Love bytes: how a cyberspace Romeo wooed his way to fortunes - On My Mind - Column

Home Office Computing, Dec, 1994 by Lilly Walters

He targeted wealthy; smart women - doctors, lawyers, authors. For each online conversation, he took on a new persona that offered him a challenge in conquering women. One doctor for example, believed he was a cardiologist! There are none so blind....

He claimed to be an agent. And he seemed wonderful: kind, successful, a man of the world. Was meeting this man on America Online the beginning of a romance? Excited, I wondered if the time had come to fall in love again. A few days after our first conversation, I gave him my phone number. He followed up by sending a $100 bouquet of flowers. That began a whirlwind, nine-day romance, filled with phone and e-mail flirtation ... and then POOF!!

My excitement turned to astonishment the day I received a call from a police detective. Turns out, Mr. Wonderful was a notorious con artist. He was wanted for a minimum of eight counts of bigamy and fraud for bilking millions of dollars in life savings from scores of women. When the police caught up with him in Chicago and went through his records, they realized I was his next target.

I knew him as Andrew Farr-Condon, but he goes by many other names. He's been hunting women for 30 years. But about a year ago, he discovered cyberspace - and all his latest victims were targeted through online services. Now he is in jail and new women keep filing charges. Who knows how many others will step forward before this scam unravels.

The Modus Operandi A smooth talker, he excelled in winning a woman's trust. He perfected this art so well that he'd often set up several women simultaneously - marrying one, dating a second, engaged to yet another. On one particularly busy day, he attended his own engagement party, hopped on a plane, and married another woman in Florida. As soon as he felt he'd gained a woman's confidence, he might say, "Here, my love, is $100,000. I want you to have everything I own. Let's just put it in your savings account." Of course - and here's the clincher - he would need to sign on the account, too. The next morning, he'd be gone - without a word.

He stripped his victims bare - emotionally, financially, not to mention physically through the sanctity of marriage. He was brilliant at finding the chink in their armor and then portraying himself as the Lancelot who would protect and honor them forever. The saddest part is, many of his actions are not against the law. After all, he was allowed to sign on to their bank accounts.

Smart Fools in Love The irony of this story is that intelligent, technically savvy women who think of themselves as above being taken by con artists are just as vulnerable. The police compiled dozens of e-mail messages sent by the women he'd left behind. One woman went so far as to say, "I deserve what you did to me. I was a fool. Keep my money, but please just send back my daughter's college fund."

While I was fortunate enough not to have been stripped of my finances, I'd begun the process of investing emotionally. You might think, naw, that could never happen to ME! But who wouldn't go a little goofy if every day she received computer messages that read: "Just say the word, and I will be on a plane today," Luckily, the law caught up with him first. Now all my friends tell me, "Aren't you the smart one!" But to be honest, I don't know what I would have done if Lancelot had boarded a plane - instead of the information superhighway - and arrived at my door with a Mercedes, yacht, and all his charm. There are none so blind....

Lilly Walters is the executive director of Walters International Speakers Bureau and author of Secrets of Successful Speakers (McGraw-Hill) and other books.