[stylist] {Spam?} Long Article: I'll Call Her Sandy (some profanity)

[Miss Thea]

Description: Even if you’re smart enough to avoid the devastating money losses associated with romance scams, the price is still too high.


I met her on Pink Cupid, a lesbian dating site. She was different from anyone else I’d met. From her first message in late January, to the day it all went to hell just after Valentine’s Day, she was a class act. I’ll call her “Sandy”.

I am a person with disabilities, born totally blind, live with depression and anxiety disorders, and have picked up several pain conditions along the way. In addition, I’m a virtual shut-in, due to an enforced escort requirement slapped on my file by my city’s paratransit. I can find someone for medical appointments, but not much more. People aren’t volunteering to sit on a paratransit vehicle so I can get to a party, get a job, or take a course. They just don’t want to commit that kind of time, nor can they. Plus, how’d you like a 3rd party while you’re on a date, getting to know someone? Even if I could find such people, it would be awkward for all concerned. Plus, not everyone wants to help a lesbian meet other women. I have had to end a volunteer relationship with one person who felt that because the paratransit demanded I have an escort, I was obviously intellectually handicapped, needed to be told how to live, and that I was certainly a moral degenerate who needed to hear that old saw: “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”.

Thus, my quality of life is vastly undermined, since the ability to get from A to B, so important to anyone over the age of sixteen, is denied me.

What’s next? An online dating site: Pink Cupid.

That’s where I met her. I’ll call her “Sandy”.

Age-appropriate, friendly, not casting me aside because of my disabilities or my shut-in status, we began communicating daily.

Through the magic of a screenreader and a Braille display, plus VoiceOver, iPhone’s built-in screen reader, I had connected with another human soul.

I awoke to messages from her, got iPhone texts from her throughout the day, and a beautiful song on Valentine’s Day. I sent her a song on Valentine’s Day as well, not to mention throughout-the-day messages: I’m doing this or that, I’m thinking of you. You’re in my prayers.

She told me all about her life, and her work as a structural engineer in South Africa.

She always treated me like a lady, never tried to use me for cyber sex. She never cheapened me in any way. I was her baby girl, and she, my princess. I could feel it in the air, as Valentine’s Day drew nearer.

I phoned her using my Skype credits, and asked her outright.

“Sandy, we’ve only known each other a couple of weeks, but it feels like we’re in love. What do you think?”

She gave me a hearty laugh, as warm as fur. “Of course. You’re my baby girl!”

I’ll skip the part where I rolled on the floor, purring.

I read her letters on my Braille display to my two other blind friends. The sincerity, beauty and eloquence of her missives, which now included that beautiful “l” word, impressed them. My sighted friends said she had an open, honest face, and praised the transparency and vulnerability she displayed in her letters. Everyone wished me well, even those who do not approve of “the gay lifestyle”.

My usual depression lifted. I wrote with passion and fervor, knowing my Lady was also working hard on her project. I borrowed that old Chuck Berry tune as I washed and dried the dishes, fed and picked up my sleek-furred cat for the petting of his life, and my fingers danced on the keyboard writing, even when they weren’t writing. They poised over the keys while my Muse stood beside me, giving me unaccustomed energy. I sang, “It was a lesbian wedding, and the straight folks wished them well.”

I dreamed of her at night, and called her in South Africa, too excited to sleep. I sang to her; she told me of her plans to visit Canada.

“When? Like April or May?” I asked.

“March. As soon as this contract job is over. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I was euphoric, counting days, planning all the things she might like to see in bustling Toronto. Or maybe she’d just like to cuddle up, pet the cat, and relax.

Then, on the 18th of February, I called her number in South Africa. A man answered, which astonished me as “Sandy” had always answered the phone. Every time I called or Skyped her I got the same woman with the same voice.

“May I speak to Sandy?” I asked.

“She’s not here,” said a man with a thick African accent. “Before I can tell you anything, what was your relationship to Miss (I’ll call her Woods)?”

“I’m her girlfriend,” I said.

“Oh yes, and you are …”

“Thea.”

“That’s right. She said you were her lover or something. You see, there’s been an accident at the building site.”

My Sandy was a 43-year-old self-employed structural engineer, working on a multi-million-dollar bridge.

“Somebody died at the site as a result of the accident,” he said.

I started to cry. “Oh, God. Not Sandy.”

“No, no,” he quickly reassured me. “She is quite safe, but the police arrested her on suspicion of negligence.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m her lawyer. Don’t worry, I’ll have her out of jail in the morning, and you will continue as you did before.”

I could only imagine what she must be feeling, knowing that someone had died on her watch, and relieved that it wasn’t her.

“Sandy wants you to know that she loves you, and asks you to pray for her.” In fact, she’d been crying and calling my name, and had given her phone to this “lawyer”, who was a stranger to us both, because she had no friends or family in South Africa. He was to call me back the next day. I told him only that I loved her, and would stand by her, and asked him to please pass along my love.

The next day, he did not call back. I held off as long as I could, then called South Africa. I got him again. This time, I was told that Sandy had not become a client. He could do nothing for her, as she hadn’t the fee.

“Can you help her?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m totally blind, and am unemployed. Can you help? I mean, you’re a lawyer and you’re right there.”

“Well, since you’ve been honest enough to tell me you are blind, I must tell you I have a wife and two kids. I can’t work for free.”

It went downhill from there. Emotionally exhausted, worried about my girlfriend, I demanded to know if this man was just going to let her rot because she didn’t have the fee? I assured him that she would get paid for her work. He never mentioned Legal Aid. At the time, neither did I. But I was the emotional wreck, not him. He continued to tell me that Sandy cried my name and wanted me to know everything that was going on.

The conversation with the “lawyer” ended in a shouting match. He hung up on me.

I wrote my darling a text, saying I did not like this man who had her phone, that I could not understand him because of his thick accent, and that I was angry with him for not helping her. I also asked her his name.

She was a woman alone, in South Africa, and I, her girlfriend, was alone and disabled in Canada, worried sick, my mental health deteriorating, unable to eat or sleep. I withdrew. I lay on my bed, worrying. The only time I got news about Sandy was when I picked up the phone.

The next afternoon, my iPhone announced that she had written me. I grabbed the phone, exultant, till I read the text. Then my spirits plummeted. “Thanks for all d insults. I think I should know who I can give my phone to. Aren’t you ashamed that you can help who you say you love? (I’ll call the signature “Smith”) Furious, I thought of all the tears shed, the prayers said, the worry, the anger on her behalf. This “lawyer” hadn’t even been decent enough to give me his name, nor had he answered my tearful pleas to tell me where she was being held, and all my research on the Internet which is about 1 percent accessible to the blind, netted me nothing.

My last call was the worst. I found out that he, not Sandy, had sent that insulting message. He was jumping up and down demanding respect, that I had no right to say anything about his accent, and I was screaming at him for ruining my life. If Sandy ever read all the messages I’d sent to her mobile, recriminating her for the insults she’d sent me–which were, in fact sent by this “Smith”, she would never forgive me. Worst of all, the empathetic lawyer had died and left this snake in his place.

“How do I know you’re blind?” he demanded.

“I’ll mail you my plastic eyes, you son of a bitch!” I shouted at an equally high decibel. The call ended badly, to say the least–him demanding respect he hadn’t merited, and me screaming for blood.

When he hung up on me, I continued screaming–at God, at life, at whoever was unable to do anything but listen.

“I’m blind! I’m stuck! I can’t get her out of there, and that scum bag won’t help!” I melted down. I suffered a 24-hour headache after that sobbing, screaming session. During this, I got one of my regularly scheduled calls from the Distress Center, which my shut-in status vouchsafes me so I know I’m not alone.

I sobbed through the whole story.

I was a lioness, chained, powerless, while her just-born cub had its belly ripped open by a stronger animal. I roared with impotent rage, sadness, confusion.

I wrote Sandy one final text. I loved her, but could not take the stress. This “lawyer” was daily shaking me down for money I did not have. I was snapping and snarling at my best friend, when I wasn’t staring at the ceiling, feeling nothing but an all-consuming rage. I didn’t leave her because she was in jail. I left her because no one would help us keep connected and this odious man had her phone, and was shaking me down, shaming me for not “helping”, essentially calling me a liar in the matter of my blindness. Apparently, he hadn’t looked at the picture I tried to take of myself that I’d sent Sandy before the trouble started: when we were in Lesbian Sweetheart Land. We’d both had a good laugh at that attempt.

Then I wondered. Was she in jail at all? Why wasn’t this odious man at least telling me where they were holding her so I could get out of his hair, and contact her in jail, if that’s where she really was? I googled “bridge disaster kills one in Cape Town”, and came up empty. An acquaintance who lives in South Africa hadn’t heard anything either. I got to thinking. This was supposedly a multi-million-dollar bridge, there was a fatality, and the supervisor, my new girlfriend, was in police custody for negligence? Why was there nothing about it on the net? Why had my acquaintance not heard of it? If it was only questioning, how long could South African police actually hold her, anyway? My bottom lip became raw from chewing. Hmm. What was really going on here?

I began to give serious consideration to the possibility that my “little lion cub” might be playing a part in this. Why, if he was a stranger, did she give him her phone? Why not to a member of her staff? Why hadn’t she called me? OK, in the excitement, she could have remembered me much later. Still, I was being played like a violin. The lawyer said he went up to the prison, that it was about an hour’s drive, that it was a real inconvenience, that he was doing us a kindness. But in all that time, Sandy never called me once, or texted me to tell me she was being treated all right, that the food sucked, that she still loved me, or anything. The “lawyer” kept pushing my buttons: My lamb was in trouble, and why wasn’t I getting her out? Yeah, sure you’re blind! Tell me another one.

My sight was clearing–not my optic nerves, my head. If she really was in jail, and this guy was taking her phone to her so she could read her messages, why hadn’t I heard even as much as a short text before visiting hours were over? It was as if she no longer existed, except as a button he could push. They were very subtle. She never said a word about money or anything, and he never asked me directly for money–just stomped on that “protective love” button, while my Dorothy was supposedly locked up in the witch’s castle. Hmm. I smelled not one, but two, rats, and made a decision.

I reported her to Pink Cupid, and received an email from a 3rd party stating that her profile had been removed from the site.

The romance, or love scam, according to one internet source I read, thanks to my screenreader and Braille display, is the twelfth highest on the list of fraudulent activities.

According to the FBI, women who are lonely, disabled, over 40, widowed or divorced, (that’s all me), are the most likely targets, but every person and age group is at risk.

The story goes like this: Someone from a Western country claims to be living or working overseas. They woo you. In my case, Sandy power-wooed me with iTexts and emails that built my trust, emails in which she told me all about herself, emails in which she was interested in everything I did. Her texts were sweet, told me how much she missed me.

True, we hadn’t actually met, but we had talked on the phone several times, and on Skype–my dime. I bought Skype credits so I could call her in South Africa. Our conversations were always uplifting, fun, and made me love her more. She had said that her computer “had a fault” and that now we were together, she would learn to use Skype.

Then, the “tragedy” happened. These were slick people. >From the 18 of February, I never heard Sandy’s voice, so she certainly didn’t ask for money, and while the “lawyer” was too clever to use the word “money”, he shamed me for not “helping” someone I say I love. He couldn’t have meant anything else! He had already mentioned the fee which Sandy could not afford, and asked if I could “help” or if I had family or friends who could.

In truth, I was one of the “lucky” ones. I had made it my business to read every Dating Safety Tip Pink Cupid had to offer, and I read other tips not on the site.

I also read testimonies of women and men who had lost devastating amounts of money, in addition to the emotional anguish..

Still, even if you’re smart enough NEVER to send anyone you meet online money for any reason, the emotional cost is too high.

These heartless criminals net billions of dollars every year, and cause emotional as well as financial devastation to their victims.

If you’ve been scammed in this way, you can contact the FBI’s crime complaint center at http://www.ic3.gov). They may be able to help you recover the funds, but unfortunately, there’s no law enforcement agency that can help you recover from the emotional damage done by these crooks.

I’d like to see the day when laws are passed with high fines or prison sentences for 419, or romance scammers. This is not a “bad” relationship that didn’t work out. These people carefully groom you, build you up, woo or power-woo you, for the sole purpose of getting their hands on your money. I was lucky enough not to have it, as unemployed, disabled people don’t make much.

Still, I was set up for a sting that has nothing to do with the honeybee. If tough laws made such scams unappealing for these criminals, imagine how much safer this world would be! With these people behind bars or working in hard labor camps, they wouldn’t have time to think of new ways to hurt people.

True love is hard to find, at the best of times. I’m praying for the day when the “Sandys” and “Smiths” of this world will be unable to add one more anguish to people already often targeted by others: people who seem weak or vulnerable, the disabled, the lonely, the elderly. Instead of blaming the vic for being “gullible”, the law should concentrate its efforts on rounding up the wolves.

Then, I could do what the dating site hopes I will do: Have a fun, safe dating experience. I’m not only speaking as a lesbian, but as a mom, whose teenager is a lesbian. Her father and I have split. She doesn’t wish contact with me as of now, and I only wish I was there to help her avoid the pitfalls these criminals present. These people know that even if you’ve read the Safety tips, when emotions are strong, you’d do anything to get your Dorothy out of the witch’s castle. To find out that your Dorothy IS the witch, and is scamming you together with a partner … Well, it’s something I’d spare my daughter, if I could. In light of the fact that people who are scammed over and over again have a harder time recovering next time, have a harder time forgiving and forgetting, that each scam attempt, plus the ordinary “bad” relationships, makes it that much more likely that the target will turn into someone bitter and fed up, isn’t it time we got really tough on the love scammers? For our sakes, for our children’s.