Inside a romance scam: how to make a catfisher sing

*A conversation with a romance scammer. Image: Ampere News*

BY KERRY TOMLINSON, AMPERE NEWS

It was just another day on the Internet. Until Derek sent a connection request.

His face was so familiar. And his name, we knew, was not Derek.

This chance encounter turned into a months-long investigation into the latest tactics of the romance scammers who steal millions of dollars from their victims, bringing in record numbers of pilfered money since the pandemic began.

It began with stolen pictures from one of the Village People. And it ended with the scammer singing out loud and sending vitriolic curses our way.

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Macho Man

Look who wants to connect on Facebook: it’s Derek Herman, a Texas oil rig engineer. Or maybe not.

We reverse search his image and find out our Derek is stealing and dealing pictures from Jim Newman, formerly the cowboy from the Village People, known for the famous song “YMCA.” Newman sang with the group for four years from 2013-2017 and is an actor and a singer.

But many people don't do a reverse search on images. They're not expecting a scammer in their messages in Words with Friends or Facebook or TikTok and the fakes slip through.

Texan Through-and-through

Now Derek Herman spins out his story. He's a widower, born and raised in Houston, raising his 14-year-old son on his own.

He's of town right now on an oil rig in the North Sea near the Netherlands, working as a chemical engineer with ExxonMobil. But he's looking for a life partner and his sweet talk might just convince you that he's the one.

The Investigation Begins

Now it's time to catfish the catfisher, expose his lies, and slow him down. We’ll draw out as much information as we can and fill his time to keep him away from other victims.

We start by finding the real man in the stolen photos, Jim Newman.

“There are thousands of profiles using my pictures,“ he said in a video interview with Ampere News from New York.

Con artists have been stealing his pictures for about five years, using them to lure people in, he said.

“They don’t think of me as a person any more than they think of these women as a person. We are all just a crop for them to harvest money out of,” he explained.

Sowing Seeds

In Derek’s case, the harvest begins with a compliment for his new connection, such as, “You have a gorgeous smile,” then moves quickly to tragedy. He lost his wife to heart failure and his son in a car crash, he says, aiming to stir emotions.

But Derek has hope and a goal. “I want to have a loving family,” a lure designed to draw you in based on what he sees on your social media.

He'll move you off that social media or email and onto Google Chat, where he can easily talk to — and manipulate — many victims at once. And then the real campaign begins.

Tactics

Every morning, he sends a romantic message.

“Your love is hypnotizing. I can't get my senses back," reads one.

Sometimes it’s a link to a love song or a picture of hearts or flowers, hinting at marriage, promising trips to Rome and Paris.

“You smell better than the sweet berries. You are a bundle of joy to me,” reads one particularly ludicrous message.

Do a search of the message text and you'll find that they simply copy the romance language from sites like "Long Love Messages for Her" and paste it into multiple victims' chats at once, sometimes forgetting that they’ve already used that same message a few weeks before.

Secret Weapon

The real weapon here, however, is not the love messages but the regular daily questions about what you had for lunch, how you are feeling, and what you are doing, the constant companionship from morning until night, fulfilling a crucial need of the human psyche.

“You're looking for that relationship, not necessarily looking for love. You're looking for that companionship relationship with somebody,” said Tony Anscombe, chief security evangelist for cybersecurity company ESET. “These romance scams can go from day one to 12 months. This can be a long play.”

Fact Check

We are ready for the long play, too, including a trip to Houston to check on Derek's Texas backstory. Is he stealing someone's identity as well as pictures?

At the records building for Harris County, the main county in Houston, we check property and voter records. No sign of Derek. What about engineering licenses for the state of Texas? No Derek Herman.

He did not attend the University of Houston, as he claimed, nor Robert Lee High School in Houston, which changed its name to Margaret Long Wisdom High School in 2016.

Finally, at Derek’s claimed grade school alma mater, Havard Elementary, we learn a crucial fact: the school was built in 1998. If Derek is 57 years old as he claims, he would have attended elementary school at the age of 32.

Romance scammers will pick random names from an area to back up their storyline, hoping you won't ask too many questions, hoping you will simply trust them, rather than checking or verifying. For the purposes of this investigation, we pretend we believe Derek. Even when he fails the singing test.

True Believer

Derek sent us a video of Jim Newman singing, claiming it was a personal serenade. In the next call, we ask him to sing live for us.

Shamelessly, he croons a shaky tune, passing himself off as a skilled singer.

“I never want to leave you, babe,” he croaks tunelessly, “I'll tell you how beautiful you are.”

It’s as if he knows that once he has us on the hook, we’ll accept almost anything. And in many cases, victims do. Humans want to trust other people. But we need to trust something else.

“They really need to trust that gut,” Newman said. “It’s frustrating because they’ve found somebody they thought was really nice and funny to talk to, or what have you. But really trust those instincts.”

Laying the trap

After three weeks of persistent messaging, contact Derek finally lays out the scam. He can't leave the oil rig for eight more months. Unless, of course, we apply for a family leave request via email to his management, supposedly at the site My Oil and Gas Career.

Just a few problems. The oil rig picture he sent, saying it’s his current work location in the North Sea near the Netherlands, is really a stock photo of a rig some 3,000 miles away.

Also, oil rig workers stay on their vessel for much shorter stints, not eight months. And the real My Oil and Gas Career site has never heard of Derek Herman.

Still, we apply for the permit. Surprise, we get it! All we need to do is pay $1850 and Derek can come home to see us at last.

A representative named Gabriel Philips messages us with a link to pay through an app called Barter, often used in Africa. The account name, however, is not My Oil and Gas Career, but Bridget Anighoro, another person unknown to the real site.

Slowing it down

Time for us to put the brakes on this payment with a series of delays, all of which make Derek unhappy.

We need to verify the company address first, then the app isn't working for us, and finally we bring in an imaginary friend, Dana, who tells us the app is not secure and we shouldn't use it.

“You see? I don't like third party in affairs,” Derek complains angrily on chat. “I don't like what you are doing. So Dana is the man here. And she decides for us.”

He follows up with a call, trying to bully us into using the app or giving him our credit card number

“Send me the card. I’ll do it,” he demands. “Who the f— is she? I told you not to involve a third party in this. Come on. Stop talking to daft people!”

advice from Daft people

Now we insist the app is so insecure, we need to wire him the money. And we need an account to send it to.

Begrudgingly, he obliges, responding with some very valuable info. It appears to be a real bank account, including someone’s name and address, most likely an account the scammer controls. It could be another victim, or someone working with the con artist.

We contact the bank, law enforcement, and the person on the account to stop the scammers and possibly save another victim.

Over months of chats, we ask for more accounts and receive them, from Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and more. We alert the banks, police, and the names on the accounts.

It's one of the most important parts of this investigation, but it's a one-way street. We rarely get info back. Instead, contribute with the hope that we're shutting down parts of the scammer’s infrastructure and preventing new victims from the intense suffering and shame of a romance scam.

“Dark”

Victims often contact Newman, first angry with him, thinking he took their money, then destroyed by the knowledge that this intense relationship was just a sick game.

“That’s just heartbreaking because they’re sitting there crying. And they’re like, “I knew, I know, I just didn’t want to know, because my life is so depressing,” said Newman. “It’s so dark.”

Final Play

Derek can only take so much of the payment delays and the revolving door of bank accounts and excuses. It's time to pull the final trick.

We let him know that we've come down with COVID. Now we can't go to the bank, but we do have more time at home for things like a call with Derek and our imaginary son, Malachai.

Derek claims to have audio issues and can't hear us, a ploy he's used before. But he continues to talk.

“I want to make a family with you and your mom. I’m going to take you in as my son. And I promise to take care of you,” he tells Malachai.

“Malachai” is disappointed because they couldn't have a real conversation. To make it up to him, we say, Derek should sing him a song. Derek comes through.

“Riding on the horse. I went to the farm. Took the bucket to the cows. Trying to make the cows, they go, ‘Moo, moo, moo,’” he sings for his future son.

Breaking Up

Even though we’re sick with COVID, Derek constantly pressures for payment. When he tells us to go to a hospital for a ventilator to breathe better, we jump. Our regular messages stop.

Derek continues on with frequent love notes, but we're in and out of the hospital for weeks, stretching out the engagement to save just a few more people and bank accounts, if possible, until Derek is completely disgusted. He wants payment or else.

Now, for the last call.

Final Meeting

After some conversation, we say we want to tell him something important.

Ampere News: “Promise you won't hang up.”

Derek: “No, baby, I'm here.”

Ampere News: “Why you are using someone else's pictures and pretending that you are that person?”

Despite his promises, Derek soon hangs up. But he pings us again through chat.

“Get lost,” he writes. “Get lost you walking dead. Cancer will hit you soon. You will get a brain cancer and a bone cancer.”

The romance is gone. And, when we ask him again for answers about his scam, so is Derek.

“He’s not one of the brighter ones, unfortunately,” laughs Newman. “I’ve had pictures sent to me of them. And, literally, they’re just seven guys sitting around in someone’s living room with iPads flipped open. They feed them Coke and snacks. Because they’re talking to several different women.”

Damage

Newman sees the humor, but also the destruction. As a performer, he can't close down his social media, he said. He's lost thousands of dollars in work, with some platforms shutting down his accounts for months after complaints from victims who believe he is the crook, he explained.

Even more painful is the sorrow of knowing his face is leading victims to devastation. He reports hundreds of accounts, but the scammers continue, thriving in the pandemic-fueled push to find connections online.

“There’s just a lot of isolation and loneliness. And the sadness that comes with that. And the fantasy of feeling like they’re in love with someone is so strong that they shut off all their instincts,” he said. “That’s the part I don’t know how to fix.”

What to do?

These five steps can help stop romance scammers from taking you or people you know as victims

Use a reverse search on pictures right way, before you make a personal connection, to see if they could be stolen
Check the account connecting with you to see how long it has existed. Are there any other signs of this person online?

“Is there a history?” Anscombe asked. “If this person has no history, if the profile you're seeing appears to start three months ago, and this identity doesn't go back beyond three months, that should also be a red flag to you.”

3. Never give money to a love interest you've never met.

4. Report the scammers to the platform you're on, from social media to dating sites to Words with Friends.

5. Report them to law enforcement, including the FBI at IC3.gov and the Federal Trade Commission at reportfraud.ftc.gov.

You may not hear back, as happened in the case with our law enforcement report on Derek Herman, but you may still help future victims avoid the scam.

Help your friends & family

Newman believes the group of criminals using his pictures are young men overseas, trained to follow scripts and tried-and-true methods of stealing money through deception.

But romance scammers come from many countries and target people of all ages. Now that you’ve seen some of the tactics, you can help your friends and family, men and women, young and old. Once the scammers sink their teeth in, it’s hard to convince victims it’s a scam, even if they’ve lost all their money.

“We post interviews and videos and get the word out. Because I think the more that we are drawn to the Internet, the more isolated we are, the more that we have this desire to connect, the bigger these scams are going to get,” Newman said.