Man and woman meet. Man falls madly in love. Proposes. And they decide to elope. They headed to London Heathrow to catch a flight to Rome to get married. And she ran off from the airport with his money – and his luggage.
The first clue should have been that they’d only met recently. No photos or background on the couple are available, but it’s a strong guess that on a scale of 1-10 she’s 2 or more notches above him. The second and more important clue is that they were trying to fly intra-Europe from Heathrow despite the mess that airport has been.
The couple were both in their 40s. He went to the restroom before checking in, and when he returned she’d fled. Maybe that was the third clue, that he needed to use the restroom but she did not?
The devastated man, said to be British, told Terminal 5 staff she had left with the £5,000 he’d given her for their wedding.
One onlooker said: “He was in bits — totally inconsolable. Apparently, they’d only met very recently and he’d fallen head-over-heels for her. He’d proposed a day earlier and she’d accepted.
“They’d planned to marry in Rome and were about to fly there. Then she did a runner while he went to the loo and vanished with all their belongings.”
It’s not clear whether she’d left the airport and returned to London, or gone through security to catch a flight. He contacted police but is no longer sure of her name, even.
Several years ago a man was hospitalized after flying to China to meet his internet girlfriend. He waited 10 days in the airport, but she never showed. She said she wanted to continue their online relationship, and didn’t know he’d flown to see her because she turned off her phone in order to get plastic surgery.
"@Austynzogs: Dutch Man hospitalized after waiting 10 Days in Chinese Airport for Internet Girlfriend he met online. pic.twitter.com/VRh3zktnN8
— GIDI (@Gidi_Traffic) August 2, 2016
Even if it doesn’t start as true love, don’t lose hope! There’s a whole genre of film where people fall in love after they get engaged. I knew a woman in college who was paid by an Iranian man to marry her, so that he could become a U.S. citizen. They had to act married and moved in together. And fell in love, then did it ‘for real’ (or at least had the real party, since the ‘for real’ part had already been done a couple of years earlier).
That had the makings of a fantastic rom-com, these two airport stories are tragedies, but you’ll never know love if you don’t take chances! At least he only lost $6000 and some luggage.
(HT: Paul H)
Maybe she arranged to go through LHR precisely because it’s such a mess. Easy to disappear… Poor guy.
Tinder Swindler is required watching for all humans.
Perhaps the only thing one can say is that at least he didn’t lose more. Swindlers know that it often takes the victim’s suspension of belief to make their scams work. Even very smart and sophisticated people have been taken in by Ponzi schemes when someone they trusted promised absurdly high returns. And some of these criminals are pretty slick; one man talked about getting a text message that was sent to the “wrong address”. He got into a conversation with woman(?) at the other end, they exchanged 40 messages and then she mentioned a great deal on cryptocurrency. He lost $50,000 on that one. Much as I detested Reagan there was definitely something to his “trust but verify” mantra.
Perhaps she took an earlier flight?
Airtags to the rescue 🙂
Arguably the first clue is that you cannot “elope” to Italy to get married – there is a lengthy process to attain approval for the wedding (prove identity, that you are unencumbered, etc) and then there can be a wait to get an appointment for a civil ceremony!
By way of example, my wife’s sister is planning her wedding in Spain – the lead process will take four months.
Folks, elope to Vegas if you’re in a hurry, to Fiji, Gibraltar, Seychelles, Hawaii, etc., if you have a week to plan, but forget Italy if you can’t wait a few months!
But he GAVE her the money for the wedding. Technically it was hers.
So she ended up spending it on something else?
Hey, women change their minds sometimes.
Pro tip: Escorts. Cheaper than getting married…..
The luggage was going to get lost regardless, so the incremental cost is just the cash.
She’ll be found in 45 days with the luggage
-Iberia Baggage Claim Customer Service
Based on that guy’s photo the Dutch are no longer sending their finest to colonize new lands.
You can’t fix stupid. All we can do is have compassion for humans that do things like this. It’s awful to contemplate.
For his sake I hope she wasn’t saving herself for the wedding night