Woman falls victim to romance scam after sending money to a fake boyfriend: I want to vomit

One rainy afternoon in August, Jean Booth scurried up the stairs of a nondescript Thai restaurant tucked into a strip mall off the highway, shook out her blue, shoulder-length hair and took out her phone.She bit her lip; no messages.Her boyfriend, Donnie, was due to arrive at the airport in a matter of hours, but Jean hadn’t heard from him all day.

This little hole-in-the-wall was a pit stop on the way to their new life together.She’d been forced to move into her dad’s house in Ohio since her life fell apart in the spring, in no small part because of Donnie.

She told herself that if Donnie didn’t call or message by the time this lunch was over, she’d write him off forever.She twirled her fork around the steaming noodles in front of her and wondered if Donnie had ever tasted pad thai, if he liked spicy food, if they would ever sit together in a restaurant like this.Over the next half-hour, Jean checked her phone a few more times.But Donnie didn’t text or call that afternoon.

Part of her knew he wouldn’t.They’d never met in person, never even spoken on the phone.

Still, Jean wanted so badly to believe he’d really show up this time.Jean wouldn’t hear from Donnie until hours later, when he’d send a WhatsApp message telling her he couldn’t get a plane ticket, that he was stuck, that he was scared and in danger.When he’d tell her he was sorry, and ask her, again, for money.

Jean would then pull into a sprawling parking lot in suburban Virginia, and cry.She was angry at Donnie, but angrier at herself.She knew somewhere in the back of her mind that Donnie didn’t exist.She also knew that before she hit the road again, in spite of all logic and months of warnings from everyone in her life, she’d send the money anyway.As a kid growing up in a religious household, Jean found the strict doctrines of Christianity unconvincing.

But Jean has always been a believer: in fate, magic and, above all, that people are honest and, more often than not, me...