

Needless to say, I was a little bit more careful when I met my fiancé. He went through a harsh process thanks to this guy. Be careful! Take the mindset of buyer beware and that will help at least help in keeping you safe. Hopefully not falling for the stuff.