Women Beware: Victoria

"I met this guy on vacation in Las Vegas. He told me he was a former NFL football player for the Dallas Cowboys. I fell in love with him and gave him my virginity. He asked me to marry him," says Victoria. "During this time, he asked for loans. Then he had me charge things for him. At the same time, he stole my credit card information and charged over $12,000. I finally went to the police. I found out all of the information he gave me was false."

 

Victoria created a Web site to warn other women about her former flame. "So far, I've found one other victim, and the police think there are more of us out there," she shares. "At first I was hurt, and now I'm mad. Women: beware. This man needs to be stopped!"

 

"Looking back on this, were you naïve?" Dr. Phil asks Victoria.

"Yes," she says.

"What was it that made you so vulnerable?" Dr. Phil asks. "This is somebody who marked you, targeted you and took you down for tens of thousands of dollars."

"He took the trust that I inherently have and give to people " because that's the kind of world I want to live in is where I trust in someone until they give me a reason not to " but he took advantage of that," she says.  

Dr. Phil reiterates that this man gave Victoria a false name and told her that he played for the Dallas Cowboys.

"I went online, and researched and found out that there had never been a Daryl Washington who had played for the Cowboys," she says, adding that she confronted him. "That was the first warning sign, and I should have run."

"How do you get past that? What did he say?" Dr. Phil asks.

"He said that he had to protect himself because of who he really was and what he really had," she says.

"So he went low-profile by saying, 'I play in the NFL'?" Dr. Phil asks in disbelief. He mentions that her ex gave her another name. "Did you ask to see I.D.?"

"I did try that the second time I was with him, but he never let me actually see an I.D. with his name on it," she says. "Prior to that, when he gave me the real name, everything that I was able to research indicated it really was him."

 

"Did you meet his family?" Dr. Phil asks.

"No," she says. "Every time I would try, he would make the conversation about me again. He would never let me into him." She never went to his house, and he didn't show up to meet her family at Christmas. 

Dr. Phil mentions that even after Victoria realized her paramour wasn't who he said he was, she loaned him money. "You want to raise this issue because you don't want women falling for this stuff," he says, noting that there were warning signs. "Nothing ever checked out on this guy … You never got to see his house. You

never met any of his people. You never met any of his family. He started coming up with reasons and excuses " 'I lost my wallet.' 'I need money for this.' 'Can you give me that?' " and you just started flowing $100,000 to him?" He asks, "No warning bell ever went off in your head?" 

"It did," Victoria says. "Those warning signs were there, and I ignored them because I thought I was in love, and I thought he loved me."

 

"It's the abuse of techniques not the use of techniques that creates the problem," Dr. Phil makes clear. "It's not that you shouldn't fall in love, it's not that you shouldn't ever trust anybody, but you've got to self-protect." He tells her that she needs to take responsibility for her mistakes. "There's a point at which you've got to say, ‘I've got to own the fact that I didn't ask the right questions.'"

"I do. I do not hide from that," she says.

 

"Will you date again? Will you fall in love again?" Dr. Phil asks.

"I hope so," she says.

 

"But if you fall in love again " " Dr. Phil begins.

"It's going to be a police officer, a secret service agent or an FBI agent," Victoria jokes.

"The way to move on is to claim your power and say, ‘Lesson learned,'" Dr. Phil tells her, suggesting that she never give money to another lover.