Exclusive – A woman wants Northumberland County residents to know that a man portrayed on television as an alleged romance scammer was living in Colborne, Ont.
The woman (age 30) who asked to remain anonymous (but will be referred to as Deb for the article) claims she was duped out of $30,000 in 2020 as a result of a short whirlwind romance.
CTV News first reported the story of a woman who met Jon Mulder after replying to an ad for a motorcycle. The two then started dating. Shortly after a friend sent her a link about a person who seemed to be dating the same person. From there, other women reached out and had similar stories.
Since then, hundreds of women have come forward stating they may have dated the same man. CTV News stated they’ve spoken to women who dated a man of that description all the way back to 2013. At that time, he was pretending to be a veterinarian when he met women online.
CTV news reported the man goes by a number of aliases, Johnny Myers, Jonh Meyers, John Boulder, and Jon Moulders, but CTV said the man’s name is Jon Mulder. He has been convicted and served under two-years in jail for various offences.
Since being released Mulder has faced charges including; fraud (over $5,000) charged in Barrie (2019), impaired driving charges in St. Catharines (2019), fraud in 2020 (x2 over $5,000) in Belleville and fraud (over $5,000) in Brantford in 2021.
Deb met Mulder from a dating site called Bumble in 2020. Mulder said he was from the Colborne area.
The two began messaging and decided to meet at a restaurant the next day.
Deb worked full-time, and it was during COVID. Like others during that time, she missed the companionship and was looking for a lasting relationship.
Mulder claimed he was looking for something “real.”
The two hit it off immediately.
“He was captivating, very easy to get along with, and we seemed to have lots to talk about. He was very charismatic. He was lovable and put on a very good show. He sang me all my favourite country songs.”
The relationship rapidly evolved “he told me he loved me a week into the romance, and in six months he wanted to see the relationship taking the next steps. He spoke about getting engaged and wanting to have children soon.”
Mulder said his profession was representing some high-profile country music artists.
“I could see a future with this man, he seemed to check all the boxes of what I was looking for.”
Things were moving quickly with Mulder spending most of his time at Deb’s house.
“It took awhile until I realized I didn’t know very much about him. I don’t know the specifics of his work. He often said he spent his days dropping off merchandise to radio stations and trying to get them to play his artist’s songs – so it was common for him to travel much of southern Ontario.”
With things happening fast, the two were planning their future together Mulder told her he had different investment opportunities, including racehorses and driveway sealing companies.
“I was at a bad point in my life, but I did have some money, I trusted him and was interested in investing in his business, as this would be our future together.”
Deb noticed that Mulder always had thousands of dollars cash on him and always paid with cash. It didn’t matter what it was for, he always paid with cash.
“He literally carried around a giant ‘man purse’.”
In the five weeks, she knew him, he had three different vehicles and had various explanations for the vehicles.
Deb said she gave Mulder $30,000 in cash to invest into the business opportunity.
Mulder told her she’d double her investment within a few months.
But shortly after giving Meyers $30,000 in cash the relationship started to sour.
Deb said Mulder’s personality changed quickly.
“Things got pretty weird.”
There were arguments about Deb spending too much time with her family members.
“It got very isolating and very controlling, very quickly. It was like the honeymoon period was over and a scary new reality was emerging.”
Deb wanted to leave him, but she knew there was going to be an issue. She may never see the money again.
She texted Mulder and relayed that it was over, but said if he were a man of his word, she’d get her money back.
They’d text back and forth through Snapchat when they weren’t together, but with Snapchat the messages would disappear in a day – this was his preferred method of electronic communication.
During conversations, Mulder would say that his father was the President of Hell’s Angels.
“He’d have some stories to go with it, and I believed him.” After they broke up Deb worried about Hells Angel’s involvement and this further prevented her from talking about what had happened or going to the police.
“I feared for my safety, $30,000 wasn’t worth living in fear or losing my life for.”
So Deb never reported it to the police.
“I started to put this behind me, I never thought I would tell another person about what had happened.”
“Looking back, I can see so many red flags. I feel immense shame, I can’t believe I was so stupid.”
The more Deb tried to look into this man, the more she realized she didn’t know anything about him. Deb said she is well versed with scams and never thought she would be a victim of one.
After approximately five months, Deb said she sent him a Snapchat message about the money, she then followed up with a phone call. Both were out of service.
Fast forward a few years and earlier this week one of her friends saw the story on CTV and recognized the person Deb had dated.
“I thought I was going to be sick to stomach.”
It had been a couple years since she lost her money, but it still hit her hard and all the emotions came to the forefront.
“The magnitude of the situation continues to exceed my wildest imagination.”
Deb said she’s coming forward to increase awareness about this person, she wants to encourage other people to report to the police.
“Now that we know his name, and that there were others that this happened too, together we have a chance of being heard. I do think there are other people in our community who have been through what I have.”
Mulder is currently awaiting a bail hearing in Milton on charges of unlawful confinement, mischief and voyeurism, but is innocent on the outstanding charges until proven guilty
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
