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A Houston Man Was Catfished and Paid a Woman He Never Met $80,000

SMH.

It's hard to argue that online dating is tough. All those swipes, deciphering self-made bios and assessing what someone will actually look like based on their highly curated photos can be exhausting. Lots of labor is expended, all in the name of trying to prevent one thing, usually: getting catfished. 

For Greg Davis of Houston, his biggest mistake in the game of online dating was trusting a woman he had never met. He shares his story below. Greg met "Malikah," a supposed Chicago native, on Match.com. Their online love affair progressed to emails, phone calls and sexting. It was then Malikah sent Greg a will that declared she was to inherit money overseas — but there's a catch. She asked Greg to front her money for taxes and shipping. He did so in small increments, totaling about $80,000 over two years. He recently asked for photographic proof of her inheritance, only to receive a video taken by a man of counterfeit money. It was then, Greg says, he knew he had been scammed.  

To accrue the funds, Greg gave away all his retirement money, maxed out credit cards and took out more than a dozen payday loans. Sigh. The news team that reported this story traced the photographs Greg received to a Facebook account belonging to a Colombian porn star. This is why we have to use the reverse image search feature on Google, people! Just drag an image in to the Google search box and if it exists elsewhere on the internet, it will come right up.

"Make sure you're actually face-to-face with that person," Greg said of how to prevent this from happening to you. Word, we will. 

We'll pray for you, Greg.

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