Meet the Army Veteran who's the Face of Military Romance Scams
(Credit: Task & Purpose)
In 2015 Bryan Denny received an odd message in his LinkedIn inbox.
“I really need to speak with you, Bryan,” a woman wrote. “I thought you were coming to visit me after your deployment in Syria was completed?”
Unfortunately the Army veteran who had spent two and a half decades of his life serving, had never been to Syria. He thought the woman was confused, and it was a case of mistaken identity. But the more he talked to her the more he realized that something was amiss.
In fact, the woman had been dating a man by the same name and identical looks and had sent him around $35,000. Since the woman had claimed she verified his identity through facebook, he decided to look for himself. That's when he found over 100 profiles all with his name and stolen pictures during his time in the military. There were countless other profiles with different names also using his pictures.
Now, Bryan is fighting back. He knows that he may never get every fake profile deleted, or be able to help every victim, but he hopes to help in other ways like spreading awareness about this ever increasing scam.
This article by Task & Purpose (a veterans news site) goes into detail about Bryan's story. It also gives many insights into how these scams work and what to know to avoid them.