Why So Many Women Fall For Online Romance Scams

After a divorce, dates that didn't go anywhere, and the continued hope that she might meet someone online whom she could marry, Jodi Bourgeois met the perfect man -- someone who identified himself as Greg Garic.

Garic told her that his wife had died while giving birth to their son five years earlier, and he said he hadn't dated anyone until the day, last April, that he messaged Bourgeois on Chemistry.com. Nights of instant messaging, for three or four hours at a time, followed and Garic spoke with Bourgeois about his childhood in France, projects he worked on as an engineer, and their shared love of dogs. Bourgeois confided that she couldn't have children.

"He was very good with words," Bourgeois recalls. "Some of the emails he sent me were unbelievable. I showed them to my friends and they were like, 'Oh my god, he’s so romantic. He’s wonderful'."

After a week, Garic was saying, "I love you," and within a month he and Bourgeois were talking about marriage. He said he lived in Chicago, and even called Bourgeois from a 312 area code, but a business trip took Garic to London before the pair could to meet in person.

Once Garic said he had arrived in London, he asked Bourgeois for $1,800, a request that stunned her.

"When he first asked me for the money, it was like somebody punched me in the gut," she says. "When it started coming up

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