The Face Was Real. The Story Was Not. How I Found the Truth Behind the Scam
A step by step look at how I exposed the truth behind the lies, and a guide to how you can do the same if someone you know is being scammed, by using reverse image search
In relationships, the exchange of money is commonplace. Have you ever asked your husband for 20 dollars on your way out the door? Have you ever asked your wife to move money from one account into another to cover upcoming bills? Have you ever paid airfare for your sweetheart to visit you while you were away on work, or dating at a distance?
Victims of romance scams are first manipulated into believing they are in a real relationship prior to any money being exchanged. Then they are led to believe that the person they care about is in a dire situation with no relief in sight. Imagine if your spouse was in trouble, wouldn’t you move mountains to help them?
Naively, I thought that my mother would view a request for money as a red flag. What I failed to realize was that it would only be viewed as a red flag if she thought that a scammer was asking… and if my mom had believed it was a scammer to begin with, they wouldn’t have even interacted.
When mom finally broke and confessed that money was being exchanged, I realized that in order to convince her that she was dealing with a scammer, I would have to prove that she wasn’t dealing with a real person. I’m no private detective! How was I going to do it?
This four part series explores romance scams by sharing the story of how my mother was exploited, but more importantly what it took to stop the scammers in their tracks. You are reading part 3. Part 2 shares my mothers vulnerable story of being pulled in by a scammer. If you haven’t yet read part 1, which gives an overview of what these scams are, how they work, and how to spot if you or a loved one are in one…I suggest you start there. Here is the link to part one of this series.
The Breaking Point
I spend time with my mom every Wednesday. It’s something we started doing after she moved here in 2020 to be close to me, my husband and my step daughter. Our Wednesday hang out time includes going for walks, eating breakfast together, sometimes I help her with tasks or chores, but whatever activity we’re doing, we’re talking while we do it.
Because I had expressed concern about her online connection, my mom was careful not to share too much with me during our Wednesday chats, and eventually she stopped volunteering any information at all. I would ask how things were going, and she would just say, “really well, I’m so happy to have met this man.” She would also qualify her happiness by telling me that she didn’t know what the future held, and occasionally she expressed concern for his safety. She would always finish by reassuring me that she knew there was a reason they met, and that she now knew with confidence that he was a real person. No longer a threat — I should relax. Then we’d talk about something else like my travels, after all I was on the road a fair amount, and there were pictures to show and stories to tell.
It was at this time her health began to become a topic of conversation as well. She was having some strange symptoms, and pursuing answers.
By February, as I headed off to spend 10 days in Amsterdam teaching and performing in an impro festival, my mom’s talk was almost exclusively about how stressed she felt. How she had to be careful of her nervous system. I assumed she was worried about her soldier getting hurt in the war, but it never occurred to me that her increased stress wasn’t limited to war stuff and health stuff. The silent cause of stress behind it all, was the complicated money situation she found herself in, that she was keeping from me.
While I was away, her financial entanglement with the scammer grew beyond her capacity to keep quiet.
I returned from the Netherlands, and still jet lagged from my travels, met up with my mom to catch up. It was February 24th, a dreary Monday, two days ahead of our scheduled time (to make up for the time I had missed while out of the country). The rain was pouring outside, giving us a dramatic backdrop for the conversation that ensued.
My mother filled me in on what was happening with her health. It was scary. She was having issues with her speech, her tongue, her throat and her abdominal strength. Her doctor was testing for something called Myasthenia Gravis. It would still be six more months for us to learn that she was in the early stages of ALS.
But she was beyond stressed, panicked, agitated, and kept repeating that her nervous system couldn’t handle all of the stress of waiting for test results with “everything else” that was going on. As she talked, my heart sank with realization. I immediately knew that something had happened with her long distance connection…but I still didn’t know what.
“Did something happen with Vasylko?” I asked.
She didn’t want to tell me. She looked at me with big eyes as if she had been caught doing something bad. She was holding her breath.
I waited.
She inhaled, weighing her confession and finally told me that she and Vasylko had a plan to get him out of the Ukraine, but that she didn’t know if it would be in time. He had been moved to somewhere where the fighting was particularly dangerous, and she didn’t know if the Military Financial Department would be cooperative.
“The Military Financial department? What is that?” I asked.
She gave me a muddled summary that included partial information about a failed attempt to send money, a bank account and a credit advance. She showed me a bank account statement that her scammer had sent to her to prove that she would get her money back, but when I looked at it I could tell it was a fake. What she told me was incomplete but when I started to press for specifics she clammed up, telling me that she’d already said too much. That her health couldn’t take the stress, and that she would not tolerate any judgement from me about her soldier.
She’d been scammed. I knew it. I told her as much. She wasn’t ready to hear it and pushed back.
I was angry. She had sent money. She had either broken her promise to me, or she had lied in making that promise to begin with. I wanted to scream “you’re an idiot! You let him fool you,” – I hadn’t yet learned about how these scams work – but I held back my anger because I knew that berating and lecturing her would push her away. I needed my mom to keep sharing details with me, if I had any hope of stopping what was happening.
“I’m not saying Vasylko scammed you,” I pivoted, “but I am saying this sounds like a scam. Perhaps both of you are victims,” I suggested and hugged her, softly promising “We’ll figure it out together. I love you. This sounds like a lot.”
She cried. I hugged her harder.
Playing Detective
When I got home I told my husband that my worst fears were true. My mom was wrapped up in a scam. Money had been sent, and I didn’t have any clue how much.
The first order of business was clear. I had to convince my mom that the scammer was a scammer, and that their love was a lie. It was going to break her heart, but it had to be done. It was the only way I could prevent any further damage from happening.
I started scouring reddit, and searching the web for blog posts on how to break through the haze of scammer’s lies.
And finally I found a thread on reddit that suggested doing a reverse image lookup.
Months earlier, I had managed to connect with my mom’s scammer on TikTok, back when they were proving to me that my suspicions were wrong. I had tried to do a reverse image lookup at that time, but didn’t know what I was doing. I’d also done a search for the name the scammer was using and came up short. I didn’t have evidence that the scammer’s story was true or untrue and my mom had given reassurances, not to mention I was busy… so I trusted it would all be okay, and kind of gave up.
The early move of making that TikTok connection ended up being my saving grace, because I was still able to bring up the profile and download some photos, which I used to begin the search anew. Knowing that the name she’d been given brought up nothing useful, now I would focus my search for his face online… and I would not give up until I found him.
Google was no help. Neither was Bing. But I finally found a way to do it using the Russian-owned search engine Yandex.
After hours of obsessive sleuthing and reading online, I found him – not the scammer but the person the scammer was pretending to be. I hoped it was enough to convince my mother. I also knew that shattering what she thought was reality in order to reveal the truth was going to have to be done gently. I couldn’t come at her with frustration, anger or self-righteousness because that would push her deeper into the scammers web.
Breaking the Spell
I sent a single text that included the Ukrainian Wikipedia page for the real person and this message, “Have you seen this? Vasylchuk Vadym Vasylovich is an elected official in Kyiv”
The name I sent her was close to the one the scammer had used, but wasn’t the same. The history of the real person was similar to the story my mother had been told too, but it was different enough that I knew she would notice.
I saw she had read the message. Two minutes went by before she responded.
“Where did you find that? Yes honey, I’ve seen this”
Had she? I was on the fence. Was it time to feed her more evidence? Was I wrong? I wasn’t sure… I took the risk and shared the TikTok profile I had found for the real person.
“His name is Vasylko Boiany” was all she replied. She had noticed the name discrepancy… good!
I responded, “I believe that the account with that name, is using the images from the account of this public figure. The names are close, but they’re not the same. Mom. I love you. I know this is difficult.” I had taken her limited responses to mean that she was already connecting the dots, and included a link to the official Facebook Page of the elected official that her scammer was impersonating. The profile showed recent posts from Valentine’s day showcasing his wife. The scammer had claimed to be a widow. This person was not.
Four minutes went by. No reply.
I asked her to reconsider financial involvement and told her there was also a YouTube channel but withheld the link.
Ten more minutes went by with no reply from her. I worried I had blown it with too much too fast. My mother’s typical response time is immediate, and with an abundance of words. The read receipt followed by nothing spoke loudly.
“Please don’t be angry with me for looking” I texted meekly.
“I’m not angry,” she replied “I’m confused.”
I acknowledged that this must feel really confusing, and that’s when things shifted. The wool was lifting from her eyes. Now she wanted more information. She asked to see the YouTube channel. I commented that I noticed the names were different. She told me she was numb.
Over the next few hours there were a few more messages and a phone call between us.
She wanted to confront the scammer, hoping there might be an explanation. I didn’t think it was a good idea, but I now believe that her choice ended up being the nail needed to close the coffin for good. Instead of a human response filled with reaction and emotion, the first words back sounded like they came from a customer service bot. “Hold on. Thanks for this information. Will look into it right the way.”
The illusion was finally shattered.
There was emotional fallout of course. Imagine seeing the face of your person, but attached to a different name, history and voice. Having a the veil of a romance scam lifted is like realizing that you’ve been cheated on and grieving the death of a loved one at the same time. It can be far more painful than the worst of breakups. But, to her credit she almost instantly regained her mental clarity and was ready to spring into action.
The next few weeks were a blur: Police, FBI and FTC reports, visits to the bank, calls with her credit card company, and an exceedingly long checklist of actions we would need to take in order for my mom to effectively stop, block and recover from the scam and protect her identity.
Here’s how to use a Yandex reverse image search to uncover a scammer:
If you suspect that you may be involved in a romance scam, or have a loved one who may have fallen prey, a reverse image search can be a powerful way to get to the truth.
Here are steps you can use:
Step 1: You’re going to need an image and having several images is even better. You’ll need to have the images saved to your device. If you’re able to find images online via social profile for example here’s how you save the image.
Right-click and choose “Save image as…” on desktop
Long-press and choose the Save or Download option on mobile
If you have to be a spy and get your hands on your loved ones device, you may be able to take screen shots and email them or text them to yourself. This can be a risky choice for your relationship. Be prepared to explain yourself with love and patience.
Step 2: Open Yandex Images and upload your file
Go to yandex.com/images
Start a reverse image search by selecting the camera icon in the search bar.
Choose “Upload a file” and pick the saved image, or paste the image URL into the URL box and submit. (If Yandex shows a face region selector, crop to the face. Cropping removes backgrounds and text that can confuse results.)
Step 3: Review Yandex’s results carefully by looking for pages that show the same photo (social profiles, stock-photo sites, blogs, forum posts).
Check for the earliest visible source by looking at the date on the page or post. Earlier sources are more likely to reveal the original account.
Open promising result pages in new tabs and inspect them.
Note usernames, profile pages, account creation dates, contact info, and other photos on the same account.
Check whether the image appears on stock-photo sites or image-hosting services (that would indicate it’s not a private person’s photo).
Additional tips:
Higher quality images, will of course yield better results. If you can, use multiple crops of the same image, and search using several different pictures. You may also want to re-run searches to see if you get different results.
Do your best to corroborate identity across multiple sources. Don’t just rely on a single match. Confirm the same name or username and additional photos or details across at least two independent sources.
Yandex often returns Russian pages — use the browser translate feature to read them and find profile names or contact info.
Save URLs, take screenshots (with timestamps if possible), and copy profile handles and page dates. You may need these for reporting.
If you find an identity that is likely real, verify cautiously. You can look for consistent photos, public posts, a realistic friend or follower stats. Beware of fake pages that simply rehost images… there are a lot of them.
A quick personal note:
To those of you who have been reading and sharing this particular series, I thank you. Raising awareness about Romance Scams is important and difficult. The sheer number of you who have contacted me privately to share your own similar stories has served as further evidence for my mother and I that telling this story is absolutely worth doing. The more we can normalize shaming criminals instead of victims, the closer we get to stopping imposter scams in the future. I look forward to sharing the final installment of this series soon.