Marine Online: for those fighting for their country in a war zone, their computer might be their only link to the outside world, and may also make them more vulnerable to online scammers. U.S. Marine Brandon Paine sustained an online romance with a fake woman, Katie from Germany, which turned out to be a scam.
By day, Paine trained Afghan police. At night he turned to his computer, desperate for a link to the world back home.
"Anything that comes along that might have the slightest bit of happiness, or lift your spirits, definitely something you're going to jump on right away, said Paine.
For Paine it was a friend request from a beautiful woman on the social networking site Myspace.
"She said she thought I was good looking, wanted to talk to me, overall thing was she was a big supporter of the troops, said Paine.
Paine didn't hesitate.
"I was like wow...this girl is gorgeous and I'll talk to her if she wants to talk to me...why not. She told me her name was Katie, that she was a model, 22 years old from Germany."
Katie was supposedly from Germany, but living in Spanaway, Washington. Her pictures were amazing, her messages intense. The friendship progressed to a cyber love affair. Then Paine came home.
He was finally back from his tour of duty and now stationed in southern California. Paine kept trying to meet the mysterious Katie, but days turned into weeks and then months and it never happened.
"There was always some excuse, something comes up, this bad thing happens, that bad thing happens, said Paine. From a family death, to surgery, fate seemed to keep them apart, but Katie's devotion never wavered.Paine also gave her money."This first one was for $500 and this second one was for a thousand. She had me put it in her mom's name and said she could go pick it up because she lost her ID, said Paine.Katie promised to repay him claiming she was worth millions. She said embezzlers had frozen her funds.Paine bought it all, but his parents were suspicious. He finally had a private investigator look into the situation, and it turned out that Katie's address was actually for a mail center in Spanaway. The woman who picks up Katies mail is much older, married with grandchildren, deeply in debt and undergoing her third bankruptcy."Katie is a 5-foot 7-inch gorgeous blonde girl and this is a very unattractive elderly heavyset woman, said Paine.So why was Paine so easily convinced by the scheme?"Theyre in danger all the time over there, we know that and so, for them, to have a little bit of connection with someone that's outside of that mindset is a relief to them, it's a respite, it's kind of creating sanctuary, but it's a sanctuary that's an artificial sanctuary, said Bridget Cantrell, an expert in combat stress and veterans affairs."They are vulnerable. They're feeling so many emotions to the height that we will never know what they go through, but their emotions are extreme, said Cantrell.Paine says he's moved on, which is what Marines are trained to do. But he wishes his combat training had included warnings about scams like this."I'm not an easy person to fool. I'm trained to see through people's lies. So to not see through it, I had my own want to have something good in my life, said Paine.
