The Catfish of Prosperity

Is my friend being catfished? Or has she met a hot German multi-millionaire who lives in the midwest who has helped her make over $10K in one week? Honestly? The jury is out.

I’m with my parents at the shore, because there are guys working in my house, to “unfinish” my basement, and rip up the musty moldy carpet, etc. Though, the mold spread is not as bad as I’d feared, so that’s some good news.

So first, I want to tell you that today my mom is trying to book an airbnb so our family can go to California for Thanksgiving (my sister and cousins live out there). And at the very same time, she told me she had some leftover chicken and rice from two nights ago, for me to eat for lunch. She said, “Well, it’s not chicken. It’s turkey. And actually, it’s turkey from thanksgiving that we didn’t eat, and I froze. So I defrosted it the other day and put it in my rice thing. So I don’t know if that counts as being from two nights ago… so just heat it up really hot.”

Meaning, on this day, July 26th, 2022, I am helping to plan Thanksgiving 2022, while eating turkey from Thanksgiving 2021. And if you want to keep believing that life does not hold absurd and strange magic after hearing that, I don’t know what to tell you. Is it a little freezer burned? Well, there’s so much red sauce in this casserole, that it’s hard to tell.

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Ok, let’s get to the nitty gritty. I’m telling this hinge/catfish?/riches story because… it’s just so strange, and confusing, that it couldn’t go to waste. It had to be told.

I purposely don’t write about my own dating, and it’s because… personally, if I started dating someone and I found out they wrote about all their bad dates, or all of their failed relationships, I’d be spooked. Even if I really liked them… I’d be really wary. I would feel like I was probably just more fodder for their creative life. And in some ways, that’s what it is. And, right now in my life, I am not currently looking to prioritize my creative life, or my “career,” over my personal life. Because honestly…. I’ve done that (in different ways) for too long. And now I’m 34 and bored and annoyed with some of my life choices. I’m an introvert who barely drinks, who does not want to have to keep dating much longer so….. it just doesn’t seem like it serves what I actually want, to write about my dating. And …it’s unfortunate, because I have some crazy stories. But alas.

However… my friend’s crazy situation is one I need to write about.

And here it goes.

Most of my friends now live far away from me, all around the country: Seattle, LA, New York, Hudson, Santa Fe, etc. Many are married, some are married with kids.

So a few weeks ago, one of my single friends Kara, who lives in Michigan, and I, decided to incentivize ourselves to get back on Hinge, and actually start meeting people, by sharing the profiles of some of our matches with each other just to make it more… fun. Because really, it’s not fun. It’s a slog.

If the Hinge experience was a series of good date after good date, that would be one thing, but it’s not. Because you never ever ever know what you are going to get, until you sit down with someone. It doesn’t matter what their pictures look like, it doesn’t matter how great it is texting with them, it doesn’t matter “how much you have in common” - sitting down with someone in person is a totally different beast. And so, it becomes a process that beats you down with every bad date you go on, and every letdown, and every unmet expectation. Hope is hard to keep when hope keeps taking you on bad dates. So, you need SOMETHING to make it fun. And Kara’s sister and friend both met their husbands on Hinge… which is possibly giving us even more of a false sense of Hinge hope… but… we must soldier on.

Anyway, we mostly share ridiculous profiles with each other, and conversations gone south. Usually she sends me the people who like her profile, and it’s some guy in a fuzzy onesie and she says: This is what dating in Michigan in your 30s is like.

But occasionally, we share a good one. Wow! Look how great he is! Wow look how great this is!?

One, day, she shared Jonas. (I am not using his “real name” btw… if we even know his real name.)

Jonas had “liked” her. And Jonas was hot. Jonas was hot and looked like he was 25 (we are in our early/mid 30s…), but on his profile it said he was 40.

She said… “is this guy for real.”

He started off complimenting her dog, and asked her what his name was, she responded and asked about his dog. He responded, “I call him Jeff.” She sent the screenshot to me.

I said, “Ok, Kara. This guy seems like a troll.”

She said, “Yea, you’re probably right. Maybe I’ll troll him back…”

Then she sent me his next response

I said “cut it offfffffff, he is messing with you.”

Then a half hour later I got another text from her saying: waiitttt wait wait he speaks english as a second language! I’m not positive that he is a troll!

Ok, fine fine fine.

A few days later she said, “I am actually still talking to Jonas on telegram, and he said he can help me start day trading crypto…”

I said, “Ok… but just don’t GIVE HIM any money!”

Kara said, “I KNOW! I wouldn’t do that. He told me to download and set up the coinbase wallet app, so he could tell me what to upsell or downsell.”

(Disclaimer - I know NOTHING about day trading. And nothing about day trading crypto. The only thing I know about it, is what I’ve learned from Kara… from Jonas. I don’t even know if any of this is the correct terminology. I don’t know even know if day-trading is one word or two.)

He showed her a screenshot of his coinbase wallet app… and he has over 3 million dollars in cash in there from day trading.

I was like… “Kara this seems too good to be true. He could have faked that image!”

She said: “I know! But hey, as long as I’m not giving him money, I’m going to see. Plus he is nice! And is sending me all of these pictures of himself with his family from Germany. And look at him… he is… so hot. How can this be.”

She sent me the pictures. I scrutinized them, looking for any reason that they may be fake. And my current theory is, if he IS a catfish, that these are from some hot influencer’s page. But I made her do a reverse image search with the photos, and nothing came up. However… I just tried to do a reverse Google Image search with two images from my instagram, and my instagram did not come up. It found no matches… so… does reverse google image not search instagram? Hmmmm.

There is nothing about this guy on the internet either. Not on LinkedIn, nowhere. He also apparently has a full time job “for healthcare benefits” and owns a German timber company that he runs with his uncle as well. We looked up the company on LinkedIn… and there wasn’t much on the LinkedIn page that help us sleuth any more…

I remain very skeptical but…. Kara is making money. Every night they chat, and every night around midnight, sometimes even later, he apparently looks at a live graph, and tells her what to buy or sell… and every night she makes like….$1,000 or more. In just a week and a half she has made $12,500. Seriously. I kept asking her questions about it, because I don’t understand what the hell coinbase wallet is, or how it works. But apparently this is actual (digital) cash she has made off of these daily trades, sitting in this app, and she should could transfer that $12K to her bank in a day. I am floored. And… I am jealous.

But apparently, Jonas spends “an hour a day researching crypto” then makes 3 trades a day, and tells her what to trade with her money, in her coinbase wallet, and… they both make money…

I said '“wait wait wait, is there any chance that like… your coinbase wallet is fake? Like somehow this money is going to him?” And she said, “No! I mean… it’s the regular, reputable coinbase wallet app… and it’s my account, my money…”

Unfortunately for ME, if this is for real, I am actively trying to be an early bird, because I need it to improve my sleep. If I get in bed around 10, I fall asleep easily. If I get in bed near or after 11, I lie there forever. Kara keeps telling me that if I stay up late, and set up the coinbase wallet app on my phone, she can tell me to trade the same things he is telling her to trade, and I could be making the same money. And… I am torn.

I told her UGH. Health is WEALTH, Kara. I need to sleep so I can be healthy and … make money in the future? I guess. But …I am torn. And I am jealous. What the hell is going on.

But….. I AM ALSO A HUGE SKEPTIC. AND I KEEP SEARCHING FOR THE PART THAT MAKES THIS AN OBVIOUS SCAM. And to be fair, she is too. But she said… “Caroline I’m making money! I don’t know if he is real, but I am making my own money in my own coinbase wallet! I don’t want it to end juuuust yet.”

And I just can’t find the way he is making money unlessssss this is a long-con, and the big money ask hasn’t happened yet.

They haven’t met yet, obviously. And two weeks ago they discussed planning on meeting “at the end of the month.” I said “why.” She said, “Well. I told him I’m not living in my condo yet, because I’m renovating it, I’m living with my grandparents over an hour away so… I told him I’d be back closer to where he lives at the end of the month.” Ok….

But I don’t get why they aren’t talking on the phone. She says ‘ehhhh he is busy, works three jobs.’ I said, I’m sorry but if he has an hour to study the crypto markets every day, he can talk on the phone with you! He has sent her two, 3 second video clips of himself. One of him saying “hello,” one of him on a boat on his work trip… BOTH of those could be clipped from influencer videos. Easily.

I said, “why don’t you insist on talking on the phone?” And she said, “Because I’m making money! I want this to go on as long as I am making money!”

Fair. Unless… unless there is something I’m still missing!

But, for the opposition, Kara said that they talk a lot about things other than crypto. They bonded over both moving from a big city. They have talked about where they’ve travelled, and where they want to travel. And, she said that they talked about their family dynamics, how he misses his family, and finance, because she used to work in the financial tech industry.

In fact, she said: “Actually, the whole reason the crypto thing started was because I mentioned I loved reading, and a few days into us talking, he asked what kind of books and I said recently I was reading lots of personal finance because I’m working on getting rid of some debt, and he was like ohhhh I know what could help with your debt…. Then I downloaded coinbase wallet but didn’t put anything in for another day. I told him to give it to me straight: how lucrative is day trading and that’s when he sent me his screenshot with over 3M… and here we are.”

I just asked her if they were going to actually meet up any time soon, and she said, “Yes! We are making plans to meet it’s just when he gets back from his work trip on Saturday, I then have to babysit Saturday and Sunday night, which have been on my books since the beginning of the month. I told him maybe a Sunday brunch or lunch vibe haha. But also… what if it’s bad and I can’t keep making money?!”

But she’s not NOT wary. She also thinks this is too good to be true. She said, “Funny enough, I’ve also had the thought that could this be my ex trying to stir up some shit?… he used to work for a German company and go on multiple business trips to Germany every year and could impersonate German accents and the way Germans would speak English too... Like obviously this is a way crazy theory but the thought has popped in my head.”

Honestly. For me, the jury is out. And I’m jealous. I wish I was still a night owl. And I wish I had made 12K in the past week off my my friend’s hinge maybe-catfish.

I cannot tell what to think, but … she is making money.

And now…. I’m wondering if I should become a day-trader?!?!! Really.

IS JONAS FOR REAL?!?!?!?!? Comment below. And you’d better believe I’ll be updating you on “Jonas,” the hot, 40-year old German multi-millionaire.

UPDATE: Here is part 2.