Don't Fear the Grifter
A white man tried to con me in the most boring way imaginable
It was the hot season. Nylon chiffon tops rasping as women walked across the streets, their bras and camisoles as loud as the city’s noise. I’d just disembarked from my bus when I received a notification. I’m not one to pull my phone out in the streets because it could be snatched faster than a baby’s hand grasping a dangling earring. When I was ensconced safely in a bookstore’s aisle, I finally pulled out my phone and stared at the Instagram message. A man wanted to become my sugar daddy.
My first response was, obviously, laughter. I have gotten the odd salacious request or to be the other woman in l’aventure. These often lead nowhere because I’m not a good time girl. Unlike my peers who end up as sugar babies, they’re up for a life of fun, travel and good times. All I care about is my career, my cat and my books. What kind of good time daddy wants a homebody for a side piece? But that’s locally. There are people who get requests online and it would seem it was my turn.
I was curious. On the one hand, it seemed like a scam but I am no one worth scamming. I have no assets, not even so much as a crack on a piece of land. It was bizarre to be the target of an unfounded con. I consume a lot of grifter media and usually they go after whales. I have such little money I’m not even a sardine. But this individual insisted.
Sextortion and Pig Butchering: A Lesson
I considered him suspicious but was curious enough to humour him. I asked him what he wanted, even being conciliatory. He said he saw my comment on a post about cats, then checked my profile and thought I looked nice. I’ll admit my face looks nice (thanks mum and dad), but I am no sex symbol like Beyoncé or Rihanna. I don’t have thirst traps. My Instagram is full of Igor, books and the occasional shot of food and drinks. There is nothing in my profile that invites conmen. If I was getting scammed, I wasn’t sure what for.
The man, calling himself Alex Rodriguez, had a profile that looked like it was a bought account. None of the followers were normal looking accounts. All of them were semi-nude women with few followers, like bot accounts. And many seemed to be from different countries from Mexico to Ukraine. This isn’t to say an individual can’t have globally diverse followers. I’ve made friends on Instagram from Guyana to Arkansas. But he was quite the odd fellow, he said he was European, German-Ukrainian and was currently working between Paris and Milan. Rodriguez? Cool.
He said his life was very stressful and all he wanted was a career girlfriend—someone paid to listen to his worries and concerns and generally be there for him. The thing about paid love though, it works better in person, so everything about our interaction was screaming red flags. But my friends and I were curious and we wanted to see what the scam was. I know they do say curiosity killed the cat. Remember though, the saying ends: but satisfaction brought it back.
Two main scams that are conducted through social media are pig butchering and sextortion. Pig butchering is when a grifter plants themself in your life and slowly milk you out of money. They appear needy, ask for small amounts of money, even send you money and then eventually, they present you with an investment opportunity that’s a scam. They can also ask for a large loan that will never be refunded. However, their most common skiff is the investment opportunity in crypto or other shady, nefarious, intangible profits. As reported in Time, people have lost up to $75 billion in pig butchering scams.
I made it clear to Alex that I didn’t have money and he said it was ok. He wanted me to be comfortable. All I had to do was be his online girlfriend.
The other common scam is sextortion. This is when people catfish you and get you to send them nudes which they then threaten to expose if they don’t get any money. This scam targets teenagers mainly, male teenagers from strict or religious backgrounds who are more likely to succumb to blackmail than report it to their parents. Women have also experienced sextortion at high levels.
According to WeProtect Global Alliance, The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children received about 26,718 sextortion reports in 2023 compared to 10,731 in 2021. Globally, the numbers have increased as well. Financial sexual extortion is carried out by groups from the US, to Nigeria to India.
I didn’t want to become a statistic so I figured if this was Alex’s game, it was better to cut the cord earlier. The only nudes I share online anyway are colour palettes. Some sugar daddies also do demand nudes in exchange for money and figured if I wanted some quick cash, I’d have to just get an artistic photo of a plus size adult entertainer then I’d split the money with her. But Alex said he didn’t want nudes either.
The Game
Eventually, Alex revealed his hand. I did try to be a pay girlfriend who had some respect for their job. Like an employer you don’t really care for asking you to go in for the third interview, I was trying not to let gig slip. No boredom, rudeness, fast talking, sarcasm or room for misunderstanding. I kept sending him skyline photos of Nairobi and selfies. He sent oddly taken shots of the sky and repeating pictures of himself in his car or out for coffee. It was odd, he didn’t have the quintessential insistence of a man seeking a woman’s attention. Not that I’d have preferred that. However, he was dismissive of me simply asking how his day when that was what he’d wanted.
Kickoff: Alex decided he wanted to send a stipend and needed my PayPal email. I sent it to him and then he went quiet for a few weeks. I figured that was an interesting blip in my life (I get many of those, believe me) and moved on. He did return however, with a grumpy disposition and a demand I talk with his accountant who would send me whatever amount of money I wanted. When I didn’t receive the money, he brought it up with me and he snapped at me to talk with his accountant.
At this point, I realised he’s part of a scam that has a quota to fill and I wasn’t being particularly… cooperative. He told me to download Telegram and go talk with his accountant over the missing funds. The image he sent of the confirmed PayPal transfer was fake. Alex was definitely up to something. The accountant proceeded to tell me he’s reversed the transaction and is sending the money through again with a tip for all my inconvenience. He also made it clear that I should be paying the transfer fee and confirmed multiple times if I’m ok with that.
An email did come through but it wasn’t from PayPal. I have a personal account that I use which when I receive a payment of over $49, the money is withheld for at least a day to “confirm” I deserve it, I guess. But this email came from “PayPal via Square” when PayPal sends emails denoted as service@paypal.com. The email told me that I needed to pay $17 to a Bitcoin access my “stipend”. And this was the international transfer fee that was aforementioned. Except, I have used PayPal before and when the sender charges you the transfer fee, it’s subtracted from the money sent, not from your account or an extra payment. At this point I was tired of the charade because they were being insistent, rude and most offensively, boring. I tried one last ditch effort to get some money for my troubles. They were insisting I should have received an email. But even after sending them screenshots misrepresenting that I hadn’t received their email, I suggested they make a small direct deposit—a convincer—of at least $40, to my PayPal to “confirm their systems are working”. Unfortunately, they didn’t play ball and that was when I gave up the goose and told them to try harder. They blocked me promptly on Telegram and Instagram. I wasted dozens of chats over a couple of days and never got any money from it.
If you see any signs of a con, block the person. Don’t send nudes, addresses, bank card info or otherwise engage with them. If you do get shafted, please tell an authority figure. Don’t get blackmailed. Don’t give out personal information.
Unlike the fictional rogue’s gallery of people like Robin Hood or Michael Stone (Hustle, BBC), real life con artists are out to target anyone, not just greedy people. The more desperate or vulnerable you are, the more likely you are to get scammed. When it comes down to it, don’t ever fear the grifter.