Plenty Of Fish / POF.com
Complaint 142941 Details

I joined POF.com the end of July 2012. Within 2 days I received a very nice e-mail from a man named Jeff Cleto Antonio. He claimed to be Italian and had only been in this country for 7 years since his wife died. He owned a business buying & selling cocoa beans. I googled him and saw his website and I saw his home address. We IM chatted constantly for 2 weeks. If I asked for a picture of his dog, I received it within a minute. The same thing with his daughter and grandkids, pictures right away. He appeared to be somewhat shy and very much a gentleman. One day he tells me that he had made a terrible mistake on a business deal. He had lost his cocoa bean supplier in Brazil and had sent 600,000.00 to a farmer in Africa who hadn't sent his order to him and it had been 5 months. Suddenly a few days before I was to leave for vacation he says that he has to be in Africa at the Immigration Dept. to get his product shipped.
He called me the day before I was to leave and he was in Ghana and said that the banks were closed because the President of Ghana had died
I googled the President of Ghana and found that he had died the day before. He asked me to wire him $1,200.00 to pay for his hotel. Even though I was suspicious I felt so bad for him being in that country all alone. I did Western Union the money to him. Once he got that he started asking for more money for food and car rental and to pay Immigration for his shipment. I told him no and that I thought I was being scammed by him. He started e-mailing me apologizing for asking for help. I continued talking to him on e-mail until he asked me for money again. Finally I texted him and told him that I had read about these romance scams on POF.com and knew that this was one of them. He kept calling for a few days but I wouldn't answer my cell phone. I know that I've lost my money but for me it was a hard lesson learned. I really thought I was smarter than that. I just don't want this to happen to anyone else.