I believe someone I dated in person tried to scam me

Question

I think a man I was dating in real life tried to scam me - does this sound like a conman?

I met this man 2.5 months ago on the league (dating app). He said he had a high profile career in asset management, and while I was able to see a tiny bit of a digital footprint, it was very limited.

For the first month everything seemed fine and normal, but I started to doubt his sincerity in the middle of March. At the beginning of April, he told me that due to a deal he was brokering between government entities in China and Sultan Al-Maadeed of Qatar, the Chinese government had accessed 3rd party data on his cellphone, determined that he and I had been spending a lot of time together through that data, and somehow was able to run a “check” on me. They apparently needed to make sure that I had no connections to government or business officials in the United States that would interfere with the success of this “deal”. He warned me that I might be receiving phone calls from Shanghai or Beijing and to not answer.

When I pressed him on this later, because it made no sense to me, he changed his story to last year his ex girlfriend tried to expand her business to China, but it failed and due to that the Chinese officials contacted him to ask about her directly, and he just told them he wasn’t with her anymore and was with me instead and then gave them my info and they ran a check on me. I started to feel like I was being setup here, like china was going to be this big, scary entity that he could possibly use to justify like, weird requests or something.

Anyhow I pretty much told him “look if this is some tinder swindler bullshit I have nothing” and while it caused some strife for a few days that died down. However last week, after one of my kids had a medical crisis and he wasn’t particularly helpful, I dumped him and then blocked him because I needed the space. He started emailing me and in one of the emails he offered to send me $15k to help with medical expenses, his exact words were “I can transfer or give you the account info, your call”.

I immediately said no, because I didn’t feel like it would be appropriate to accept his money, but after awhile I started to feel really uneasy about the idea that he’d ask for my bank info and not just Venmo or something?

In the 2.5 months we dated, I only ever met him at hotels, from our very first date either family members were staying at his place, it was messy, or then it was unfurnished cause all his stuff was in storage, and then he broke his lease early because he didn’t like the building. He claimed to own a house in another town, but had friends renting it out. I never met his friends, family, co-workers, and he was very terrified of me being added to his social media, though he happily met my friends and was going to go to a wedding with me this weekend until I dumped him last week.

Basically - this guy sounds like a con man, right? I’m not crazy, right? Was there some type of scam he was attempting to pull, either setting up China as a powerful monolith later, or by transferring me funds (presumably trying to get my account info)/putting me on an account?

Answer 1

Financially - yes all of this sounds like a con or someone who is very, very poor at managing money and relationships.

Anyone who wants to give you money will just give you money. Cash, clean check, venmo, whatever. I have never once transferred money for friends, family, or work by logging in to someone elses account.

“look if this is some tinder swindler bullshit I have nothing”

Having nothing is the point. You're a clean mark (target). You probably have some credit, accounts that aren't flagged for late payment, no warrants, etc. You're normal, you have bills to pay and a life to live. A few hundred or thousand extra would help you a lot for some small favors moving money for the swindler you dated. You're a good money mule.

Write down everything you know about this person and file it away for later. You may or may not have the time to report to the police/FCC/etc but if any of his bullshit comes back to you, have some records to help the cops find him.

Keep a close eye on your credit reports and your personal accounts. If this person had any time alone with your ID cards, laptop, checkbook etc. They could have swiped your info too.

The social risks are off-topic for this site, but you don't need that drama in your life. Take care of your kids and yourself. If you met at hotels and had sex, go to the clinic and get a test panel for STDs run. Someone this slimy with money probably isn't overly careful about who they fuck.