Apr
18
This post chronicles my recent efforts to help a woman who was sitting next to me on an international flight who fell for a new scheme targeting older single women. The post is a little long, but I think it is important to tell this story in its entirety to ensure that others don’t fall for these cons in the future.
I flew over to the UK last Sunday on business, I was only staying one day in London and then going on to Brussels. Thankfully, my company pays for business class seats on international flights, and this was no exception. In business class, the people you sit next to are usually (as the name implies) other frequent flying business travelers who are not paying for their own ticket and in general pretty savvy about travel.
Therefore, I was a little surprised when I got to my seat and saw that the woman sitting next to me was prominently wearing a badge that identified her as an airline employee. She wasn’t in uniform though, her badge was hanging from a heart shaped brooch which was attached to a conservative, black embroidered jacket. It didn’t look comfortable or stylish and was definitely not something you would want to travel in (it looked like she was in her church clothes). She was in her late forties or early fifties, a little overweight and had the speech patterns & mannerisms of a typical Midwest rural/suburban housewife. She was travelling alone though, which meant she was probably divorced late in life with limited job skills and landed on her feet as a flight attendant.
This woman had intense interest in my unpacking routine (computer, magazines, iPod, etc.), to the point where it unnerved me a bit, like she was judging me. I know that everyone sizes up the person who they are going to be sitting next to for seven hours, but its usually more discreet. A little light banter as I was organizing my seat confirmed that she was a flight attendant who was flying standby in order to visit London for a few days. I quickly settled down into the seat and made myself busy: checked my voicemail, made some last minute phone calls, and finally pulled out my blackberry to get a twitter fix before they closed the boarding door.
As I was scrolling through messages, she turned to me and said “Is this your first time?”
The difference in our ages and her body language told me that this was not flirtatious banter, but a sincere question. I was slightly put out that she hadn’t picked up on my whole frequent traveler vibe, so in the most casual tone I could muster I said “no, no, I have been over to Europe many times,” then casually went back to twitter without asking her if it was her first time. I just assumed it wasn’t, since she was a flight attendant.
After a short period of time, I could sense her still staring at me, so I turned to look and she blurted out “AREN’T YOU SO EXCITED!” When my eyes met hers I could genuinely see the excitement in her face, she was the proverbial kid in a candy store, wide-eyed and grinning ear to ear. This was not a typical world traveling flight attendant.
I had the sudden realization that she wasn’t judging me, but instead just living for the moment and taking in the whole experience of flying for the first time in business class: free mimosas, noise cancelling headsets and everyone sending email on their Blackberry. When this dawned on me, I immediately dropped any pretence of savvy aloofness that I was trying to portray and started a conversation with (lets call her Betty). Betty and I exchanged some pleasantries and then she proceeded to pepper me with questions about London, non-stop, for 90 minutes. Here is an abbreviated list:
“Do they have different money over there?”
“Are there a lot of single people over there?”
“Do they dress funny?”
“I heard that they drive on the other side of the road.”
“I think it would be exciting to marry someone from another country.”
“Big Ben, what’s that? Is that near the parly-mint house?”
“What do they do there? Can you go in?” (in reference to Buckingham Palace)
“Why do their police officers wear funny clothes?”
“I really like their accents over there.”
“What happens when you marry someone from another country, where do you live?”
“It is safe there, right? I heard that the police officers don’t even carry guns.”
“Do they really have vaults or safes where they keep money?” (I thought she was referring to hotel safes at first)
“How much money do people make over there?”
“I really want to go to a pub, but I hear they drink warm beer”
“I think it would be exciting to move to another country, don’t you?”
“What type of music do they listen to over there?”
“What is a subway? Is that the same as ‘The Tube’, and what is the Underground?”
“My friend met someone from London on the Internet.”
“I heard that you shouldn’t wear bright colors over there because people will know that you are a tourist.”
“How much does a beer cost over there?”
“Can I open a bank account over there?”
I started to say “Why… ” but then my spidey-sense just went off like a fire alarm.
- She asked some questions that told me that she was completely naïve about life outside the Midwest.
- She had asked a lot of questions that she already had an answer for, just to verify what she had heard.
- She didn’t really have a plan of what she was going to see or do while in London.
- She had asked many, many money related questions. (more than what’s above)
- She asked a lot of questions about the possibility of getting married to a Londoner and the consequences of that.
- Then bank account question…
I asked “Betty, have you ever received an email from someone who needs your help to get access to a large amount of money?”
She had an astonished look on her face for a long 5-10 seconds, then she recovered and after a considered pause she said “Yes, but not me, it was my friend, I told her that I would check him out for her since I was coming over.”
I nodded, then paused myself for a good five minutes (longer than I should have), while I was weighing the pros and cons on interjecting myself into this situation. I finally decided that I couldn’t in good conscious just let her walk off the plane into the perpetrators hands; I needed to convince her not to do this. The problem was that she told me it was her ‘friend’ and I decided to let her save face in that regard. Due to the deception, I had to craft what I said and the questions I asked without announcing the fact that I knew it was really Betty that was in the center of this. It took quite a bit of time before we got to the heart of the matter.
The long and short of it was that her ‘friend’ had received a series of emails from someone she met on a dating site. The gentleman in question was self-described as a middle-aged divorcee who attended church and had a 12 year-old daughter. He apparently had a good deal of money locked up in a vault that was in both his and his wife’s name. Coincidentally his wife’s name was also Betty, and since they had gotten so close (via email), he proffered that maybe if they got married she would be able to present herself as the estranged wife in order to access the money. The two of them could then live happily ever-after in the UK, where the policemen wear funny hats, the people talk with funny accents and you pay for things with funny looking money.
Betty was very, very sweet, but for sake of completeness I must point out that she was conversing with me on the same level as my daughter (when my daughter was 8); and although she was a flight attendant, she only worked for a small regional airline and traveled to places like Milwaukee, Buffalo and North Carolina. She had never been to New York or Chicago let alone out of the country. After a while she warmed up to the possibility that this guy wasn’t on the up and up, but thought that she could manage the situation by agreeing to only meet him in a public place. She rationalized that if he turned out to be fictitious or if he asked for money she could walk away, and what did she have to lose?
In order build some credibility I resorted to my own little white lie, telling her I was a computer security expert, and relayed details of some 419 scams that I have read about. It took me the better part of two hours to convince her that she should absolutely not attempt to meet this guy under any circumstance. I also told her to have her ‘friend’ end all email and voice communication with this person. To reassure myself that she would be okay, I verified that she was staying at a reputable bed and breakfast, gave her my Rick Steve’s London guide, and helped her pick out what sights to see for the three days that she was in the city (I wanted to make sure that she didn’t have any down time). After we got off the plane I helped her buy her tickets (train from Gatwick and & 3-Day Zone-1 travel card) and get through customs. After she spoke to the customs agent she told me that they asked her a bunch of questions:
“Where are you staying?”
“Are you meeting anyone here?”
“What’s the purpose of your visit?”
All typical customs questions, but she wondered if “they knew.” When I saw her off on the express to Victoria Terminal, she gave me her assurance that she would not attempt to meet this guy, and I took her at her word.
However, it is now Friday and I am on the flight back to the States, the seat next to me is eerily empty. Betty was not coming back on this flight (she was planning to go back Wednesday or Thursday, but the empty seat next to me makes me wonder what happened. Did she take my advice? Was there more I could have done? I obviously couldn’t follow her around London, but should I have alerted the authorities? Did I do enough? I hope I did, what do you think?
Comments
3 Responses to “Did I do enough?”
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You did great! Plus you wrote this up - so now we can kill this scam. Good work
lisa
I think that you could do as much as you possibly could, aside from alerting the authorities, and you also did more than mos people would have in your same situation.
So, yay for you, for getting involved.
If nothing else, she went into the situation with open eyes and hopefully a little fear.
As much as I love the internet and or new media-socialization, I hate the latest in scams that have been birthed by it…and how reasonable intelligent people seem to lose all sight of safety. A friend of mine was recently wooed via a BDSM dating site and called me to tell me the exciting news that a man she had met online was sending her a ticket to London to “play”…I’ve sent her all of the news related “horror” stories from similar set-ups…I’ve told her safety measures she should take if she does take this journey although I hope she doesn’t go. The bottom line is that we all make our own choices…
I hope “Betty” is safe.
I think that you did more than most other people would have done in your situation. I think it was amazing that you listened to your instinct, and put aside all your busy work to pay attention.
Life is so like that–when we have time to think back, we start asking ourselves, “Could I have done more?” At a time like this–if there’s no way to contact her further or find out the result–all you can do is tell yourself that you did whatever you were able to do at the time (which is true). Beyond that, we can pray.
You definitely opened her eyes; if she was overly conscious of what the customs officers said, then she would hopefully listen very carefully if she ever did meet up with the man.
Also, this blog is a great way to get that information out to the world. Thank you for paying attention, and for sharing knowledge to help keep others safe!