I know it’s not right to victim blame people, but this story of a 25-year-old Israeli woman who was scammed by The Tinder Swindler after watching the Netflix documentary on him makes that quite difficult.

Iren Tranov told The Times of Israel that she was recently scammed out of NIS 450,000 (£110,000) by Shimon Hayut AKA Simon Leviev, after he convinced her that the allegations against him are all lies:

He went over with me every woman who had complained about him, and each one he told me how it was lies and he was right. He doesn’t look like a criminal hunting for a mark.

When Iren told Hayut that she wanted to buy a new car, he saw an opening:

He said ‘I’ll help you, we’ll order it and I’ll get you a car at a better price because I’m your boyfriend.’

Sure enough, he told Iren that he was a partner in a vehicle import company and could get her a brand new luxury BMW at a lower price than anywhere else. He then asked Iren to transfer the money to him, and instructed her on how to take out loan after loan from various companies… just like the tactics detailed in the documentary!

After she had transferred him the cash, he gave her a different vehicle as a temporary replacement, saying he was working on getting the BMW. Well it turns out that vehicle was impounded and under someone else’s name, and when she demanded the money back from Hayut, his cheque bounced just a few days later. Shocker.

I’m almost tempted to say that anyone this dumb deserves to lose that amount of money, but I guess the Tinder Swindler is just so good at swindling that he can convince you an entire Netflix documentary providing a bulletproof case against him was all made-up to discredit him; a genuinely decent and upstanding guy who never conned anyone in his life. I’m surprised she even went to the media about it – don’t you feel embarrassed enough?

For the British victim of the Tinder Swindler who says he was a flop in bed and had ‘no idea what he was doing’, click HERE.