‘He has her Social Security Number, based on the tax info she has sent him’: Office friends team up to rescue their coworker from a too-good-to-be-true online boyfriend, hoping to pull off a reality check on the scam before she hands over her savings:

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Etai Eshet • Editor
May 2, 2025 4:00 PM EDT

Previously on "My Coworker's Boyfriend is the Digital Loch Ness Monster," our skeptical friend bravely documented a tale of a co-worker's mysterious, always-just-out-of-reach boyfriend. A man who exists only as a collection of Snapchat thirst traps, a voice with a suspiciously elastic accent, and a never-ending parade of tragic European plot twists. Diamonds with rent payments, inheritance clauses requiring marriage, and WiFi connections last seen on AOL dial-up. All signs pointed to this guy being less "Mr. Right" and more "Mr. Right-Click-and-Block."

Now, in this highly anticipated update, the plot thickens: the narrator enlists Elle, another veteran of the breakroom lunch table, and presents her with the original exposé like it's evidence in a very petty trial. Elle not only sees the glaring scam flags waving, she brings receipts, and also brings Paige, the last member of the workplace Justice League, looped in, our heroines form a group chat more determined than any cybersecurity task force.

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  • Together they see clearly, their coworker's mystery man’s European accent sounds more Ohio than Oslo, his tragic family keeps perishing on schedule, and the rent on the diamond is going up, and I for one think it's amazing how even imaginary real estate gets hit with inflation.

  • "[UPDATE] I think my coworkers boyfriend isn't real"

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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • I've been sitting on the realization that my co-worker is involved in a scam for about a week. I decided to take a small step and tell one of the other girls I eat lunch with -
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  • Let's call her "Elle" (there are four of us who eat lunch together: me, the girl being scammed "Kate", "Elle", and "Paige"). So I message Elle and ask her if we could meet during one of our breaks. We sit down in a break room and I slide
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  • her my original Reddit post on my phone. She reads it and I see the glimmer of realization set in and she says "I think you're right!" She then lays out some additional info she gleaned from our "Kate" about the boy:
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • • They had a phone call once, and she noted that his accent didn't sound European. But, she excused it as "the connection isn't good" (not how phones work in 2025, but Ok I guess...)
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  • She suspects he might have her SSN, based on the tax info she has sent him
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  • • He was supposed to come home in March, but the day before his return his aunt "tragically ded" in a car accident (rumor has it that his new return date is May 10th so stay tuned)
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    via Brooke Cagle

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • • The rent he is paying for the diamond (STILL NOT A THING) has increased so he will need to put down a big payment on it (which to me is an indicator that he is about to ask her for money)
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  • Anyway, we yapped a little more and she thinks that we need to tell Kate, she just doesn't know how. We did agree that we should tell Paige (since she chats with the girl being scammed more than
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  • either of us). So I did what any self-respecting Redditor would do. I texted Paige the OG Reddit post and asked her to call me when she was done. Needless to
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  • say, she called me and told me that she felt that the stories of our Kate's boyfriend were strange, but seeing them all written down made it seem entirely suspicious. We now have
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  • a group chat and we're trying to figure out the best way to tell her on Monday (because preventing this before any money is stolen is a big priority). Stay Tuned!!!
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  • AnnesleyandCo Oh, this poor girl. She's lucky that you and your coworkers/friends have put your heads together and are trying to help her - she's obviously not thinking
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  • clearly and she could wind up in such deep financial sh. A friend's mom lost almost half a million dollars (USD!) in a romance scam
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  • (which is more understandable for her, in her 70s or 80s, than it is for a young woman, but I digress).
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  • Oddly-Appeased I have a friend from high school that has been married and divorced twice now. The second ended about 3 years ago and the final straw happened when they came back to the state I live in to visit family and she ended up staying.
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  • After this I learned she was talking to some guy she met online and had been sending money here and there. Right off this felt odd
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  • to me. Then I learned the guy was "in the military" and "didn't have access to his money" which really sounded wrong. I'm an army
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  • brat, literally born on an army base and most of my family has been in the military. I started telling her gently that this all sounded
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  • wrong and no matter where he might be deployed they will make sure he has access to everything he needs, including his money.
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  • This guy kept asking her for money and even a new phone, which I thought I had convinced her to stop but she bought and sent one. Then it got returned because of a problem with the address, told her she should just return it but she didn't. She showed me a
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  • couple of pictures, like you mentioned the pictures didn't quite look real and took me a bit to pick out the problem. With those he said he was Army but in one picture he was wearing a T- shirt with the Air Force logo and another was Navy. Now
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  • if you know anything about the armed forces, I've got family in almost every branch, you'll know they ALL give each other h_l and it's all but blasphemous to wear the wrong gear. So big red flags to me.
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  • Nothing I said was really convincing her of anything, she would act like I was getting through but then keep talking to him. It wasn't until he sent a form to make the relationship "official". So he sent her a "Relationship Application" form, which is total BS. Asked for all kinds of dumb information and a "Cheque for $900" made out
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  • to the Department of Defense. Now my daughter married her husband who was in the Army Reserve at the time of their wedding and while I knew this form was BS I got my daughter on the phone, searched the military romance scams online and presented all of this to her which again seemed like she understood but still kept talking to this guy.
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Dating-Relationships first date dating fails detective advice We Are Dating red flags dating apps red flag first dates online dating dating
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