Sofija Stefanovic - Youre Just Too Good to Be True: Penguin Special: Penguin Special

Im coming up the staircase of Bills apartment building with two bottles of wine. Well drink one bottle now, and the other hell savour for weeks.

I met Bill at a romance-scam victims support group two years ago. I was working on a TV show about internet scams, and Bill was one of our stars.

Bill, like millions of other people around the world, joined an online dating site and met someone. After a while, his long-distance lover asked Bill for a small amount of money. This wasnt a big deal: friends ask each other for loans all the time credit cards expire, bills get too high, rent is increased. Bill, a generous person, sent the small sum through without raising an eyebrow. Then his significant other needed some more money. The situation escalated, and, over several years, Bill became involved in a horrific tale of love, death and crime, all the while sending money to a growing cast of characters. When he began to suspect he was being conned, Bill was contacted by police, who assured him they were about to catch the scammers (they were, in fact, scammers themselves). A manager at Barclays bank was holding onto the money Bill was owed (also a scammer). Bill had lost all of his savings, mortgaged his flat and borrowed money from friends. He was sending his pension away as soon as he got it, in the wild hope that he would, one day, get his money back. He was scammed out of more than $80000. It left him an emotional wreck, and drowning in debt.

But Bill is, I believe, a success story. When I met him two years ago, he had just come out of his scam, ready to tell the tale and help others in the same situation. Bill and I stayed in touch after he participated in the TV show, and I visit him whenever I come to Brisbane.

On Bills door, there is a little plaque with his name, and Justice of the Peace written underneath. His doorbell ring is the sound of a barking dog. But Bill doesnt answer the door.

Hes dead, is my first thought, because Bill is eighty years old, and that is the age people start falling over and hitting their heads and having strokes. Then I hear movement and my small friend appears, startled, in his boxer shorts. Hes putting his glasses on and blinking his lucid blue eyes. He thought our plans were for tomorrow and he was having a nap. With his bed-messed white hair and the round paunch that once-skinny men get when they get older, he reminds me of a toddler waking up.

I was going to make myself this tonight, he tells me, pointing to a hot dog defrosting on a plate. Hes told me about these great hot dogs he gets in a bulk-pack from ALDI. We decide that Bill will raincheck the hot dog and eat some takeaway with me instead.

Bills flat reminds me of my grandmas: very neat and pink. He turns the lights down low and puts on his favourite CD, the pan-flute version of various love songs. Last time I was here, Bill led me in some Buddhist chanting that hed learnt as a younger man, and we chanted over the top of (Youre Just Too Good to Be True) Cant Take My Eyes Off You. Small crystal figurines are lit up in his glass cabinet, including a special cube, which spins gently, showing a hologram of Lee on each turn. But more about Lee later.

I order pizza while Bill goes to get dressed. When I first met him, Bill told me that while he was being scammed, he was so sad and stressed, he walked staring at the ground, never at the sky. Tonight, even though he is happy to be drinking wine with a friend, I can see his gaze is gravitating to his peach-coloured carpet and I get a very uncomfortable feeling.

Bill, is something going on again? On the internet?

Oh, dont lets talk about it, my dear. Lets talk about you!

Bill once let me read the emails hed received when he was being scammed. They were bullying, pushy directives, all demanding money. Id read through Bills responses, sometimes apologetic, sometimes furious, sometimes desperately sad, his old fingers typing in the flowery purple font he had chosen for his correspondence. He talked about suicide in those days, but the scammers didnt relent.

I didnt want Bill to get caught up in this again.

Bill had finally been extricated from his scam when the (actual) Queensland Police noticed the suspicious transfers an elderly Australian sending buckets of money to West Africa via Western Union. The police knocked on Bills door and he told them everything. In response, they told him hed been scammed. Bills only human contact for the year leading up to this had been with scammers. And then there they were, two real, live plainclothes cops, taking his hand and leading him out of his nightmare.

The first time I saw Bill was soon after that police visit, at his first victims of crime support group meeting. He stood as tall as he could and said in his unexpectedly deep voice, I am a gay person... I went on the internet looking for companionship. He opened up to the roomful of people he had only just met. It was the first time he had told his story. Since then, Bill has helped other victims: Id seen him in the paper and on TV warning people of the dangers of scams.

Have you been to the support group recently? I ask him now, sipping my wine.

No, not for a while.

How come?

Well, I have to admit that thereve been one or two people that Ive been dealing with... and I feel that Im dealing with genuine people.

He glances at the carpet.

People on the internet?

I know what they all say, but Im not satisfied that these people are scammers.

Bill tells me that he is expecting some money to come to him soon. The alarm bells in my head make me want to shout: How are you letting this happen again?, but I dont.

Bill, you know that saying, you never get anything for free whats the saying again?

If it sounds too good to be true, it is not true, Bill says, before continuing, Ive sent a couple of money transfers away. I cant work out whether his tone is defiant, guilty or resigned.

He explains that this is why hes been staying away from the support group. I feel thats a betrayal. If I go there telling others dont deal with these people and if Im behind their back doing it... I cant do one thing and say another.

I suspect that Bills been sending money for a while, because its clearly taking a toll on him. Some days, Bill tells me, he doesnt even leave his flat. I just sit in front of the computer all day and play FreeCell.

I have a feeling that, in between the FreeCell, he also compulsively reads through the emails. Years worth of correspondence, telling him that hes about to come into a large sum of money, and then, just when its looking good, theres a snag and Bills back to square one.

But I expect to have something quite comforting by the end of this month, he concludes, with a glint in his eye.