Catfish: The TV Show (2012–…): Season 8, Episode 50 - Vonni & Andrew - full transcript
Vonni's fallen for online sweet-talker Andrew and has sent him hundreds of dollars to prove his love; now, Nev and Kamie help Vonni discover if Andrew is his one true love.
- ♪ MTV ♪
- Vonni is in love with a guy he met online named Andrew.
- He make me feel good.
Like, he like he compliment me every day.
- Do you guys say you love each other?
- Yes.
One time, I just sent him $275. - Why?
- Because I'm in love. - Vonni.
- Oh, we got a hit! - [gasps]
Stay away from this "person." Straight-up scammer.
- Wow. - #Catfish.
- I don't know if I'm cold or I'm just nervous.
[computer chimes] - Oh.
Who is this?
- All right, where are we going?
- Oh, let's do it.
[upbeat music]
[gasps] Oh, my God!
Yes! Cleo!
Oh, my goodness.
Was this your idea? - [giggles]
- You pranked me?
- The heck's going on?
You guys making the show without me?
- Yeah. - What?
You guys replaced me with Cleo and Biggie?
- Yes. This is so much better. Let's see what it looks like.
Here, Biggie.
- Maybe you guys show us the show.
Just the two of you.
- Yeah, I think this is the show.
- This is... - Well--
- This is definitely a better version of the show.
- Biggie, get your camera. - All right, Cleo.
- We're ready for another catfish case.
- [giggles]
- All right.
- You can sit on my lap. [grunts]
- Cleo, you have to say, "'Catfish,' take one."
- "Catfish," take one. - Yes.
- Good. All right, should we read this email?
- Yes. - All right, here we go.
Here's an email from Camara.
So the email says, "Dear Nev, Kamie," and Cleo.
- And Biggie. - And Biggie.
"My name is Camara.
"Four years ago, I met my best friend, Vonni.
"We actually work together here in Richmond, Virginia.
"I'm sending you this email
"because I've been concerned about Vonni's relationship
with a guy he met online named Andrew."
- Uh-oh.
- Andrew is everything that Vonni wants in a guy...
- ♪ And I don't know what to do ♪
- And they're getting very serious.
- ♪ Loving you was easy ♪
♪ Till you got yourself thinking out loud ♪
- "Vonni is the sweetest guy, but he's young.
He's pretty naive."
- ♪ With my head in the clouds ♪
- "And he is so in love with Andrew,
but Andrew won't FaceTime."
Isn't that crazy? You love to FaceTime.
"I know Vonni has asked him,
"but Andrew just gives him excuses
and he wants Vonni to move to Michigan to be with him..."
- Mm-mm.
- "Which is crazy
if they haven't even video chatted yet."
- What if he's not real? - What if he's not real?
- Right. - You don't know anything.
- ♪ With my head in the clouds ♪
♪ ♪
- "To make matters worse, I just recently found out
that Vonni has been sending Andrew money."
- [sighs] - Oh, man.
- Can we get a facepalm? Like this?
- "Vonni has been cheated on more than once,
"and I know he is still vulnerable,
"so when I heard how shady Andrew's been,
"I knew I had to do something.
"I really need your help to see if this guy is real.
"It'd be awesome if he really is Vonni's true match
"and I'm completely wrong, but I doubt it.
"Hope you can help my friend before it's too late.
Thank you very much, Camara."
So if you were going to tell Vonni
what he should do right now, what would you tell him?
- Get the money back. [laughter]
- Yes. - Get the money back.
- Agreed.
- All right, Cleo. Thank you for your help.
- Yay. Cleo. - [giggles]
- You're hired. Thank you so much.
Oh, my God, I love her.
- All right, so let's get Camara.
"Hey, Camara."
- Just read your email, and we wanna help.
Kamara is a good friend. Oh.
[computer chimes] - Oh.
- Hi. both: Hey.
- Wait. We need to know how to say your name.
- It's Camara.
- Camara. - Yeah.
- Good to meet you. - Yeah.
- Good to meet you, too.
- Thank you for writing in on behalf of your friend.
Sounds like he does need help.
- Yes. I'm very concerned about him.
He's not getting these red flags.
- Right. - And it's very concerning.
He's been through a lot.
I'm tired of his heart being broken.
- So how serious is he with Andrew?
- Very. He even sends money to him.
And I said, "Why would you do that?
He won't even show his face on FaceTime."
I don't know what this man looks like.
I don't know barely anything about him.
He won't show his face, but he wanna fly you out
and want you to quit your job to come to him.
- Quit his job? - Yes. To come to him.
- You've obviously talked to Vonni
about your concerns, right?
- Yeah. It's me over here saying,
"I'm happy for you but you need to think about this."
- Or the realistic side, perhaps?
- Yeah. - Vonni is lucky to have you.
- Thank you. - Wait.
So how do you think we should get in touch with Vonni?
- Does he know that you wrote into the show?
- I mentioned, but he was like,
"I doubt they would even contact you back."
I guess he will be just as surprised as I was.
- What if we stay on the Zoom, I'll text him,
"it's Nev and Kamie and we're with Camara.
Come on the Zoom."
All right, I just sent it.
- You spelled her name wrong. - [bleep]
- [laughing] It's okay.
- No, it's not. It will never happen again.
- [laughing] Okay.
- Oh. - Facepalm.
- [laughing] Oh my--no, he didn't.
- Vonni. [computer chimes]
- Hey. - Vonni.
- Hey y'all? How y'all doing?
- What's up? - Vonni.
- Okay, Camara. Okay.
- Don't be mad at me.
- Are you feeling any kind of way towards your friend here?
- [laughs]
- I--I'm nervous. I'm really nervous.
- Camara cares about you,
and she just wants to make sure that you're not getting played.
There are some things about Andrew that are a little fishy.
- Mm, yeah.
- Okay. So you acknowledge that?
- Yes.
- Vonni, you need to know who he really is.
- Right? Okay. So we got more to talk about,
but Camara, I don't want to keep you all day.
Thank you for--for writing in.
- Bye, Camara. Love you.
- Bye. I love you too. Fill me in.
- I will. - I need to know.
- Bye, Camara. - Bye.
- Okay, so back to Andrew.
Can you kind of take us back, explain how you met,
and kind of how the relationship progressed.
We wanna know everything.
- Okay. While I was at work, I was on break...
but he replies to my story, he was like,
"You're beautiful." I was like, "Oh yeah."
- And when you saw his page, did it have a lot of stuff
on there and friends and pictures?
- Uh, no. He don't get that many friends,
but like a hundred and some friends.
- All right. But there were photos of him.
- Yeah. The same ones he sent me.
- So then you guys started chatting.
- Yeah. We started chatting.
That's when I'm like, "What's your number?"
The next night, we called each other on the phone
having a good conversation like, you know, the basic.
I said, "Where you from?" He said, "Michigan."
- When you were talking on the phone,
it clearly sounded like a guy's voice?
- It was a boy voice, but he started to ask
about sleeping on the phone, but he snores so loud.
- Wait, how quickly
did you guys start talking all every night like that?
- Since the first night.
- Wow. So you guys talk still every night?
- Sometimes we fall asleep on the phone.
- Okay.
And when you're talking to him,
tell us about the conversations and what he's like.
- He is calm, he is funny, he like to tell jokes.
He made me feel good.
Like, he like to compliment me every day.
He makes me more confident and he helped me emotionally, too.
This is something new for me
because I've been through a lot, like,
the words he tell me, I never heard from the other boys.
Plus, he older, I always dealt with younger.
- How old is he, exactly?
- 26. - Oh, okay.
What does he do? - He a entrepreneur.
He said that he wants to start a business
of selling bouncy houses for kids.
- So what does he do currently?
- Currently unemployment. It's all I know. Unemployment.
- He is trying to get it together.
- Yeah.
- Camara told us that she thinks you and Andrew
have talked about him, like, saying,
"Come move to Michigan." Is that true?
- Oh, my God. She said everything.
He was telling me about the entrepreneur stuff
he want to do. I'm like, "Oh, I can help you."
He wanted me to quit my job to go up there.
- Wait, do we even know where he lives in Michigan?
- He said Detroit, Michigan.
- Okay. So he lives in Detroit.
- But he lives in Detroit, he's now on unemployment,
and he wants for you to quit your job
to join him on unemployment,
to figure out what he's going to do?
No.
- It's, like, uphill.
One side of me wanna go so bad. I'm just like--
- That's not even sustainable.
- Show us a picture of this guy 'cause I wanna know--
- Should I turn my phone to the screen?
Or should I just send it?
- You can--you can just hold your phone up to the screen.
- He is one.
- Okay. Light eyes, danger. He got hazel eyes?
- The second one. That's all I got.
- I think it's fair to say that a guy who looks that good
would probably have
more pictures he could send you, right?
- When I ask for more, it's, like, issues.
Like, that's when arguments start.
- Interesting.
- Wait, so he won't send you pictures,
but he asked you to send him money?
- Yes. - How did that come up?
- It just came out of nowhere.
You just said,
"Hey, can you send some money for some food?"
I'm like, "Okay, here you go. $25."
Oh, "I gotta get me a haircut."
$35.
And one time, I just sent him $275 randomly.
- Why? - Because I'm in love.
- So you're a sugar daddy?
- And has it all been through on app?
- Apple Pay.
- It just goes to his phone number?
- Mm-hmm.
- Has he done anything nice for you?
Has he paid you back?
- Well, when I send him $25, he sent me $10 back
just because he said he didn't need all of it.
- I mean, that's a good move
because it says you can trust me.
- [clicks tongue] - Have you done any research?
Have you tried to run his phone number?
- Well, you know, I try to put his phone number
in the cash app thing, you know, you can see--
- Ooh, smart. - Yes.
- But all that I saw was like,
someone named Ke'an in their state.
- So wait, you ran his phone number in the cash app
and it came back to someone named Ke'an?
- Yeah. That's all. - That's strange. Right?
Shouldn't it come back to someone named Andrew?
- That's weird, but I just say, "You know what? Mm."
- You didn't even bring it up? - No.
I don't know what to tell him.
I'm just now telling y'all, like.
- Vonni. This is the red flag. - That's a red flag.
- No, but it's right here. And Vonni said.
- Can you see this? Wait, maybe he's colorblind.
- I can't even see.
- What color is this? Can you see this?
- I see the red flag, but how I do you even mention it?
Because people use other people's cash apps
all the time, so that's why I never.
- People use other people's cash apps all the time
on this show, but that is part of the problem.
- It do sound weird, but I'ma still trust him.
- All right, well, look. We wanna help.
We want you to have a successful relationship
with a mature person who appreciates you and loves you.
And maybe it is Andrew, but we gotta find out.
- Please. And thank you. - [chuckles]
- All right. Send us whatever information you have.
- All right.
- And hopefully, we'll have something for you soon.
- Okay. Thank you.
- Bye. - Bye.
A cash app. - It's all bad.
- I can't believe he found him on Cash App
and his name was Ke'an
and he didn't even bring it up because he knows...
- Mm-hmm.
- It could potentially devolve into a breakup,
and he'd rather just be talking
to someone fake and fighting with someone real.
- That's the reality.
- Not looking good for Vonni.
- All right. - [imitating fanfare]
And then I feel like we need a "Catfish" theme song.
♪ Watch out ♪
♪ Danger ♪
♪ Don't send money to random strangers ♪
- [laughs] - All right.
- All right. So here's what we got.
Vonni, 20 years old,
six months ago, he gets a reply.
"You're so beautiful." They start chatting.
By the next day, they are on the phone,
falling asleep talking to each other.
It's heading very quickly in a good direction.
- Yeah. - But there's some problems.
He doesn't have a lot of pictures of himself.
He doesn't apparently have any other social media profiles
aside from his Facebook
and also, Vonni ran the phone number,
but it came back to a different name.
- Ke'an. - All right.
Let's see if we got an email here.
Hey guys, here's what I know about Andrew.
His last name is Love.
- Andrew Love? - Never a good sign.
Here's his phone number and his Facebook
and he's only got the two pictures.
So let's run the phone number.
- I feel like we're going to find some nonsense on this.
- Let's just run this.
What? Martin [bleep]? 57.
Look, we've got a Facebook page and everything.
- There's nothing on this page.
- Weird page, right? - What is happening?
- Could be his dad.
- I'm going to go on a hunch and say no.
- Right. All right.
Let's go back now and run the photos.
Here's the peace sign pic.
All right. Oh, we got a hit!
- [gasps] - Whoo!
- Wait. That's his page.
- Oh, there it is. This is him.
- That's him.
- Is this page real? Oh yeah. This is a lot of photos.
- Instagram. - [gasps]
Oh [bleep], here he is.
- This guy's name is Larson.
- Wow. - Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm.
- That was too easy.
- How do we know that it's not another catfish profile?
- There's no way someone has 83,000 followers on Instagram
and it's not him.
- I still think we need to talk to him to make sure.
I feel like Vonni needs, like, concrete proof.
- You just want to talk to this guy.
- Well, if we can possibly connect him with Vonni.
- Hot girl summer, leave it out there, Kamie.
- No. - Okay?
- In here, it's cold case winter.
- [laughing] - All right?
- I just feel like if we're going to tell Vonni
that the person that he's talking to
is not the guy in the picture-- - Right.
It'd be nice for him to know who the real guy is--
- And he needs proof.
- So I feel like we should reach out
to this Instagram, then. - Yeah.
"Hey Larson." All right, Sent.
The only thing we haven't done yet
is go to Andrew's Facebook page.
There's a whole 'nother name on there.
- Autotic?
- Weird. - From Pontiac, Michigan.
"There's things I'm not proud of,
but I'm not perfect."
We know, Andrew. We know.
Who is that Venus [bleep]?
- Where? - The first comment.
"I know I'm late but good afternoon."
- Oh, she commented on this, too.
This Venus page seems to be doing a lot of work
to try and make his page feel real.
- Richmond, Virginia. - Whoa.
- This feels like a bogus page, too.
- For sure.
- Should we message her and see if she wants to help us?
- She's probably Andrew. - Could be.
Let's send a message to this Venus girl. Sent.
All right. Let's do what he did and just run the phone number
in the cash app and just see what comes up.
Ke'an. And then his username is Befair [bleep].
- You be fair. - Which is weird.
Let me see if we can search that
because there's a social media search.
So let's see, Befair [bleep].
Potential owner, William [bleep].
- That's a very generic-ass name.
Somebody messaged. Venus, she messaged.
Should I ask her to get on the Zoom?
- Yeah.
- She said, "Sorry. I'm at work." Okay.
Autotic [bleep]."
- Oh, we worked together. - Oh, you mean Larson? What?
Wait a second. That's the name of the guy in the pictures.
- No. There's no way Autotic [bleep] is actually Larson.
That's not true. - [laughing]
This girl obviously knows that there is someone
named Larson who's the person in the pictures,
but we thought his name was Andrew.
This sounds like bull[bleep].
- I said that from the beginning.
- She knows what's going on.
- Huh? Wait. Huh? - What? What is this video?
- Him, right? - Him, right?
Is that supposed to be her? - Yeah, no. That's not her.
- Yes, him. - Yes, him. What?
- That's not the girl in the video.
- No. It's a Venus flytrap.
- Virginia. That's where Vonni's from.
I don't understand.
Why would she reveal Larson to us?
Maybe this is some weird burner account
that Larson started 'cause he's in a relationship
and he's using this to talk to Vonni.
We can't completely rule out that possibility.
Let's see if she can talk maybe tomorrow.
Let's see if that actually pans out.
All right. So we've got some weird information from Venus.
I'll see if any of it's real.
We've got a message out
to the guy who appears is the real person in the photo.
So let's stop. Let's talk to Vonni tomorrow.
Venus did mention Virginia... - Mm-hmm.
- And if we're getting into some murky waters here
with someone from Virginia
who might be connected to Vonni, anything is possible.
- I realized today I don't want to take my braids out ever.
I hate doing my hair. - [chuckles]
- Please, give me a [bleep] break.
- All right, let me see if I got any replies.
Larson wrote back this morning. "Are you for real?"
- Yes. - "Yes, I'm for real.
Are you available in the next 30 minutes?"
He said, "Sure." Okay, great.
- And then what about Venus? Did she say anything else?
- That was a Facebook message? - Mm-hmm.
- No. I'll just check in with her.
"Hey, Venus. Looking forward to chatting today."
All right. Shall we?
- We shall. - Let's get to work.
I'm gonna text Vonni.
Okay, I can get on right now. Raring to go.
[computer chimes]
- Hey Vonni. - What's up?
What's going on, man? How was your night?
- I'm nervous. I was thinking, "What are they gonna find?"
I'm scared now.
- Well, hopefully we have some answers for you.
All right, so I'm going to share our screen here.
All right, so the first thing we did yesterday
was we ran Andrew's phone number.
It came back registered to someone named Martin [bleep].
You know anyone?
- No. I've never heard the name.
No. Mm-mm.
57?
I like them old, but not that old.
- Right. It's not impossible that this could be their dad,
or it could just be
some random person who had the phone before.
- Hopefully the phone is just in that person name, hopefully.
- After that you had found a cash app.
- Yeah.
- So we did it too, and we stopped at Ke'an,
but we also noticed that the username was Befair [bleep].
- Mm-hmm.
So we looked up Befair [bleep]
and it came up registered to someone named William [bleep].
- I never heard that name before.
- All right.
I mean, that's obviously a kind of "generic" name.
After that, we did a photo search
and when we ran the phone, we got a Twitter.
There's content on here.
There's a lot of content that you haven't seen, obviously.
- They look really active, too. - Yeah.
Most importantly, right here, there's an Instagram account.
And when we go to that, we find this.
It's got 83,000 followers.
- And this guy's name is Larson.
- Oh, wow.
- It would appear that Andrew is taking pictures
of this guy Larson
and set up the page that you met him on.
- People still do that? - Yes, unfortunately.
- Oh, my God.
- We haven't completely ruled out there's a chance
you could be talking to the guy in the pictures
and that maybe he messaged you
a second sort of fake burner account.
- Right.
- We sent him a message.
Are you for real? He messaged back.
- Oh, he text back?
- I said, "Can you talk?" He said, "Sure."
So let's see if we can get them to come in right now.
[suspenseful music]
Okay, great. He says, "Sure".
He should pop in any second. [computer chimes]
- Oh. - Hello?
- Hey. - Sorry, I'm at work.
I only have like ten minutes on break.
- Oh, well, thank you
for making a little bit time for us. This is Vonni.
He's been in a relationship with some guy
for about six months now who looks exactly like you.
So I have to ask, Larson,
are you in a relationship with Vonni?
- It's not me.
To be honest, this happens a lot.
- How often do people
use your pictures to make fake profiles?
- I can't even count on both hands.
I mean sometimes I'd be like, it's really nothing I can do,
but just say to report them
'cause it's on different platforms.
- Yeah.
- Well, Vonni has been talking to someone
who was using your pictures,
who called themselves Andrew and said they lived in Detroit.
And I'm wondering if any of this sounds familiar.
- Doesn't sound familiar at all.
- Okay.
- Vonni, we haven't gotten to this yet,
but Larson, do you know of anyone named Venus?
- Oh, yeah, a girl, maybe? - Venus [bleep]?
- No, I don't know Venus.
- All right, so Larson, thank you for getting in touch.
Appreciate you clearing this up.
- Thank you, Larson.
- I'm so sorry.
- It's okay. - All right.
- Thank you - Thank you, Larson.
- Thanks, Larson.
- That's the answer right there.
I got played.
[downbeat music]
- I feel like a part of you isn't that shocked
because there were some signs along the way.
- There was. I just didn't-- me, I'm just scared to, like,
question somebody, like, if something not right.
- You didn't wanna mess things up by grilling him too hard?
- Yeah, exactly. That's how I am.
And I just hate hurting somebody else.
- But here's the thing.
Here's what my therapist says to me.
Every single time you give someone else a pass
because you don't wanna hurt them,
you end up hurting yourself.
- And you're right. You're right.
- Well, why don't we finish showing you what we found?
You sent us his Facebook, which we went to look at.
The only thing we really noticed from this was that
on almost every post,
there's a comment from this girl, Venus,
the girl we asked Larson about.
- Who the [bleep] is Venus?
- That's what we want to know. So we went to her page.
That was the first thing we thought.
- Wait, wait, wait, look at that new post.
"If it's not obvious already,
"stay away from this 'person' Venus [bleep].
"Straight up scammer.
#Catfish." - Wow.
- Then somebody said, "How do you know it's a scam?"
- And then he said, "'cuz she text me out of the blue
asking for money. That's a big red flag."
Why would she leave this on her page?
- She probably hasn't seen it.
It was only posted a few hours ago.
- Wow, okay.
Well, 'cause we were suspicious that this page felt fake.
- Mm-hmm. - Something not right.
- So we messaged her,
"Hey, wondering how you know Autotic [bleep]."
- 'Cause that's his Facebook name.
- Right. She said, "Oh, you mean Larson?"
- Oh, wow.
- I said, "We thought his name was Andrew.
How do you know Larson?"
"Oh, we're just friends" and they hang out.
I said, "Well, when did you see him last?"
And she said, "Virginia before COVID."
- Virginia, really? - Virginia.
- 'Cause I live in Virginia. - Right.
- It's not impossible
that this could be someone from your past.
- The way it's looking right now between that Venus post
and this situation,
I have a feeling that there are at least two people
who are working in tandem to scam and lie and get money.
- Money?
- Well, yeah, and you have been giving him money, so.
- Yes.
- Unfortunately, we now know
whoever you're talking to lied about the photos.
- Mm-hmm.
- Now, what else did they lie about?
We don't know.
At this point, the only way to get the answers
is to just reach out to them.
- Hopefully, he just be 100 and maybe it'll work out.
- You still feel like there's a chance?
- There could be a reason why he doing this like,
he couldn't have been through something.
- True. - I think at this point,
our only option now is to call Andrew
on the phone number that you have.
Let's just see if he answers. [line trilling]
- Hello.
- Hey, is this Andrew?
- Yes. - Man.
- Hey, Andrew, it's Nev from the TV show "Catfish"
and I am calling because we've been chatting with Vonni
and we're really hoping
we could finally help you guys meet up.
So-- [line disconnects]
He hung up. - Lord, have mercy.
- What the [bleep]?
- Hey, is this Andrew?
- Hey, Andrew, it's Nev from the TV show "Catfish"
and I am calling because we've been chatting with Vonni
and we're really hoping
we could finally help you guys meet up.
So-- [line disconnects]
That was weird.
- He hung up? - Yeah.
What the [bleep]? - Call him back now.
- Let me try him back. That was the weird.
[line trilling]
[suspenseful music]
- Please leave your message for--
- Let me text him.
"Hey, Andrew, it's Nev.
Please call me back."
- That was weird. That was his voice?
- Yeah, that's the voice. That's it. Mm-hmm.
- The concerning part is that there seems to be
a weird connection between Andrew and Venus
and Venus now very well might be a scammer.
It certainly looks that way from their--
- Right, you can tell.
The profile seemed weird, anyway.
- Right, and I don't wanna say, you know, birds of a feather,
but they seem to be flocking together.
- I'm hurt because I, like, trust him.
Like, I really, like, wanted something to work.
♪ ♪
I was really looking forward to move,
to be honest, and start a new beginning.
- You were actually thinking about moving to Detroit?
- Yes, I was. I was thinking about it.
Like I said, I thought it was for real.
Like we could really go do this.
We probably can still do this, but come on.
What you waiting on?
- You feel strongly enough about him that even though
you know he's not the guy in the pictures,
you still really want somehow for this to work out?
- I just wanna talk.
Maybe it can, like, you can just talk first
then maybe something can happen, like.
♪ ♪
- Yeah.
Do you guys say you love each other?
- ♪ Being half under the water ♪
♪ Tell me, do you see me? ♪
- He said it first. - He said it first?
- The first time, I was joking.
I'm like, "Oh, you for real?" He said, "Yes, I'm for real."
I'm like, "Oh, I see." - Oh.
- It's something new for me, really.
So that's why I was so excited.
- Maybe there's still reason to be excited,
but there's definitely a reason to ask some questions.
- Yeah, it's a lot of questions.
- Yeah. - All right. Cool.
- All right, well, look, obviously now
Andrew knows that we're trying to figure this out.
So I don't know what else
I can do to try and get in touch with him.
Like obviously tried calling him back.
I sent him this message. I don't--he's not responded.
I feel like at this point,
I kind of think it has to come from you now.
I think he needs a little motivation
and inspiration here.
- Should I text him or call him?
- Whatever you wanna do.
You know, just speak from the heart.
- I'm gonna text him first. - Okay.
[dramatic music]
- "Hey, you getting on Zoom?
I heard you talking to Nev and Kamie."
"We also spoke to Venus. I really wanna talk to you.
Maybe we can make something work."
♪ ♪
- He usually texts back quick.
- [gasps] - Oh, oh, we got a reply.
- This weird, oh, my God.
- All right, so this is all you now, Vonni.
- "Yes, of course."
♪ ♪
- I'm nervous. Kinda scared.
- Oh, there are some bubbles. There we go.
- [gasps] Send a link.
- Let me text you the link
and then you can just copy-paste it from your phone.
♪ ♪
- He typing.
Oh, he said okay. - Oh, whoa, great.
So is he just gonna jump in to Zoom any second now?
- Ooh.
- How do you feel, Vonnie? - I'm nervous.
I don't know if I'm cold or I'm just nervous.
[suspenseful music]
I'm a chicken.
♪ ♪
[computer chimes] - Oh, who is this?
- He sure knows how to take his time.
[computer chimes] - Oh, hey.
Who--who is this?
- I am Kehondre. - Kehondre?
So you're Andrew?
- Yes. - Well, hello.
Vonni, you know who this person is?
- No. - Kehondre, do you know Vonnie?
- No. - Okay.
We have a lot of questions,
but I don't wanna get in the way of you guys
or in this case, you, Kehondre,
I don't know if you wanna say something
to kind of get things going here,
but obviously, you have some explaining to do.
- Oh, yeah.
Well, it started off as, um, a...
a scheme.
- Scheme? - Yeah.
Like, I've been catfishing for about two--
about a year and a half, two years.
I have a female profile, which is Venus.
- You Venus, too? - Yeah, I am Venus.
I've been doing it for a year and a half.
So yes, I've been--I scam people.
COVID was going on when I started to make the page
and it went off from there
and I just started scamming people.
I didn't have no money, I had no income, no nothing,
so I had to make a quick way to get money
and that's how I-- that's how I decided to do it.
- So you led me on for six months
talked about--you talked about living together.
Was that real or?
- When I started, it was to get money out of you,
but it ended up turning into something different
and it just went too far.
Everything was real.
I just wasn't the person in the pictures, obviously.
- Well, it wasn't real
because even though you're saying you like Vonnie now,
you initially met him and presumably lots of other people
to scam them.
- Yes, and pay my bills. So yeah, I did.
- So you was talking to multiple people
while you was talking to me,
like, doing that with other people
while you was talking to the same time?
You weren't gonna pay my bills, how else I got to do it?
I did what I did. It's over. It happened, okay?
Oh, well, I scam people.
You see me, I see you. Like, what's the problem?
- The problem is scamming people.
That's the problem.
- Okay, well, I did it. I'm here. So now what?
- Okay, why don't we do this-- where do you live?
- I live in a town named Pontiac, Michigan.
- Are you 26? - Yes, I'm 26.
- Okay, and you don't have a job
that you have to clock into every day?
- No. I don't have a nine to five.
No, I do not.
- Okay, so this is your main source of income?
- Yes, it is.
- How many people do you think you've talked to in total
using the profiles over the last year and a half?
- It's been hundreds.
- Okay, so a lot-- a lot of people?
- Mm-hmm.
- And about how many of those relationships
or those conversations end up
making it to the level where they're sending you money?
- Mostly all of them. - Wow.
- That's how I make the money.
That's how I make the money I make.
- So you're pretty good at this?
- Yes. - Wow.
- But you are aware that, like, you're getting called out.
Like, somebody was literally on the Venus page today
posting screenshots saying that you're a scammer.
- That's fine. I'll make another page.
[chuckles] That's fine. It don't stop.
That's--they don't understand. It don't stop.
- Have you made new pages already?
- Yeah, that's--them are new. Them are new pages.
- And what do you do when people wanna talk to Venus?
- [high-pitched voice] Hey, how are you. What's up?
- I can't.
- It's--it's the game, y'all. Y'all gotta know the game.
It's the game. That's all it is.
- Well, was it a game or do you like him?
'Cause you said that your relationship with Vonnie
did mean something to you?
- Yes, I started catching feelings for him.
Yes, I did.
The way he texts me, the way he cared,
the way he just carry himself, like, when we got on phone,
he like, he said some things that really made me think,
like, "Oh, my God,
this is a wrong person to be doing this to."
♪ ♪
- After that point, did you continue asking him for money?
- He sent me like two payments and then after that
it was nothing.
- So how you feeling right now? Like--
- I mean, I feel the same way.
There's nothing that's gonna change, like,
I still want to be with you. I want to get to know you,
and I want to take this off of what I did
and I apologize.
- If you wanted to work something out,
you could have stopped doing that scam [bleep]
or whatever [bleep] you be doing.
- Yeah, I do what I do.
Like, I don't see a problem with it.
- You don't see a problem with catfishing
and scamming people?
- Scamming? - No.
You're old enough to know what to do and what not to do
and what not to do to get scammed.
Like what?
- But then you could also make the argument
that you're old enough to know that scamming people is wrong.
- To you, it's wrong. To me, it's not wrong.
- No, to everybody it's wrong.
- Well, that's y'all opinion. To me, it's not wrong.
- Right, that's what--that's what is gagging me literally.
- Right, all this a game-- - No, because y'all--
y'all just sit here thinking like,
like--like I'm just a bad person--
- Hey, you not even planning to stop.
You wanna keep going. - I mean, look.
Vonnie should have known better,
but he didn't and he's generous and he's sweet and he's kind,
and you took advantage of that.
You definitely hurt him and wasted his time
and, you know, took money from him under false pretenses.
And those are all pretty [bleep] up things
to do to someone.
- Exactly.
- Right? You can acknowledge that.
- Mm-hmm.
- For you to sit here and say like,
"I don't see anything wrong with it. It's cool.
If they get scammed, it's their fault."
Like, that's not real talk.
That's you trying to justify your [bleep] behavior
and not feel bad about it.
- I'm not justifying anything. It's just what I do.
I do what I do and I do what I do
and I don't want to be judged for it.
- Okay, well.
- All right, then let's not talk about that.
Let's talk about Vonnie.
Because you have a lot of confidence
to sort of come on here and say,
"Hey, you know, that's what I do.
"I'm not gonna stop doing it,
but I still want to be with you."
And I don't know what you expected him to say.
- That we just-- - Scam together?
- [laughs] No.
That is not--that was not what I was thinking,
because I don't want you in there, like--
- I won't go do it, trust me. Mm-mm.
- But, I mean, rather I was hoping that you was like,
"Okay, well, you do what you do.
"That's not on me. We're gonna rock out.
"We gonna get to know each other,
but whatever you do, that's on you."
I'm a provider, so I was gonna be a provider.
Now if y'all want to be honest,
I'm in love with Vonnie.
I love him and I want to be with him.
I wanna pursue a future with him,
but like I said, it's money.
Y'all ought to understand that.
I--I--I never, I don't-- I don't care what nobody say.
Making this amount of money
got me from where I was living at in the hood.
I don't have nobody at home,
I can't ask nobody for nothing, I can't do none of that.
So with me doing that, that's me providing for me.
If you--if you can't deal with that, I'm sorry.
- Just stop.
- And what about your life in Pontiac?
I mean, are-- are you dating anyone?
- No, but I do have something to tell Vonnie.
- Oh, Jesus Christ.
- I was dating this girl
and she is seven months pregnant.
[dramatic music]
- Oh, my God.
- I do have something to tell Vonnie.
- Oh, Jesus Christ.
- I was dating this girl
and she is seven months pregnant.
[dramatic music]
- So you was willing to still have a relationship with me,
but you got all this going on?
- And are you planning on being an active parent?
- Of course. I want full custody.
That's what I'm going for.
- On top of scamming and doing all that,
but you getting locked up 'cause of this,
who gonna watch the baby?
- Whatever I have to do to support my daughter,
that's it.
When that baby come, I'm gonna be a provider.
- That's a pretty major detail that you left out
of your very loving communications with Vonnie
where you talking about having him move to Michigan
and, you know, quit his job
and you guys could do something together.
Are you still with this girl?
- No. Well, I didn't know. I wasn't to tell him like this,
but he gets-- he called you guys.
So I guess I had no choice but to tell him.
- Well, first--first of all, first of all,
Vonni did not write in.
Vonni's friend wrote in on his behalf
because she felt as though you were likely--
- Scamming. - Scamming him.
And she was right. - She was right.
- So it was not Vonni's idea to come on here.
And even if it was-- - He didn't wanna do this.
- No, but even if it was his idea,
that doesn't mean that he deserves
the [bleep] things that you did to him
and neither does anybody else.
When you come on here and you're talking to someone
that you are in love with,
court him in the way you've been courting him.
You've been, "Hello, good morning, beautiful."
- Right.
- All these nice things. Like, where is the softness?
- That--that--that's who I am. What do you mean?
Y'all, I have three people attacking me
and I'm-- I'm being asked questions
and y'all contradicting what I'm saying?
- You came up here all aggressive
like you don't care. You just care about money.
- How was I aggressive? How was I aggressive?
- Then you wanna come up here and talk about a baby.
That's--
- It's life. I told you.
- That kinda like pushed me.
Like, I'm 20 years old. Like, I'm gonna have fun.
I don't got time for all these games to be honest, like.
- So you don't want-- so you don't wanna--
you don't wanna talk anymore?
- Like, first of all, you say you're not planning on stopping
and you didn't even say to me about the female.
- I just told you.
- Okay, but it's late, like you could've told me--
- No, no, no, but you called them.
So you did this, you brought this on yourself.
What do you mean? I told you here.
I was gonna--I was gonna tell you somewhere else,
but you wanted to bring it here, so here we are.
What you mean?
How you getting mad at me 'cause I told you that?
- I just wish you was 100 with me in the beginning.
Just put his bomb on me.
Just like, thanks.
- 'Cause it's up with a bomb on you, you running?
- No, I'm not running. - Right, so--
- I can only deal with too much, all this [bleep]. Like--
- But what you just said-- - Too much.
- You just said it's too much and you--
- It is too much. That's why I said I can't.
I can't deal with you because.
- Okay, so that's what it is.
You just said to hell with it. That's what it is, so.
Y'all heard him, he can't deal with this, so it is what it is.
- He shouldn't have to deal with it.
- Do you feel badly
that you've been doing this for the past year and a half?
- Yeah, I mean, I feel bad of course,
but do I regret it?
No, because it got me where I am now.
- Oh, yeah. Those are separate things, but yeah.
- Yeah.
But you--you do feel--
that you've hurt people and you acknowledge that--
- Yeah. - Right.
- I'm not crazy, y'all. [chuckles]
- But see, this is what-- this is what we--
when we were asking the questions,
that is what we were looking for.
Because the surface level is no, I don't like--
no, like, I do-- - You said it's their fault.
- "I do what I do, I do what I did," blah, blah, blah.
But the reality is here where it's,
"I do feel bad about what I'm doing,
but it did get me to where I am and I'm happy about that."
That--that is the truth.
- Mm-hmm.
I apologize, um,
but I will send you your money back tomorrow.
But other than that, I wish you the best and I hope one day
we can meet each other again or cross paths or whatever,
but this is not the way I wanted it to be,
but I respect it.
So it's what it is. Are we done here?
- Yeah. - [chuckles]
- All right, so look,
so you're probably both better off
not in a relationship with each other.
I don't know how you want to or don't want to
continue being friends or talking or not.
- Well, if I don't--if I don't talk to you again,
happy birthday. [chuckles]
Um, but yeah, like I said, you made a decision.
I respect it and that's that.
- Well, I wish you and your baby best.
- Thank you.
- Hopefully, you change. - Thank you.
I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much.
- All right, man. Take my luck with everything.
- Bye, thank you. - Good luck.
- This [bleep] up. Like, mm-mm.
- Vonnie.
- It's like a robber on the street coming to mug you
and they have a gun to your head and they're like,
"Oh, actually you're kind of cute.
Can I get your number?" - Right.
- No. Get the [bleep] out of here.
- I'm sorry it didn't work out,
but I do think you're way better off.
- Yeah. I think I'm okay. I'm not like, sad.
I'm, like, kinda disappointed but kinda happy
because, like, I can just live my life
and just, like, go to the beach, hi girls.
- Let us know if he does send you that money back.
- He not. [chuckles]
- And I would urge you to block him
and keep a close eye out for any new friend requests
and make sure that you steer clear.
- All right, thank y'all.
- [smooches]
- Bye. - Bye, Vonni.
- Bye.
- ♪ I don't wanna miss out ♪
♪ I don't, I don't wanna miss out ♪
♪ Don't matter, I don't want to cool it down ♪
♪ ♪
- Vonni is in love with a guy he met online named Andrew.
- He make me feel good.
Like, he like he compliment me every day.
- Do you guys say you love each other?
- Yes.
One time, I just sent him $275. - Why?
- Because I'm in love. - Vonni.
- Oh, we got a hit! - [gasps]
Stay away from this "person." Straight-up scammer.
- Wow. - #Catfish.
- I don't know if I'm cold or I'm just nervous.
[computer chimes] - Oh.
Who is this?
- All right, where are we going?
- Oh, let's do it.
[upbeat music]
[gasps] Oh, my God!
Yes! Cleo!
Oh, my goodness.
Was this your idea? - [giggles]
- You pranked me?
- The heck's going on?
You guys making the show without me?
- Yeah. - What?
You guys replaced me with Cleo and Biggie?
- Yes. This is so much better. Let's see what it looks like.
Here, Biggie.
- Maybe you guys show us the show.
Just the two of you.
- Yeah, I think this is the show.
- This is... - Well--
- This is definitely a better version of the show.
- Biggie, get your camera. - All right, Cleo.
- We're ready for another catfish case.
- [giggles]
- All right.
- You can sit on my lap. [grunts]
- Cleo, you have to say, "'Catfish,' take one."
- "Catfish," take one. - Yes.
- Good. All right, should we read this email?
- Yes. - All right, here we go.
Here's an email from Camara.
So the email says, "Dear Nev, Kamie," and Cleo.
- And Biggie. - And Biggie.
"My name is Camara.
"Four years ago, I met my best friend, Vonni.
"We actually work together here in Richmond, Virginia.
"I'm sending you this email
"because I've been concerned about Vonni's relationship
with a guy he met online named Andrew."
- Uh-oh.
- Andrew is everything that Vonni wants in a guy...
- ♪ And I don't know what to do ♪
- And they're getting very serious.
- ♪ Loving you was easy ♪
♪ Till you got yourself thinking out loud ♪
- "Vonni is the sweetest guy, but he's young.
He's pretty naive."
- ♪ With my head in the clouds ♪
- "And he is so in love with Andrew,
but Andrew won't FaceTime."
Isn't that crazy? You love to FaceTime.
"I know Vonni has asked him,
"but Andrew just gives him excuses
and he wants Vonni to move to Michigan to be with him..."
- Mm-mm.
- "Which is crazy
if they haven't even video chatted yet."
- What if he's not real? - What if he's not real?
- Right. - You don't know anything.
- ♪ With my head in the clouds ♪
♪ ♪
- "To make matters worse, I just recently found out
that Vonni has been sending Andrew money."
- [sighs] - Oh, man.
- Can we get a facepalm? Like this?
- "Vonni has been cheated on more than once,
"and I know he is still vulnerable,
"so when I heard how shady Andrew's been,
"I knew I had to do something.
"I really need your help to see if this guy is real.
"It'd be awesome if he really is Vonni's true match
"and I'm completely wrong, but I doubt it.
"Hope you can help my friend before it's too late.
Thank you very much, Camara."
So if you were going to tell Vonni
what he should do right now, what would you tell him?
- Get the money back. [laughter]
- Yes. - Get the money back.
- Agreed.
- All right, Cleo. Thank you for your help.
- Yay. Cleo. - [giggles]
- You're hired. Thank you so much.
Oh, my God, I love her.
- All right, so let's get Camara.
"Hey, Camara."
- Just read your email, and we wanna help.
Kamara is a good friend. Oh.
[computer chimes] - Oh.
- Hi. both: Hey.
- Wait. We need to know how to say your name.
- It's Camara.
- Camara. - Yeah.
- Good to meet you. - Yeah.
- Good to meet you, too.
- Thank you for writing in on behalf of your friend.
Sounds like he does need help.
- Yes. I'm very concerned about him.
He's not getting these red flags.
- Right. - And it's very concerning.
He's been through a lot.
I'm tired of his heart being broken.
- So how serious is he with Andrew?
- Very. He even sends money to him.
And I said, "Why would you do that?
He won't even show his face on FaceTime."
I don't know what this man looks like.
I don't know barely anything about him.
He won't show his face, but he wanna fly you out
and want you to quit your job to come to him.
- Quit his job? - Yes. To come to him.
- You've obviously talked to Vonni
about your concerns, right?
- Yeah. It's me over here saying,
"I'm happy for you but you need to think about this."
- Or the realistic side, perhaps?
- Yeah. - Vonni is lucky to have you.
- Thank you. - Wait.
So how do you think we should get in touch with Vonni?
- Does he know that you wrote into the show?
- I mentioned, but he was like,
"I doubt they would even contact you back."
I guess he will be just as surprised as I was.
- What if we stay on the Zoom, I'll text him,
"it's Nev and Kamie and we're with Camara.
Come on the Zoom."
All right, I just sent it.
- You spelled her name wrong. - [bleep]
- [laughing] It's okay.
- No, it's not. It will never happen again.
- [laughing] Okay.
- Oh. - Facepalm.
- [laughing] Oh my--no, he didn't.
- Vonni. [computer chimes]
- Hey. - Vonni.
- Hey y'all? How y'all doing?
- What's up? - Vonni.
- Okay, Camara. Okay.
- Don't be mad at me.
- Are you feeling any kind of way towards your friend here?
- [laughs]
- I--I'm nervous. I'm really nervous.
- Camara cares about you,
and she just wants to make sure that you're not getting played.
There are some things about Andrew that are a little fishy.
- Mm, yeah.
- Okay. So you acknowledge that?
- Yes.
- Vonni, you need to know who he really is.
- Right? Okay. So we got more to talk about,
but Camara, I don't want to keep you all day.
Thank you for--for writing in.
- Bye, Camara. Love you.
- Bye. I love you too. Fill me in.
- I will. - I need to know.
- Bye, Camara. - Bye.
- Okay, so back to Andrew.
Can you kind of take us back, explain how you met,
and kind of how the relationship progressed.
We wanna know everything.
- Okay. While I was at work, I was on break...
but he replies to my story, he was like,
"You're beautiful." I was like, "Oh yeah."
- And when you saw his page, did it have a lot of stuff
on there and friends and pictures?
- Uh, no. He don't get that many friends,
but like a hundred and some friends.
- All right. But there were photos of him.
- Yeah. The same ones he sent me.
- So then you guys started chatting.
- Yeah. We started chatting.
That's when I'm like, "What's your number?"
The next night, we called each other on the phone
having a good conversation like, you know, the basic.
I said, "Where you from?" He said, "Michigan."
- When you were talking on the phone,
it clearly sounded like a guy's voice?
- It was a boy voice, but he started to ask
about sleeping on the phone, but he snores so loud.
- Wait, how quickly
did you guys start talking all every night like that?
- Since the first night.
- Wow. So you guys talk still every night?
- Sometimes we fall asleep on the phone.
- Okay.
And when you're talking to him,
tell us about the conversations and what he's like.
- He is calm, he is funny, he like to tell jokes.
He made me feel good.
Like, he like to compliment me every day.
He makes me more confident and he helped me emotionally, too.
This is something new for me
because I've been through a lot, like,
the words he tell me, I never heard from the other boys.
Plus, he older, I always dealt with younger.
- How old is he, exactly?
- 26. - Oh, okay.
What does he do? - He a entrepreneur.
He said that he wants to start a business
of selling bouncy houses for kids.
- So what does he do currently?
- Currently unemployment. It's all I know. Unemployment.
- He is trying to get it together.
- Yeah.
- Camara told us that she thinks you and Andrew
have talked about him, like, saying,
"Come move to Michigan." Is that true?
- Oh, my God. She said everything.
He was telling me about the entrepreneur stuff
he want to do. I'm like, "Oh, I can help you."
He wanted me to quit my job to go up there.
- Wait, do we even know where he lives in Michigan?
- He said Detroit, Michigan.
- Okay. So he lives in Detroit.
- But he lives in Detroit, he's now on unemployment,
and he wants for you to quit your job
to join him on unemployment,
to figure out what he's going to do?
No.
- It's, like, uphill.
One side of me wanna go so bad. I'm just like--
- That's not even sustainable.
- Show us a picture of this guy 'cause I wanna know--
- Should I turn my phone to the screen?
Or should I just send it?
- You can--you can just hold your phone up to the screen.
- He is one.
- Okay. Light eyes, danger. He got hazel eyes?
- The second one. That's all I got.
- I think it's fair to say that a guy who looks that good
would probably have
more pictures he could send you, right?
- When I ask for more, it's, like, issues.
Like, that's when arguments start.
- Interesting.
- Wait, so he won't send you pictures,
but he asked you to send him money?
- Yes. - How did that come up?
- It just came out of nowhere.
You just said,
"Hey, can you send some money for some food?"
I'm like, "Okay, here you go. $25."
Oh, "I gotta get me a haircut."
$35.
And one time, I just sent him $275 randomly.
- Why? - Because I'm in love.
- So you're a sugar daddy?
- And has it all been through on app?
- Apple Pay.
- It just goes to his phone number?
- Mm-hmm.
- Has he done anything nice for you?
Has he paid you back?
- Well, when I send him $25, he sent me $10 back
just because he said he didn't need all of it.
- I mean, that's a good move
because it says you can trust me.
- [clicks tongue] - Have you done any research?
Have you tried to run his phone number?
- Well, you know, I try to put his phone number
in the cash app thing, you know, you can see--
- Ooh, smart. - Yes.
- But all that I saw was like,
someone named Ke'an in their state.
- So wait, you ran his phone number in the cash app
and it came back to someone named Ke'an?
- Yeah. That's all. - That's strange. Right?
Shouldn't it come back to someone named Andrew?
- That's weird, but I just say, "You know what? Mm."
- You didn't even bring it up? - No.
I don't know what to tell him.
I'm just now telling y'all, like.
- Vonni. This is the red flag. - That's a red flag.
- No, but it's right here. And Vonni said.
- Can you see this? Wait, maybe he's colorblind.
- I can't even see.
- What color is this? Can you see this?
- I see the red flag, but how I do you even mention it?
Because people use other people's cash apps
all the time, so that's why I never.
- People use other people's cash apps all the time
on this show, but that is part of the problem.
- It do sound weird, but I'ma still trust him.
- All right, well, look. We wanna help.
We want you to have a successful relationship
with a mature person who appreciates you and loves you.
And maybe it is Andrew, but we gotta find out.
- Please. And thank you. - [chuckles]
- All right. Send us whatever information you have.
- All right.
- And hopefully, we'll have something for you soon.
- Okay. Thank you.
- Bye. - Bye.
A cash app. - It's all bad.
- I can't believe he found him on Cash App
and his name was Ke'an
and he didn't even bring it up because he knows...
- Mm-hmm.
- It could potentially devolve into a breakup,
and he'd rather just be talking
to someone fake and fighting with someone real.
- That's the reality.
- Not looking good for Vonni.
- All right. - [imitating fanfare]
And then I feel like we need a "Catfish" theme song.
♪ Watch out ♪
♪ Danger ♪
♪ Don't send money to random strangers ♪
- [laughs] - All right.
- All right. So here's what we got.
Vonni, 20 years old,
six months ago, he gets a reply.
"You're so beautiful." They start chatting.
By the next day, they are on the phone,
falling asleep talking to each other.
It's heading very quickly in a good direction.
- Yeah. - But there's some problems.
He doesn't have a lot of pictures of himself.
He doesn't apparently have any other social media profiles
aside from his Facebook
and also, Vonni ran the phone number,
but it came back to a different name.
- Ke'an. - All right.
Let's see if we got an email here.
Hey guys, here's what I know about Andrew.
His last name is Love.
- Andrew Love? - Never a good sign.
Here's his phone number and his Facebook
and he's only got the two pictures.
So let's run the phone number.
- I feel like we're going to find some nonsense on this.
- Let's just run this.
What? Martin [bleep]? 57.
Look, we've got a Facebook page and everything.
- There's nothing on this page.
- Weird page, right? - What is happening?
- Could be his dad.
- I'm going to go on a hunch and say no.
- Right. All right.
Let's go back now and run the photos.
Here's the peace sign pic.
All right. Oh, we got a hit!
- [gasps] - Whoo!
- Wait. That's his page.
- Oh, there it is. This is him.
- That's him.
- Is this page real? Oh yeah. This is a lot of photos.
- Instagram. - [gasps]
Oh [bleep], here he is.
- This guy's name is Larson.
- Wow. - Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm.
- That was too easy.
- How do we know that it's not another catfish profile?
- There's no way someone has 83,000 followers on Instagram
and it's not him.
- I still think we need to talk to him to make sure.
I feel like Vonni needs, like, concrete proof.
- You just want to talk to this guy.
- Well, if we can possibly connect him with Vonni.
- Hot girl summer, leave it out there, Kamie.
- No. - Okay?
- In here, it's cold case winter.
- [laughing] - All right?
- I just feel like if we're going to tell Vonni
that the person that he's talking to
is not the guy in the picture-- - Right.
It'd be nice for him to know who the real guy is--
- And he needs proof.
- So I feel like we should reach out
to this Instagram, then. - Yeah.
"Hey Larson." All right, Sent.
The only thing we haven't done yet
is go to Andrew's Facebook page.
There's a whole 'nother name on there.
- Autotic?
- Weird. - From Pontiac, Michigan.
"There's things I'm not proud of,
but I'm not perfect."
We know, Andrew. We know.
Who is that Venus [bleep]?
- Where? - The first comment.
"I know I'm late but good afternoon."
- Oh, she commented on this, too.
This Venus page seems to be doing a lot of work
to try and make his page feel real.
- Richmond, Virginia. - Whoa.
- This feels like a bogus page, too.
- For sure.
- Should we message her and see if she wants to help us?
- She's probably Andrew. - Could be.
Let's send a message to this Venus girl. Sent.
All right. Let's do what he did and just run the phone number
in the cash app and just see what comes up.
Ke'an. And then his username is Befair [bleep].
- You be fair. - Which is weird.
Let me see if we can search that
because there's a social media search.
So let's see, Befair [bleep].
Potential owner, William [bleep].
- That's a very generic-ass name.
Somebody messaged. Venus, she messaged.
Should I ask her to get on the Zoom?
- Yeah.
- She said, "Sorry. I'm at work." Okay.
Autotic [bleep]."
- Oh, we worked together. - Oh, you mean Larson? What?
Wait a second. That's the name of the guy in the pictures.
- No. There's no way Autotic [bleep] is actually Larson.
That's not true. - [laughing]
This girl obviously knows that there is someone
named Larson who's the person in the pictures,
but we thought his name was Andrew.
This sounds like bull[bleep].
- I said that from the beginning.
- She knows what's going on.
- Huh? Wait. Huh? - What? What is this video?
- Him, right? - Him, right?
Is that supposed to be her? - Yeah, no. That's not her.
- Yes, him. - Yes, him. What?
- That's not the girl in the video.
- No. It's a Venus flytrap.
- Virginia. That's where Vonni's from.
I don't understand.
Why would she reveal Larson to us?
Maybe this is some weird burner account
that Larson started 'cause he's in a relationship
and he's using this to talk to Vonni.
We can't completely rule out that possibility.
Let's see if she can talk maybe tomorrow.
Let's see if that actually pans out.
All right. So we've got some weird information from Venus.
I'll see if any of it's real.
We've got a message out
to the guy who appears is the real person in the photo.
So let's stop. Let's talk to Vonni tomorrow.
Venus did mention Virginia... - Mm-hmm.
- And if we're getting into some murky waters here
with someone from Virginia
who might be connected to Vonni, anything is possible.
- I realized today I don't want to take my braids out ever.
I hate doing my hair. - [chuckles]
- Please, give me a [bleep] break.
- All right, let me see if I got any replies.
Larson wrote back this morning. "Are you for real?"
- Yes. - "Yes, I'm for real.
Are you available in the next 30 minutes?"
He said, "Sure." Okay, great.
- And then what about Venus? Did she say anything else?
- That was a Facebook message? - Mm-hmm.
- No. I'll just check in with her.
"Hey, Venus. Looking forward to chatting today."
All right. Shall we?
- We shall. - Let's get to work.
I'm gonna text Vonni.
Okay, I can get on right now. Raring to go.
[computer chimes]
- Hey Vonni. - What's up?
What's going on, man? How was your night?
- I'm nervous. I was thinking, "What are they gonna find?"
I'm scared now.
- Well, hopefully we have some answers for you.
All right, so I'm going to share our screen here.
All right, so the first thing we did yesterday
was we ran Andrew's phone number.
It came back registered to someone named Martin [bleep].
You know anyone?
- No. I've never heard the name.
No. Mm-mm.
57?
I like them old, but not that old.
- Right. It's not impossible that this could be their dad,
or it could just be
some random person who had the phone before.
- Hopefully the phone is just in that person name, hopefully.
- After that you had found a cash app.
- Yeah.
- So we did it too, and we stopped at Ke'an,
but we also noticed that the username was Befair [bleep].
- Mm-hmm.
So we looked up Befair [bleep]
and it came up registered to someone named William [bleep].
- I never heard that name before.
- All right.
I mean, that's obviously a kind of "generic" name.
After that, we did a photo search
and when we ran the phone, we got a Twitter.
There's content on here.
There's a lot of content that you haven't seen, obviously.
- They look really active, too. - Yeah.
Most importantly, right here, there's an Instagram account.
And when we go to that, we find this.
It's got 83,000 followers.
- And this guy's name is Larson.
- Oh, wow.
- It would appear that Andrew is taking pictures
of this guy Larson
and set up the page that you met him on.
- People still do that? - Yes, unfortunately.
- Oh, my God.
- We haven't completely ruled out there's a chance
you could be talking to the guy in the pictures
and that maybe he messaged you
a second sort of fake burner account.
- Right.
- We sent him a message.
Are you for real? He messaged back.
- Oh, he text back?
- I said, "Can you talk?" He said, "Sure."
So let's see if we can get them to come in right now.
[suspenseful music]
Okay, great. He says, "Sure".
He should pop in any second. [computer chimes]
- Oh. - Hello?
- Hey. - Sorry, I'm at work.
I only have like ten minutes on break.
- Oh, well, thank you
for making a little bit time for us. This is Vonni.
He's been in a relationship with some guy
for about six months now who looks exactly like you.
So I have to ask, Larson,
are you in a relationship with Vonni?
- It's not me.
To be honest, this happens a lot.
- How often do people
use your pictures to make fake profiles?
- I can't even count on both hands.
I mean sometimes I'd be like, it's really nothing I can do,
but just say to report them
'cause it's on different platforms.
- Yeah.
- Well, Vonni has been talking to someone
who was using your pictures,
who called themselves Andrew and said they lived in Detroit.
And I'm wondering if any of this sounds familiar.
- Doesn't sound familiar at all.
- Okay.
- Vonni, we haven't gotten to this yet,
but Larson, do you know of anyone named Venus?
- Oh, yeah, a girl, maybe? - Venus [bleep]?
- No, I don't know Venus.
- All right, so Larson, thank you for getting in touch.
Appreciate you clearing this up.
- Thank you, Larson.
- I'm so sorry.
- It's okay. - All right.
- Thank you - Thank you, Larson.
- Thanks, Larson.
- That's the answer right there.
I got played.
[downbeat music]
- I feel like a part of you isn't that shocked
because there were some signs along the way.
- There was. I just didn't-- me, I'm just scared to, like,
question somebody, like, if something not right.
- You didn't wanna mess things up by grilling him too hard?
- Yeah, exactly. That's how I am.
And I just hate hurting somebody else.
- But here's the thing.
Here's what my therapist says to me.
Every single time you give someone else a pass
because you don't wanna hurt them,
you end up hurting yourself.
- And you're right. You're right.
- Well, why don't we finish showing you what we found?
You sent us his Facebook, which we went to look at.
The only thing we really noticed from this was that
on almost every post,
there's a comment from this girl, Venus,
the girl we asked Larson about.
- Who the [bleep] is Venus?
- That's what we want to know. So we went to her page.
That was the first thing we thought.
- Wait, wait, wait, look at that new post.
"If it's not obvious already,
"stay away from this 'person' Venus [bleep].
"Straight up scammer.
#Catfish." - Wow.
- Then somebody said, "How do you know it's a scam?"
- And then he said, "'cuz she text me out of the blue
asking for money. That's a big red flag."
Why would she leave this on her page?
- She probably hasn't seen it.
It was only posted a few hours ago.
- Wow, okay.
Well, 'cause we were suspicious that this page felt fake.
- Mm-hmm. - Something not right.
- So we messaged her,
"Hey, wondering how you know Autotic [bleep]."
- 'Cause that's his Facebook name.
- Right. She said, "Oh, you mean Larson?"
- Oh, wow.
- I said, "We thought his name was Andrew.
How do you know Larson?"
"Oh, we're just friends" and they hang out.
I said, "Well, when did you see him last?"
And she said, "Virginia before COVID."
- Virginia, really? - Virginia.
- 'Cause I live in Virginia. - Right.
- It's not impossible
that this could be someone from your past.
- The way it's looking right now between that Venus post
and this situation,
I have a feeling that there are at least two people
who are working in tandem to scam and lie and get money.
- Money?
- Well, yeah, and you have been giving him money, so.
- Yes.
- Unfortunately, we now know
whoever you're talking to lied about the photos.
- Mm-hmm.
- Now, what else did they lie about?
We don't know.
At this point, the only way to get the answers
is to just reach out to them.
- Hopefully, he just be 100 and maybe it'll work out.
- You still feel like there's a chance?
- There could be a reason why he doing this like,
he couldn't have been through something.
- True. - I think at this point,
our only option now is to call Andrew
on the phone number that you have.
Let's just see if he answers. [line trilling]
- Hello.
- Hey, is this Andrew?
- Yes. - Man.
- Hey, Andrew, it's Nev from the TV show "Catfish"
and I am calling because we've been chatting with Vonni
and we're really hoping
we could finally help you guys meet up.
So-- [line disconnects]
He hung up. - Lord, have mercy.
- What the [bleep]?
- Hey, is this Andrew?
- Hey, Andrew, it's Nev from the TV show "Catfish"
and I am calling because we've been chatting with Vonni
and we're really hoping
we could finally help you guys meet up.
So-- [line disconnects]
That was weird.
- He hung up? - Yeah.
What the [bleep]? - Call him back now.
- Let me try him back. That was the weird.
[line trilling]
[suspenseful music]
- Please leave your message for--
- Let me text him.
"Hey, Andrew, it's Nev.
Please call me back."
- That was weird. That was his voice?
- Yeah, that's the voice. That's it. Mm-hmm.
- The concerning part is that there seems to be
a weird connection between Andrew and Venus
and Venus now very well might be a scammer.
It certainly looks that way from their--
- Right, you can tell.
The profile seemed weird, anyway.
- Right, and I don't wanna say, you know, birds of a feather,
but they seem to be flocking together.
- I'm hurt because I, like, trust him.
Like, I really, like, wanted something to work.
♪ ♪
I was really looking forward to move,
to be honest, and start a new beginning.
- You were actually thinking about moving to Detroit?
- Yes, I was. I was thinking about it.
Like I said, I thought it was for real.
Like we could really go do this.
We probably can still do this, but come on.
What you waiting on?
- You feel strongly enough about him that even though
you know he's not the guy in the pictures,
you still really want somehow for this to work out?
- I just wanna talk.
Maybe it can, like, you can just talk first
then maybe something can happen, like.
♪ ♪
- Yeah.
Do you guys say you love each other?
- ♪ Being half under the water ♪
♪ Tell me, do you see me? ♪
- He said it first. - He said it first?
- The first time, I was joking.
I'm like, "Oh, you for real?" He said, "Yes, I'm for real."
I'm like, "Oh, I see." - Oh.
- It's something new for me, really.
So that's why I was so excited.
- Maybe there's still reason to be excited,
but there's definitely a reason to ask some questions.
- Yeah, it's a lot of questions.
- Yeah. - All right. Cool.
- All right, well, look, obviously now
Andrew knows that we're trying to figure this out.
So I don't know what else
I can do to try and get in touch with him.
Like obviously tried calling him back.
I sent him this message. I don't--he's not responded.
I feel like at this point,
I kind of think it has to come from you now.
I think he needs a little motivation
and inspiration here.
- Should I text him or call him?
- Whatever you wanna do.
You know, just speak from the heart.
- I'm gonna text him first. - Okay.
[dramatic music]
- "Hey, you getting on Zoom?
I heard you talking to Nev and Kamie."
"We also spoke to Venus. I really wanna talk to you.
Maybe we can make something work."
♪ ♪
- He usually texts back quick.
- [gasps] - Oh, oh, we got a reply.
- This weird, oh, my God.
- All right, so this is all you now, Vonni.
- "Yes, of course."
♪ ♪
- I'm nervous. Kinda scared.
- Oh, there are some bubbles. There we go.
- [gasps] Send a link.
- Let me text you the link
and then you can just copy-paste it from your phone.
♪ ♪
- He typing.
Oh, he said okay. - Oh, whoa, great.
So is he just gonna jump in to Zoom any second now?
- Ooh.
- How do you feel, Vonnie? - I'm nervous.
I don't know if I'm cold or I'm just nervous.
[suspenseful music]
I'm a chicken.
♪ ♪
[computer chimes] - Oh, who is this?
- He sure knows how to take his time.
[computer chimes] - Oh, hey.
Who--who is this?
- I am Kehondre. - Kehondre?
So you're Andrew?
- Yes. - Well, hello.
Vonni, you know who this person is?
- No. - Kehondre, do you know Vonnie?
- No. - Okay.
We have a lot of questions,
but I don't wanna get in the way of you guys
or in this case, you, Kehondre,
I don't know if you wanna say something
to kind of get things going here,
but obviously, you have some explaining to do.
- Oh, yeah.
Well, it started off as, um, a...
a scheme.
- Scheme? - Yeah.
Like, I've been catfishing for about two--
about a year and a half, two years.
I have a female profile, which is Venus.
- You Venus, too? - Yeah, I am Venus.
I've been doing it for a year and a half.
So yes, I've been--I scam people.
COVID was going on when I started to make the page
and it went off from there
and I just started scamming people.
I didn't have no money, I had no income, no nothing,
so I had to make a quick way to get money
and that's how I-- that's how I decided to do it.
- So you led me on for six months
talked about--you talked about living together.
Was that real or?
- When I started, it was to get money out of you,
but it ended up turning into something different
and it just went too far.
Everything was real.
I just wasn't the person in the pictures, obviously.
- Well, it wasn't real
because even though you're saying you like Vonnie now,
you initially met him and presumably lots of other people
to scam them.
- Yes, and pay my bills. So yeah, I did.
- So you was talking to multiple people
while you was talking to me,
like, doing that with other people
while you was talking to the same time?
You weren't gonna pay my bills, how else I got to do it?
I did what I did. It's over. It happened, okay?
Oh, well, I scam people.
You see me, I see you. Like, what's the problem?
- The problem is scamming people.
That's the problem.
- Okay, well, I did it. I'm here. So now what?
- Okay, why don't we do this-- where do you live?
- I live in a town named Pontiac, Michigan.
- Are you 26? - Yes, I'm 26.
- Okay, and you don't have a job
that you have to clock into every day?
- No. I don't have a nine to five.
No, I do not.
- Okay, so this is your main source of income?
- Yes, it is.
- How many people do you think you've talked to in total
using the profiles over the last year and a half?
- It's been hundreds.
- Okay, so a lot-- a lot of people?
- Mm-hmm.
- And about how many of those relationships
or those conversations end up
making it to the level where they're sending you money?
- Mostly all of them. - Wow.
- That's how I make the money.
That's how I make the money I make.
- So you're pretty good at this?
- Yes. - Wow.
- But you are aware that, like, you're getting called out.
Like, somebody was literally on the Venus page today
posting screenshots saying that you're a scammer.
- That's fine. I'll make another page.
[chuckles] That's fine. It don't stop.
That's--they don't understand. It don't stop.
- Have you made new pages already?
- Yeah, that's--them are new. Them are new pages.
- And what do you do when people wanna talk to Venus?
- [high-pitched voice] Hey, how are you. What's up?
- I can't.
- It's--it's the game, y'all. Y'all gotta know the game.
It's the game. That's all it is.
- Well, was it a game or do you like him?
'Cause you said that your relationship with Vonnie
did mean something to you?
- Yes, I started catching feelings for him.
Yes, I did.
The way he texts me, the way he cared,
the way he just carry himself, like, when we got on phone,
he like, he said some things that really made me think,
like, "Oh, my God,
this is a wrong person to be doing this to."
♪ ♪
- After that point, did you continue asking him for money?
- He sent me like two payments and then after that
it was nothing.
- So how you feeling right now? Like--
- I mean, I feel the same way.
There's nothing that's gonna change, like,
I still want to be with you. I want to get to know you,
and I want to take this off of what I did
and I apologize.
- If you wanted to work something out,
you could have stopped doing that scam [bleep]
or whatever [bleep] you be doing.
- Yeah, I do what I do.
Like, I don't see a problem with it.
- You don't see a problem with catfishing
and scamming people?
- Scamming? - No.
You're old enough to know what to do and what not to do
and what not to do to get scammed.
Like what?
- But then you could also make the argument
that you're old enough to know that scamming people is wrong.
- To you, it's wrong. To me, it's not wrong.
- No, to everybody it's wrong.
- Well, that's y'all opinion. To me, it's not wrong.
- Right, that's what--that's what is gagging me literally.
- Right, all this a game-- - No, because y'all--
y'all just sit here thinking like,
like--like I'm just a bad person--
- Hey, you not even planning to stop.
You wanna keep going. - I mean, look.
Vonnie should have known better,
but he didn't and he's generous and he's sweet and he's kind,
and you took advantage of that.
You definitely hurt him and wasted his time
and, you know, took money from him under false pretenses.
And those are all pretty [bleep] up things
to do to someone.
- Exactly.
- Right? You can acknowledge that.
- Mm-hmm.
- For you to sit here and say like,
"I don't see anything wrong with it. It's cool.
If they get scammed, it's their fault."
Like, that's not real talk.
That's you trying to justify your [bleep] behavior
and not feel bad about it.
- I'm not justifying anything. It's just what I do.
I do what I do and I do what I do
and I don't want to be judged for it.
- Okay, well.
- All right, then let's not talk about that.
Let's talk about Vonnie.
Because you have a lot of confidence
to sort of come on here and say,
"Hey, you know, that's what I do.
"I'm not gonna stop doing it,
but I still want to be with you."
And I don't know what you expected him to say.
- That we just-- - Scam together?
- [laughs] No.
That is not--that was not what I was thinking,
because I don't want you in there, like--
- I won't go do it, trust me. Mm-mm.
- But, I mean, rather I was hoping that you was like,
"Okay, well, you do what you do.
"That's not on me. We're gonna rock out.
"We gonna get to know each other,
but whatever you do, that's on you."
I'm a provider, so I was gonna be a provider.
Now if y'all want to be honest,
I'm in love with Vonnie.
I love him and I want to be with him.
I wanna pursue a future with him,
but like I said, it's money.
Y'all ought to understand that.
I--I--I never, I don't-- I don't care what nobody say.
Making this amount of money
got me from where I was living at in the hood.
I don't have nobody at home,
I can't ask nobody for nothing, I can't do none of that.
So with me doing that, that's me providing for me.
If you--if you can't deal with that, I'm sorry.
- Just stop.
- And what about your life in Pontiac?
I mean, are-- are you dating anyone?
- No, but I do have something to tell Vonnie.
- Oh, Jesus Christ.
- I was dating this girl
and she is seven months pregnant.
[dramatic music]
- Oh, my God.
- I do have something to tell Vonnie.
- Oh, Jesus Christ.
- I was dating this girl
and she is seven months pregnant.
[dramatic music]
- So you was willing to still have a relationship with me,
but you got all this going on?
- And are you planning on being an active parent?
- Of course. I want full custody.
That's what I'm going for.
- On top of scamming and doing all that,
but you getting locked up 'cause of this,
who gonna watch the baby?
- Whatever I have to do to support my daughter,
that's it.
When that baby come, I'm gonna be a provider.
- That's a pretty major detail that you left out
of your very loving communications with Vonnie
where you talking about having him move to Michigan
and, you know, quit his job
and you guys could do something together.
Are you still with this girl?
- No. Well, I didn't know. I wasn't to tell him like this,
but he gets-- he called you guys.
So I guess I had no choice but to tell him.
- Well, first--first of all, first of all,
Vonni did not write in.
Vonni's friend wrote in on his behalf
because she felt as though you were likely--
- Scamming. - Scamming him.
And she was right. - She was right.
- So it was not Vonni's idea to come on here.
And even if it was-- - He didn't wanna do this.
- No, but even if it was his idea,
that doesn't mean that he deserves
the [bleep] things that you did to him
and neither does anybody else.
When you come on here and you're talking to someone
that you are in love with,
court him in the way you've been courting him.
You've been, "Hello, good morning, beautiful."
- Right.
- All these nice things. Like, where is the softness?
- That--that--that's who I am. What do you mean?
Y'all, I have three people attacking me
and I'm-- I'm being asked questions
and y'all contradicting what I'm saying?
- You came up here all aggressive
like you don't care. You just care about money.
- How was I aggressive? How was I aggressive?
- Then you wanna come up here and talk about a baby.
That's--
- It's life. I told you.
- That kinda like pushed me.
Like, I'm 20 years old. Like, I'm gonna have fun.
I don't got time for all these games to be honest, like.
- So you don't want-- so you don't wanna--
you don't wanna talk anymore?
- Like, first of all, you say you're not planning on stopping
and you didn't even say to me about the female.
- I just told you.
- Okay, but it's late, like you could've told me--
- No, no, no, but you called them.
So you did this, you brought this on yourself.
What do you mean? I told you here.
I was gonna--I was gonna tell you somewhere else,
but you wanted to bring it here, so here we are.
What you mean?
How you getting mad at me 'cause I told you that?
- I just wish you was 100 with me in the beginning.
Just put his bomb on me.
Just like, thanks.
- 'Cause it's up with a bomb on you, you running?
- No, I'm not running. - Right, so--
- I can only deal with too much, all this [bleep]. Like--
- But what you just said-- - Too much.
- You just said it's too much and you--
- It is too much. That's why I said I can't.
I can't deal with you because.
- Okay, so that's what it is.
You just said to hell with it. That's what it is, so.
Y'all heard him, he can't deal with this, so it is what it is.
- He shouldn't have to deal with it.
- Do you feel badly
that you've been doing this for the past year and a half?
- Yeah, I mean, I feel bad of course,
but do I regret it?
No, because it got me where I am now.
- Oh, yeah. Those are separate things, but yeah.
- Yeah.
But you--you do feel--
that you've hurt people and you acknowledge that--
- Yeah. - Right.
- I'm not crazy, y'all. [chuckles]
- But see, this is what-- this is what we--
when we were asking the questions,
that is what we were looking for.
Because the surface level is no, I don't like--
no, like, I do-- - You said it's their fault.
- "I do what I do, I do what I did," blah, blah, blah.
But the reality is here where it's,
"I do feel bad about what I'm doing,
but it did get me to where I am and I'm happy about that."
That--that is the truth.
- Mm-hmm.
I apologize, um,
but I will send you your money back tomorrow.
But other than that, I wish you the best and I hope one day
we can meet each other again or cross paths or whatever,
but this is not the way I wanted it to be,
but I respect it.
So it's what it is. Are we done here?
- Yeah. - [chuckles]
- All right, so look,
so you're probably both better off
not in a relationship with each other.
I don't know how you want to or don't want to
continue being friends or talking or not.
- Well, if I don't--if I don't talk to you again,
happy birthday. [chuckles]
Um, but yeah, like I said, you made a decision.
I respect it and that's that.
- Well, I wish you and your baby best.
- Thank you.
- Hopefully, you change. - Thank you.
I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much.
- All right, man. Take my luck with everything.
- Bye, thank you. - Good luck.
- This [bleep] up. Like, mm-mm.
- Vonnie.
- It's like a robber on the street coming to mug you
and they have a gun to your head and they're like,
"Oh, actually you're kind of cute.
Can I get your number?" - Right.
- No. Get the [bleep] out of here.
- I'm sorry it didn't work out,
but I do think you're way better off.
- Yeah. I think I'm okay. I'm not like, sad.
I'm, like, kinda disappointed but kinda happy
because, like, I can just live my life
and just, like, go to the beach, hi girls.
- Let us know if he does send you that money back.
- He not. [chuckles]
- And I would urge you to block him
and keep a close eye out for any new friend requests
and make sure that you steer clear.
- All right, thank y'all.
- [smooches]
- Bye. - Bye, Vonni.
- Bye.
- ♪ I don't wanna miss out ♪
♪ I don't, I don't wanna miss out ♪
♪ Don't matter, I don't want to cool it down ♪
♪ ♪