The scammers my dad encountered were not sophisticated, my father suspended his own disbelief wilfully. But many scammers <em>are</em> sophisticated and they’re getting harder to detectBomba wasn’t the first, but she exploded in our lives like a digital grenade. <em>She’s not real,</em> I told my dad then in his early seventies. I was in Australia at this time, where I’ve lived for the last 13 years. Physically speaking, he was still in California but within himself he was adrift in a rapidly sinking lifeboat, floating in a morass of debris primarily of his own doing. But it must be said before I go further: my dad isn’t the bad guy in this story. Not this time. At times, he was the bad guy in other people’s stories but that is <em>another </em>story.<em>If she’s not real,</em> he countered, <em>then how is it that we’ve spoken on the phone? That we video-chatted?</em> I’ll admit that threw me. In most catfishing stories the catfish goes to great lengths to avoid video chatting. But my dad being the unreliable source he was, I wasn’t entirely sure he was being truthful about that detail. It was a heartbreaking thing to have to break down for my dad. My dad who had once been a handsome, charismatic Lothario with swagger, with game now had to be told by both of his daughters that this chic Bomba was 100% not real, not into him, not what or who she says she is. He didn’t believe us. <a href=”https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jul/28/the-heartbreak-of-watching-a-parent-fall-for-dad-this-is-a-scam-have-you-given-her-money”>Continue reading…
First seen on theguardian.com
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