Gotta Love Karma...The Tindler Swindler Was Swindled Himself, And Finding Out How Is So Satisfying
Justice. Karma. The universe balancing itself out. Whatever you wanna call it, it just happened to Netflix's so-called Tinder Swindler, AKA Sam Leviev.
Leviev (not his real name) became famous through a Netflix documentary, in which three different women detailed how he swindled them out of what amounted to millions of dollars. He pretended to be the son of an Israeli diamond magnate, and staged extravagant and romantic dates with women he met on Tinder in order to convince them that he really was rich - then, through various means, he convinced them that he needed to borrow money, swearing his family would return it, and made off with it. (Like the Nigerian Prince email scam, but with extra steps so savvier internet users would still fall for it.)
Well, for all the effort he went to convincing his victims that he was the real deal, it sure didn't take much convincing to get Leviev and his girlfriend to get scammed the same way.
According to a report from TMZ, last Thursday, a woman who was verified on instagram slid into Leviev's DMs, telling him that her boyfriend worked at Meta and could get the both of them verified. Wanting that little blue check for himself, Leviev accepted a Facetime call with the boyfriend - and, deciding that the bustling office they staged in the background looked legit, he and his girlfriend sent two separate payments of roughly $3,000 to the guy - you know, so that they could verify him and clear out all the fake accounts in his name and stuff.
Except no, because, Leviev's manager, sensing something fishy, looked into it with a real Meta employee, and they confirmed that they do not charge for verification - but by then, the two had already deleted all their presence from the internet, thus successfully making off with the cash.
It's a small sum compared to what the guy got out of the women he tricked, but it still feels good to watch him fall for a scam and get shafted himself. He might yet face more reprecussions anyway, because the real Leviev family is suing him for using their name for his schemes.