Inmate boyfriend tells me he is going to scam other women

Absolutely this happens and I would say it's widespread.  There is a major element of survival taking place in daily prison life - and let's not forget, these are convicted criminals, whether they're our friends, penpals, lovers or what.  I don't know if women right away send inmates cash.  My guess is that they would at least hook the victim first - with a series of emails, and communication.  Develop some kind of friendship.  Then start dropping in hints about it being difficult for them to afford stamps or email credits etc.  By this time, the lonely woman probably doesn't want to throw away a connection she has enjoyed developing, so would then send cash to ensure their correspondence continued. 

But I think they'd then gradually build up the money being asked for and get more and more less subtle.  And they wouldn't be doing this to one person, but multiple people at once.  It's an income stream.  They get virtually nothing in prison and everything still costs heaps.

It's up to you if you want to encourage or have zero tolerance for such behaviour.  Personally, that would probably be enough for me to cut contact.  It's just too manipulative, evil and morally wrong for me - and shows a complete lack of willing to better themselves in prison.

I'm a guy, but female inmates do it too.  I deliberately don't write to any female inmates younger than myself (29), because I've found the rates of scamming, asking for money, or sugar daddies are far higher among them.

I have ONCE been asked for money - in a first letter, or rather, in a reply to my answer to an ad.

I told him that for one, I wouldn't send any money and second that his letter sounded very different from his ad so I was wondering whether he had someone to write this ad for him or which one was really he himself. (the ad or the letter). I never heard back - but I didn't expect it.

The rest of the 5 guys I wrote has never asked me for money. Two of them explicitly said: "You don't owe me anything, so your time, the convos and the laughs you give are more than enough."

One of my pp I gave a small amount for his bd, just as a little surprise. But it was clear that it was a bd gift and not anything regular. And it was taken this way.

It's up to you what you do, but personally I'd not want to have someone as a partner who is acting like this. Plus, I'd warn the staff of the site about it and tell him I'd print that letter off and pass it on if he did.

I mean, being in a relationship for 11 yrs (not with an inmate, but my partner knows about the writing), I'm out of reach anyway. but there are a few things I'd neither do, nor tolerate if I knew about them. And this would be one of those.

I'm sure it does happen a lot. It's probably like anything else, if their sales pitch is good and they get some percentage of people to send money and it at least covers the cost of the ad then it's a win. It's not great of course to be scammed. Although in some cases it might just be out of desperation, because unless they have some kind of hustle like tattooing or selling art etc, they might be barely getting enough money to buy deodorant etc. Anything I've seen is like cafeteria head tray banger maybe 20 cents an hour, and if a deodorant is $1.50 well that's a lot of hours just for a deodorant.

I understand that money is scarce in prison and that the cost of living there is beyond the income they can make with their job, given that they are lucky enough to obtain a job. However, scamming people is something that I cannot get behind. I've had two penpals that have asked me for help in scamming women and I have outright refused and cut contact with them. I made it clear when I wrote my first letter that I could not send any money. They never asked me for money, but asked me to help them scam people for money. Personally, I do not tolerate that and it disgusts me to think that this is the way they choose to make a living. One of them even went as far as telling me that women should be lucky that a man as good looking as him is even giving them any attention. He thinks he should fairly be compensated, I don't think that is the case. 

Trust your gut feeling, if you are not ok with this tell him so. You don't have to be involved in anything that makes your uncomfortable or goes against your ethics. 

How do they get help from someone on the outside?  What techniques do they use?

Cuzzo - What did your boyfriend say? Is he going ahead with his plan or has he taken your views into consideration? 

One of them wanted me to put up a profile here on WAP whose context was looking for love. 

The other one, apart from putting a similar profile here, wanted me to put an online dating profile for him and pretend to be him and get him in contact with women. He also wanted me to run his Facebook page. 

I don't know if its frowned upon here to share negative details about some inmates, however I think this kind of behavior is ugly and needs to be put out there so women who are sincerely looking to correspond with an inmate don't fall victim to these scams. There's a lot of good information on this forum about red flags, and I think this is one of the biggest ones. 

One of the major reasons we write to inmates and develop friendships - and the major reason this site exists in the first place - is to comfort them and help them through their incarceration. To help them become better than the person who did the crime. Openly scamming anyone for money displays that they learned nothing. Yes, I know it’s hard in prison. They make bs wages and need money for things like toothpaste, shampoo, etc. But that does not make it okay to take advantage of people who only wanted to help in the first place. I can’t tell you how to feel - although it sounds like you’re disgusted by the idea - but I would break off contact with him and let him know how wrong it is. They can’t be truly forgiven if they are continuing to hurt others for their own personal gain.

I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable continuing correspondence with this dude . The fact he could so quickly justify doing it himself speaks loudly about his tru character. I’ve seen women on other sites say well as long as the pressure off me to send $ it’s fine but the replies really hammered away at those women. 

I have cut all contact. Thank you. He was also very controlling and anything he did wrong he played it off like I did something wrong. Sorry, but my best friend catfishing him sexual content and him responding repeatedly was not in any way my fault. He turned it around on me saying he thought it was me the entire time. Well, it wasn't me and I saw the emails. It was very clear he did not think it was me. I couldn't deal with the crap after he said he was gonna scam other women for an income. I'm all about supporting women, not allowing them to be used and me knowing about it. I appreciate your advice. You were equal on both sides of it. Thank you. :)

That is, unfortunately, super common. However, it's not acceptable. If I were in your shoes, I would be done with him!

Some men and women are smart, I would consider myself lucky to be writing to someone who is "intelligent" and gifted at what she does in term of art and drawing tattoos and she has a "good job" doing cleaning. I consider myself lucky to be writing to her at all... Therefore I'm not going to identify who she is in any way and I've written this in a non-descript way that could be anyone. Some people in prison need to get by doing what they have to do.... I will say from my experience, the ones that turn on the water work or tell you how much they love you straight away are generally disingenuous and should be avoided. The ones in states like California that can be living a life better than some people on the outside with the items they can get from care packages are particularly bad for it.

I've always had a "you don't have to do to that" relationship with the one I write to now, so if it ever changed I would tell her what's going on... but in general you should be weary of anyone who asks for your love or your money sooner than what you would expect, this is particularly the case if you are already a vulnerable member of society. You don't have to respond to me about that, just be candid with yourself and recognie that if you're reading this and that is you.

To return to the point, scammers go to the bottom of the list like murderers, rapist, and child molesters. I would not choose to associate with this person any further.

Hello, is this about the guy you named in your other post?
If so I can tell you about our conversations. We talk fairly frequently.
I'd just like to point out though, I've been talking to him for under a month, but not once has he asked me for anything, nor have I given him anything.I know it's early days in correspondence.

It sucks but its a common thing everywhere. Some guys even have double digit penpals and convince them to send 20$ here and there for "postage". meanwhile they are generating a really good income. It may be a bit time consumming writing so many letters but honestly... almost all of them do it. The penpals that give money are called "licks" and potential licks. Not saying they all do this just alot of them.. . it just bloowssss but more common then people care to admit.

I haven't read all the comments, so I'm sure someone else has pointed this out, but if he's doing it to other people, he'll do it to you.

And yeah, inmates ask for cash and women give it to them all the time. My incarcerated friend calls it the hustle. A few years ago, I had one person in particular ask me for money. He said his aunt used to send him money, his aunt died and now he needed a new person to send him money. I said no twice - that I don't offer money, just friendship - and in the second letter, he sent me a cost breakdown of what he'd need that totalled $89 a month. I said I wasn't rich enough to have $89 lying around, and that I was only offering friendship, and I never heard from the guy again. Someone here at the time suggested I respond with a breakdown of what I needed for rent, bills, etc. and tell him if he can help me out, then we can get to work on his situation.

Anyway, I figure the only thing that set him apart from some other people is that he tried it with a lot less savvy.

Ha ha..nice one wildart..

Circling back to the topic...it's a huge, mean spirited abuse of trust..not to mention souring things up for the genuine inmates who really could do with a few $$$ here and there for toileitries..paper etc..

Jpay I'd assume

So, I find myself in a similar situation right now... I'm a straight female and my pen pal (who's been telling me he's in love with me) of almost a year has just told me about his 'grand plan': basically start scamming gay men by pretending to be gay himself. Now, I know very well inmates do that ALL the time, but honestly I wouldn't have expected something like that from HIM.  In his letter he simply asks me 'not to laugh at this', well, I don't find it funny one bit... Frankly, I just want to stop writing once and for all, but maybe I should still send him one last letter to let him know how I feel about it? What do you guys think? We were getting along really well before this 'revelation', even talked on the phone a few times (I'm from Overseas) but I just don't feel that I can trust him anymore. I don't know, maybe he thinks I should be happy that it's no me he's scamming? lol Pat him on the shoulder? Yeah... He made a huuuge mistake by sharing this stuff with me, I just don't wan't anything to do with him anymore!

@Tilia - had you not been developing something over the course of a year with this penpal, you wouldn't hesitate to just stop writing him.  He is clearly quite proud of his "scam" if he's openly sharing it with you, and probably others.  If you don't want anything to do with him anymore - then trust your instincts and don't write him.

You don't owe him anything - no last letter, no anything.  What could be gained from writing him a final letter?

You might get some peace of mind, but I'm sure you'd also get some peace of mind from just erasing this person from your life by not replying.  You could tell him how you feel about his scams, but would good would that do? This guy would have experienced dozens upon dozens of people expressing their dislike, frustration and anger at him and his crimes over the years - the guy would be immune to it by now, especially if he is continuing his criminal (or at least morally corrupt) ways in prison, instead of focusing energies in a positive way.

Tilia, send him a message telling him your exact thoughts. Yes, he did make a mistake in telling you... you’re now enabling him if you do nothing and carry on as normal. Ditch him, is my opinion.

Give him a letter, tell him what you think and why. Maybe that doesn't stop him, but it might give him sth. to think about.

You know, sometimes it's not easy to deal with subjects that arise. I've got a pp in AZ, who I actually had a great start with. Then he wrote sth. that made my blood freeze. It took me a while to reply to his letter because I honestly had to sort out myself and my own feelings first.

We're still being in the middle of the process of having an argument/conflict on the one hand and I'm not fully sure we'll be able to work this out. But, on the other hand, what we both get is a genuine reflection of what these words (we didn't speak on the phone) caused in the other one. That alone can have an effect in itself.

Well, actually, it's up to you. Sometimes it isn't easy to write to someone, build sort of a bond with someone and then stumbling over a situation where it shows clearly you're not sharing the same values. But for people you like it's worth going through the process, though it isn't easy sometimes.

Thank you all for your thoughts! I did send him a brief letter simply because I know he won't stop bothering me if I just ghosted him like that. Ha, I'm pretty sure now that I'm not the only chick he's been telling the same stuff to... He and his sob stories lol And poor unsespecting gay guys are gonna be his next target :( Way to go... Anyways, if any of you have doubts about your smooth talking Cali pen pals, feel free to drop me a line at tilia10317 [at] gmail.comrel="nofollow" I'll be happy to share the details.

It just takes a few bad apples to ruin it for all the good ones out there :(

You still writing him? I've just begun and don't wanna waste my time if he's in a commited relationship.
Crystaldautrich [at] yahoo.comrel="nofollow"
HMU

My ex even told me that I'll be his main chick and that the others wod not know about me. I asked him,how would I know if he is not telling the same thing to the other women. They think they are street smart but they aren't. After complaining about serial killers getting more mail then him and having money to be on every penpal. He had money to buy a gold chain from catalogues but couldn't put money on the phone.It was a sign that he got money from somewhere or someone else.

If you send money to a pen pal, make them work for it.  This is way cheaper than therapy.  I'm kidding, I'm kidding!!!!!

It kinda goes both ways.  If people want to sponsor a person who doesn't have anything or give a gift that is very nice but yeah there are people who try to get whatever making a bunch of promises or hinting the friendship will only continue if they can help out.  It's just like out here in the real world, sometimes people ask for things but don't want to give back, so just be a grown up and say no to people. 

I've been asked for things (not money) and didn't want to do it and had pen pals throw tantrums so I stopped talking to them until they apologized and stopped bringing it up.  No one has asked me to help scam anyone but I'd be mad if I found out they were doing it because that's a shitty thing to do.

What's this inmates initials sounds like the guy I've been talking too