The Tinder Swindler: The Gripping and Astonishing True Story of an Internet Con Artist

Watch:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKXzxzotBo4

Several of the participants in The Tinder Swindler  describe the extraordinary events shown in the documentary as like being in a film. One woman talks about being romanced by a man she met on the dating app. He called himself Simon Leviev. Their first date started at a five-star hotel and extended to a spontaneous trip on a private jet. Another woman (and there are many women), says she feels as if she is in “a horror movie”. Given the show’s title, it isn’t too much of a giveaway to reveal that Leviev, who claimed to be the son of a billionaire diamond dealer, was not the wealthy, suave suitor he made himself out to be online, but a convicted conman named Shimon Hayut.

Audiences love nothing more than a scam, from the podcast Sweet Bobby to the fascinating case of the “fake heiress” Anna Delvey. And this documentary fits right in. It is a pacy, gripping feature-length film that lays everything out with precision and offers plenty of compassion for the victims.

We begin with Cecilie, a serial dater who describes herself as “a bit of a Tinder expert”. She becomes caught up in the craziness  of Simon’s world. He sends her extravagant bouquets of roses, flies to visit her in Oslo and asks her to move in with him. Then, one night, he sends her photos and videos of himself and his bodyguard, bloodied, in trouble, under threat from enemies and suddenly unable to access the great reserve of finances he claims to possess.

Then there is Pernilla, a Swedish woman who seems a little more worldly than Cecilie. “I’m just thinking: oh my God, another diamond guy,” she tells the director, drily, about matching with him. The director responds off-camera: “Another diamond guy?” Pernilla doesn’t fall for Simon’s charms, at least not romantically, but they become friends. She spends a wild summer travelling around the billionaire-friendly parts of Europe with him and his then-girlfriend, a Russian model. Until threats from his enemies mean he can’t access his money and, well, you understand the drill.

There are many fascinating facets to this ugly story, most of them documented here. This is what happens when lives are lived online. Cecilie Googled Simon, she says, because that is what you are supposed to do with a match. She found him to be out there, in public, as the man he said he was. His Instagram seemed to confirm his identity. We hear voice notes from Simon, pulled from women’s messaging archives, and see romantic videos he sent from private jets. There are Cecilie’s videos of her looking around luxury flats that Simon told her to rent for them to live in together.

This gives it a particular intimacy. When the story finally became public, after an in-depth report by the Norwegian newspaper VG, the women had to face the social-media verdicts of strangers, who called them gold-diggers and worse. If this were fiction, it would be too far-fetched to be believable; with every jaw-dropping twist, you wonder how he got away with it. This gets to the heart of the horrifying emotional and financial damage these women endured and sustained. It also goes some way towards explaining how he got so many of them to fall for it. 

The Tinder Swindler is about looking for love online, and internet cons, and the magnetism of con artists who say just the right thing. It takes a turn into thriller territory, when the Norwegian press and then Interpol start to look for Simon. Finally, it becomes a story of resilience, even revenge, as another of Simon’s victims starts to work out how she can get at least some of her money and her pride back. It hints at issues with policing online activity that takes place across many countries, and at crimes that are considered “small”, despite their devastating effects on the victims.

Netflix’s true-crime documentaries can be a mishmash. They tend to be sensationalist, overly long and undersatisfying. The Tinder Swindler is  smart and entertaining  and leaves you wanting more. It leaves plenty of questions unanswered – it lacks the neat resolution that might have made for a perfect ending. But that is life, which turns out to be not much like the movies at all.

1.Vocabulary

    Paragraph 1

1.	suave	a.	A woman who is legally entitled to the property or rank of another on that person's death.
2.	giveaway	b.	charming, confident, and elegant (typically used of a man).
3.	heiress	c.	to claim, usually falsely, that something is true
4.	suitor	d.	a thing that makes an unintentional revelation.
5.	gripping	e.	strongly holding the attention or interest; exciting
6.	threat	f.	a statement of an intention to inflict pain, injury, damage, or other hostile action on someone
7.	made himself out to be	g.	a man who pursues a relationship with a particular woman, with a view to marriage (also can be used to describe a prospective buyer of a business or corporation.)

    Paragraph 2

8.	Interpol	h.	a person who forms a relationship with another purely to extract money from them.
9.	caught up	i.	a novel, play, or film with an exciting plot, typically involving crime or espionage.
10.	lays everything out	j.	in an unemotional, practical and ironically humorous way
11.	thriller	k.	opinion or judgement
12.	drily	l.	to explain or describe something in a clear and detailed way:
13.	verdict	m.	so involved in an activity that you do not notice other things
14.	gold diggers	n.	an oganization that enables police in 192 member countries to work together to fight international crime

Paragraph 3   15.      twist o.  A desire to know something; feel curious    16.      sustained p.   an unexpected development of events.      17. gets to the heart of q.  suggest or indicate something indirectly or covertly. 18.  resilience r.  the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. 18.       hints(v.) s.  comprehensive and thorough.  19.        wonder t.  Find or determine the most important or essential facts or meaning.  20.  in-depth u.  continuing for an extended period or without interruption

2. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article.

1. conman
2. pacy
3. worldly
4. far-fetched
5. drill
6. devastating
7. magnetism
8. resolution
9. mishmash
10. undersatisfying
11. facet
12. jaw-dropping
13. sensationalist
14. lacks

1.  pattern
2. scammer
3.  a confused mixture
4.  sophisticated and experienced
5.  disappointing 
6.  difficult to believe
7.  damaging
8. allure
9.  moving quickly
10. feature OR dimension
11. amazing
12. a solution or an end to something
13. hyperbolic
14. doesn't have

3. Dating : What are the pros and cons of these forms of dating ? Complete this table.

	Pros	Cons
Online Dating
Blind Date
Dating a friend
Dating a co-worker
Dating your neighbor
Dating a roommate Dating your friend's ex

4.Role play: Which one of these would you consider to be the worst kind of scam. Why?

Role  A – Charity Scams You think this is the worst kind of scam. Tell us why.

Role  B –  Debt Collection Scams You think this is the worst kind of scam. Tell us why.

Role  C –  Foreclosure Relief or Mortgage Loan Modifications Scams  You think this is the worst kind of scam. Tell us why.

Role  D –  Grandparent Scams You think this is the worst kind of scam. Tell us why. OR Mail fraud Money mule scams Money transfer or mobile payment services fraud Mortgage closing scams Romance scams

5.FILL IN THE BLANKS:

1.A more formal way to  say nice to meet you is it's a pleasure to make your                         

2.If you meet someone you know on the street by coincidence , you can say it's nice   

                              into you. 

3.If this person isn't a friend but just someone that you know, "they" are an                       . 

4.If you were friends with someone but you had a big fight and stopped talking, you had a                             .

5. If you trust someone and they stabbed you in the back, either by confessing something you said or  did  to an authority, then they                                  you out.

6. What is it called when someone is writing down the answers of their classmates sitting next to them during an exam?

7.If you take someone's written work and claim it to be yours, it is called                     .

8.When a politician or political party pays the officials in order to manipulate the results, then the elections were                         .

9.If someone is caught in the act of cheating, they were caught            -          .

10. Jorge cheated  and nothing happen to them,  he                                                        .   

11.Julia did something that should have gotten her fired but her employer decided to only give her a warning instead, so she got a                                          .

12. Ed was caught by the authorities breaking the law but in order to escape a serious punishment, he tried to                            the authorities.

13. The authorities saw Helen breaking the law but they decided to ignore it, they                               .

14. Two of your workmates are dating but they are keeping it on the down low, 

     only you and a                   of others are aware of this. (synonym of a few, anywhere between 2 and 5)

     Although it is not forbidden by the company to date colleagues, it is                               in the office.(synonym of disapprove) There is no official policy against it , but it's considered to be an                     rule.

6.What do you know about these BIG LIES AND CHEATS:

The Legend of Trojan Horse

Lance Armstrong's Doping

Maradona's Hand of God

Bill Clinton's Affair

U.S. Government and The Iraq War

7. Movies About Scams.

Are you familiar with these films ? What are their scams?

1.Catch Me If You Can 

2.FYRE

3.Inventing Anna

4.Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street

5.The Wolf of Wall Street

6.Dumb Money

8. QUESTIONS : 

1.What is the name of a series in which it is shot like a documentary?

2. What is the name of each ¨chapter¨ of a series?

3. What is the singular and plural of ¨series¨?

4. What is the activity of watching a series that is so good that we can not stop ourselves from watching ?

5.When a  ¨ chapter¨ of a series reaches a dramatic and exciting ending , leaving the audience in suspense and anxious not to miss the next ¨chapter¨?

6.When the protagonist has both good and evil characteristics?

7. When one of the characters in a series gets his very own show when the original show ends?

8.What is telenovela in English and what is the origin of the term ?

9. What do you think is the greatest series of all time ? Why?

10.What series are you currently ¨hooked-on¨?

11.What is the best platform to watch series and why ?

9.DISCUSSION:

1.What do you think of dating apps?

 2.What are the good and bad things about dating apps?

3.Why is there so much online harassment?

4.What is the best way to find a partner?

5.How has dating changed over the years?

6.What is your idea of a perfect date?

7.What should happen to people who are abusive online?

8.What advice do you have for people who are abused online?