Your new love is asking for money? Be sure to investigate your partner
If you’ve heard lines like these from your new beau, consider it a red flag waving in your face, a warning that you absolutely must check out your romantic partner.
“You really should invest in this project. When it comes through, we’ll be rich.”
“I just need a little help until I get my feet on the ground.”
“My boss at my last job was an idiot, so I quit. I’ll have another job soon.”
Yes, it is possible that the statements are true. But it is also possible that you’re dealing with a sociopath who sees no point in working for a living when a chump like you will support him. (Or her—everything in this section applies to female con artists as well as male.)
The key issue here is time. A real relationship usually takes time to develop. If the two of you have known each other for less than six months or a year, and this person is already asking you for money, you should verify the story. Unfortunately, it won’t be easy.
Step 1 to check out your romantic partner: Ask questions
Start with the basics—ask questions. You can do this in a conversational way, as in, “So, tell me where you went to college. When did you go? What was your major?”
Then check out your romantic partner by calling the university to see if its records match the story. If your beau claims to be a professional such as a lawyer, accountant or even a plumber, call state licensing agencies or professional associations to see if he’s listed.
“Psychopaths usually give vague, evasive or inconsistent replies to queries about their personal lives,” says Dr. Robert Hare in his book, Without Conscience. “Be suspicious of such replies, and try to verify them.” *
Be especially suspicious if your love has recently come to town from a distant location—sociopaths tend to move around a lot.
Investigate your partner with background check
With a little information about your beau—full name, date of birth, driver’s license number—you can check out your romantic partner. Certain information is available through public sources, such as property ownership, driving records, civil judgments and criminal convictions. It is sometimes accessible over the Internet.
Although public information is available, finding it may be time-consuming. And often the background information you really need is in proprietary databases. That means you have to pay for it, or pay a professional who subscribes to the databases.
If you want to know about your beau quickly, you may want to contact a reputable private investigator. He or she knows exactly where to look for information, and can probably do a more thorough job than you can. Lots of people are doing it, especially when they’ve met the new love interest online.
Credit check
Here’s a news flash: It is illegal for you to request a credit check on your boyfriend, girlfriend, fiance or spouse without his or her permission.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act is the law that governs credit checks. The law specifically states who may see someone’s credit report:
- The person himself or herself
- Creditors
- Insurance companies
- Employers (with permission)
- Landlords
- Government licensing agencies
- Someone with a court order
- Child support enforcement agencies
- Businesses with which the person has initiated a transaction
- Potential investors and loan servicing companies
- Homeland security agencies
Anyone not on the list—which probably means you—cannot run a credit check on someone without permission.
Maybe you know people who have access to credit reports—friends who work at real estate agencies, employment agencies or mortgage companies. If you ask them to run a report, know that the Fair Credit Reporting Act prohibits anyone from obtaining a credit report under false pretenses. The person violated—your beau—has the right to sue for actual damages, punitive damages and attorney fees.
Is the risk worth it? You’ll have to decide.
Consumer protection agencies
Consumer protection agencies focus on dealing with unscrupulous businesses. If your beau owns a business, or claims to have owned a business, you could inquire at a state or local agency, or the Better Business Bureau. Perhaps they’ll report no complaints. This is not proof that he or she is legitimate.
“It can give people a false sense of comfort,” says Susan Grant, director of the National Fraud Information Center. “We say that no complaints is no guarantee. There can be a lag time between when transactions occur, and when there is a complaint.”
Plus, organizations like the National Fraud Information Center focus on problems such as telemarketing fraud and Internet fraud. They simply are not set up to help when someone is trying to sweet talk you out of your money.
Listen to your instincts—and your friends
So what can you do? Here are some suggestions:
1. Don’t ignore your doubts Your emotions, or your relief about finally finding someone who wants you, will cloud your judgment. If your instincts are telling you something is wrong, pay attention. Set aside your romantic feelings and critically evaluate exactly what your beau is proposing to you.
2. Verify the story Try to check anything that he or she told you—place of birth, military service, job history. If you find discrepancies and confront your beau about them, be prepared. He or she will probably try to explain them away, or attack you for not being trusting.
3. Ask your friends what they think Your friends will assume that you know what you’re doing, and they won’t want to throw a wet blanket on your happiness. So even if they don’t like the guy or gal, they will not say anything—unless you ask for their honest opinions. If they are suspicious, listen to them.
4. Ask for a credit check To proceed with a credit check, you have two legal options:
- Get permission from your beau to do the check, in writing.
- Ask your love interest to get his or her own credit reports and show them to you.
You’ll want reports from the three main credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
This is risky emotionally, but you’ll find out if the person really cares about you. Someone who truly loves you might be offended, but will understand. A sociopath who is out to fleece you will get angry, tell you any credit problems are not his or her fault, or disappear.
5. Be honest with yourself Would you be thinking about giving your new love money if he or she wasn’t saying, “I love you?”
Sociopaths keep the charade going as long as it suits their purpose
Some sociopaths can treat people reasonably well for an extended period of time, if it suits their purpose. For example, Lovefraud received the following e-mail from a reader:
I was not in a disastrous relationship with my S. Our relationship was less than three years, our marriage less than two, when he openly cheated and decided to leave me, then played games of false reconciliation, which in hindsight were so he could have two sex partners.
The short end of my question is… How do you reconcile the basically happy marriage, the illusion of a man you married with the horrible monster he has become in trying to create turmoil in your life and use your greatest love (your child) to hurt you?
Sociopaths often express love
Lovefraud has conducted multiple surveys about people who exhibited sociopathic traits. One of the objectives of the Lovefraud Romantic Partner Survey was to investigate whether and how often sociopaths expressed love.
We asked the question, “Did the individual you were involved with verbally express love or caring to you?”
A total of 85% of all survey respondents said yes. And, when the individuals being described were the spouses or romantic partners of the survey respondents, rather than parents, children or others, 92% of the males and 95% of the females expressed love verbally.
How often did this happen? A total of 44% of survey respondents said the sociopathic individual expressed love daily.
The survey also asked the following: “Please provide a brief description of the way the person you were involved with expressed love. How did this change over the course of your relationship?” Some of the answers to this question were shocking.
A small group of survey respondents reported a complete change of behavior the moment they were committed to the relationship—moved in, married or pregnant. This startling change was reported in reference to 7% of the females and 5% of the males. Here are some of the quotes:
“Initially with dates, flowers, gifts and little thoughtfullness’s. After I married him, he said, on the Honeymoon, ‘I can stop acting now.’ I thought that he was joking. I later learned he did not do jokes.”
“From very loving to cold indifference…started right after we were married — The change was startling — cold, distant, indifferent, condescending, mean spirited, accusatory — self righteous, irresponsible.”
“It changed the minute we got married. Then he owned me you see, I was nothing to him after he lured me in! All he wanted was MONEY!”
“In the beginning of the relationship (before marriage) he was loving, caring, could not do enough for me. Called me his soul mate, his true companion in life. This continued until the day I married him, within hours after the wedding ceremony his personality shifted. It was as if I had dated and fell in love with one person, but married someone I was completely unfamiliar with, he was a stranger to me in all ways.”
If you’re involved with a sociopath, the loving partner doesn’t exist
So, back to the reader’s question, “How do you reconcile the basically happy marriage with the horrible monster he has become?”
The man this reader saw during the happy part of the marriage did not exist. It was an act, a charade, a mirage that the sociopath kept going until it no longer served his purpose. The real man is the horrible monster.
The bottom line: If you have a bad feeling about your new love, or if something doesn’t add up, be sure to check out your romantic partner right away.