Wedding.con is a watchable show, if only to caution people about the latest scams, notes Deepa Gahlot.
If there is a lucrative field left unregulated, con men will inevitably worm their way in.
The wedding industry in India, according to figures provided by the docuseries, Wedding.con, was worth Rs 3.75 trillion industry in 2022, and the online matrimonial sector in India alone is worth a staggering $294.1 million.
So on the one hand, is a show like Indian Matchmaking, and on the other Tinder Swindler (both on Netflix) and now, Wedding.con.
Every so often, there is news in the papers about a man who married and stole from multiple women. The victims were not uneducated. In some cases, they were highly-placed career women but the stigma of singledom and the pressure to marry makes it easier for them to be emotionally manipulated and cheated.
Many women do not report to the police for fear of social embarrassment.
Online portals, with no mandatory legal checks, are open doors for frauds.
According to the show, in 2023, there were 21.5 million users on matrimonial sites.
Even if a small percentage of males -- and so far there have been only male swindlers -- are creating fake profiles only to make money out of gullible women, the sums involved are substantial enough for international crime syndicates to get involved.
In Wedding.con, presented by BBC Studios, India and directed by Tanuja Chandra, five women from different cities tell their stories, and they are heartbreaking.
What is absolutely astounding, that except for one woman, the other four had not even met the men to whom they transferred large sums of money, fooled by their sweet talk on the phone, and convincing excuses to 'borrow' money.
The online bride seekers target widows and divorcees of women from traditional families who are just above the Indian marriageable age, and would be desperate to wed. They are so vulnerable to parental or social pressure, they are just happy to come across someone who does not demand dowry and says all the romantic things women need to hear.
They don't even tell their parents till their bank accounts have been cleaned out, and loans taken in their names.
The women are so trusting that they agree to send their documents to a stranger, hand over their credit cards and, in one case, go ahead with a circuitous process of sharing OTPs, transferring, receiving and forwarding funds, ostensibly to obtain a US visa.
No alarm bells ring in the woman's head and much too late, she checks and discovers that a CIBIL score is not required to apply for a visa.
The format of the show is simple: Interviews with the women, some of whom choose to keep their faces in shadow, some parents, one friend, a psychologist, a lawyer, a cop, a journalist and dramatic recreations with actors.
For legal reasons, the men cannot be named or their photographs shown without blurring. It actually seems our law is more sympathetic to the rights of the perpetrator than the victim.
The cyber crime units are understaffed and the crooks far more sophisticated than the cops. Money once transferred can seldom be traced.
Only of the five, Sneha, who calls the online matrimonial process a 'horror show' has the gut instinct to check on her fiancé, and find that he is a fraud. After rings are exchanged in the presence of both families, only her intelligence and caution stop her from getting scammed.
One of the women, with the help of another victim, gets the cheat arrested. He looks nothing like the photo on the site, and after the long process of the law is done with, there's just a slim chance of the women getting their money back.
The most gullible turns out to be a woman, who 'commits' to a US soldier, who is so obviously a swindler, leading her on with romantic bread crumbs, and borrowing money for the most absurd reasons.
She keeps sending it to him, in the hope that the earlier loans will be returned.
The man also tries a blackmail tactic, by asking the women to send 'intimate pictures'. If they fall for this, they are trapped in the quicksand even deeper.
At least the Tinder Swindler met his victims, showed them a glimpse of a luxurious life, before maxing out their credit cards. These Indian women turn out to be such easy targets, it is tragic.
They shut down their survival instincts and hold on to any little sliver of hope to get a suitable groom. (Arranged marriages throw up other problems!)
As the journalist (Gautam S Mengle) says, if the pressure to get married goes, the network of frauds would shut down.
Wedding.con is a watchable show, if only to caution people about the latest scams.
As long as there is the happily-ever-after fairy tale going around, these fake suitors will continue to think up new ways to steal a woman's heart and her savings.
Wedding.con streams on Amazon Prime Video.
