Comedy star Ilka Bessin (“Cindy from Marzahn”) wants to help those affected by so-called love scamming in a new show. She had to gain her own experience with it.
Nowadays, couples regularly get to know each other on the Internet. Tinder, Parship, Bumble & Co. are common platforms to find someone – be it just for a while or forever. But real love stories also begin again and again on social networks such as Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. Sometimes, however, they are not real. Sometimes the person on the other screen isn’t the one a woman thinks she’s getting to know, or vice versa not the one a man is about to fall in love with. But a so-called love scammer.
This is someone who isn’t after real affection, just money. How clever some perpetrators are was recently seen in the Netflix documentary “The Tinder Swindler”. But not only bona fide Instagram stars became victims of love scammers, the popular comedy star Ilka Bessin, better known as “Cindy from Marzahn”, also had to make this bitter experience.
Ilka Bessin has sympathy for victims of scamming
The 50-year-old from Berlin was “in love and made dependent,” she reports in a video for the TV channel Vox, “and then she was paid for.” She doesn’t go into detail, but reveals: “If he tickles my nerve that he gets my trust – then it’s over anyway.” She sighs and shrugs. This is probably the case for many women (and men) who fall for love scammers or very real, manipulative partners. First, trust and emotional closeness are built up, although in many cases they have never met in person, then the sympathy of those affected is addressed with a tragic story and money is begged for.
The number of unreported victims is high, because they are often ashamed of having fallen for such a swindler. Others quickly take you for naïve and gullible, although you have always acted rationally and down-to-earth in other areas of life. Such fraud scratches on self-confidence. Ilka Bessin would like to work against this. She makes it clear: “I’m not ashamed of it either, because that can happen to anyone, because when you love, you do things that you sometimes smile about afterwards, when you’re sitting in the garden with mom.”
Ilka Bessin helps those affected
However, such scams often end so bitterly that a smile is not enough. Some victims lose large amounts of money, suffer from psychological problems. To help them, ran on Vox on Wednesday, September 28th. In it, Ilka Bessin meets victims of love scams, talks to them about the cases and tries to track down the often unknown perpetrators. It is important to the comedienne that those affected go to the police, even if it may be uncomfortable at first. “It can happen to anyone and it’s okay if you talk about it and go to the police and report it,” she says. “There’s no need to be ashamed of that!”
“On the trail of love scammers” ran on VOX and can now be seen in the RTL + media library.
Source: Stern
I am a 24-year-old writer and journalist who has been working in the news industry for the past two years. I write primarily about market news, so if you’re looking for insights into what’s going on in the stock market or economic indicators, you’ve come to the right place. I also dabble in writing articles on lifestyle trends and pop culture news.
