https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R3LWM_Vt70

“I had just downloaded Tinder, I started swiping and I got a match with this guy – and he messaged right away,” Danielle recounted exclusively to Lovin Malta. 

“He told me – ‘I am flying into Malta tomorrow’. I said no to dinner, but was open to lunch, so he asked me to recommend a place and we decided to meet at Exiles in Sliema.”

Danielle explains how she felt a bit sorry for him at first, as all the images on his profile showed him alone – taking selfies in a fancy car by himself, or alone in a jet.

However, the next day, she showed up in Sliema for the date regardless. But Simon wasn’t at Exiles.

“I was a bit peeved because I had walked it there and he just told me ‘I’m not there, I went somewhere else, a cafe on the promenade’ so I began walking there instead.”

“I couldn’t see him, and I messaged: ‘where are you?'”

“He responded with: ‘I’m watching you’ and next thing I see is this guy dressed head to toe in designer clothes and his huge bodyguard coming my way.”

“When I saw the bodyguard, I said to myself: ‘that’s weird’. Then I saw that he was wearing these glasses with these diamonds on them, these huge rocks…”

Danielle began wondering who she was meeting.

“The photo he had when I matched with him showed him in a nice car – but you can rent a nice car, you know? So I didn’t think much of it. But after the date, I went through his profile and saw he had a lot of nice cars – and some of those pictures are the ones shown in the documentary.”

Either way, the date commenced.

“After the bodyguard sussed out the restaurant and told us it’s safe, Simon asked him to wait outside, and I got a coke and he got water – I remember he didn’t order alcohol.”

“So then we started making small talk. I asked him, what do you do in life? He immediately went into his arms and weapons story, saying he was a former fighter jet pilot, and I jokingly asked him if he was selling missiles to Malta, but he said no, he was just meeting someone.”

“Then he began talking about how busy he is, showing me his calendar, and it was packed for the next three months – he was flying somewhere every day, sometimes two countries in one day.”

“With all that travel, I asked him where home is for him, expecting Israel since he’s Israeli – but he said ‘no, no home, and no family’… and I said, what about friends?

“‘I had one friend, he screwed me over and now he’s six feet under,’ I remember him saying.”

Family and friends are important to Danielle, so this was a “big red flag” for her.

“He began saying things like, ‘oh, I really like you, I’m looking for someone like you to come with me, you don’t need to come with me all the time but if I tell you where I’ll be you can be there,’ and he began showing me a massive house in London, with every car you can imagine in the driveway.”

Being into cars, Danielle passed a few comments.

“‘Oh you like cars?’ he asked me. ‘Let me show you this limited edition car I’m working on.'”

He went on to show her another house in Bangkok, and when Danielle said she was interested in going to Thailand, he said: “we can go whenever you want”.

Towards the end of the date, Simon pointed towards a huge superyacht nearby. “You see that? I chartered it for today and tomorrow and you are coming with me, we are going to go to get you a bikini now.”

“I said no, I had lectures to go to, but he was very persistent and kept pushing – but I didn’t even know him, I had met him once. He kept saying it’ll be just us and the crew, but I kept rejecting.”

Simon and Danielle parted ways – but Simon began messaging again that evening.

“He messaged me later again, sending me pictures of his dinner along with lines like ‘look at what you are missing out on, it’s a shame you aren’t here’.”

“Even then he kept pushing to meet, saying ‘even if you finish at midnight, it doesn’t matter – as long as we are together.'”

“He was very persistent.”

Eventually, Simon messaged Danielle for the final time, saying he had no reason to be friends with her, and was going to delete her contact and stop messaging her.

“He deleted me after a week, I guess he realised that if he didn’t manage to lure her in with all these riches, she’s not too naive, this one.”

Shortly afterwards, Danielle met her partner who she is still with until this day, and never thought twice about the strange date again – until she saw his face appear on her Netflix account this week alongside pictures she had seen on his Tinder profile years back.

“I never heard from him again, then this week I told my partner Thomas, ‘do you remember that date I had?’ And he said,’ how could I forget?'”

“But when we saw the documentary, I had shivers. I noticed most of the women were similar – obviously he likes blondes, he has a type, and we all look a bit similar.”

But Simon’s incessant focus on material things alongside his lack of respect for having family and friends just wasn’t what Danielle was looking for.

“As a person, I am not impressed with these things, not impressed at all with these huge materialistic things, so thankfully my instinct was good, and I didn’t go on his yacht. But I know many who do get impressed with these things.”

Indeed, Danielle recounted the yacht invitation and date to some people, and they couldn’t believe she had refused, saying she had refused “an opportunity of a lifetime”.

“I thank my lucky stars I didn’t go for it, especially after seeing what happened to some of these other girls. I remember joking with a friend of mine after the date, saying: ‘babe, if I ever go missing, just check my Tinder.'”

But Danielle can’t help but wonder if he matched with anyone else during his brief stay in Malta, and if there are other victims of his on the island.

“He had told me he was in Malta until the next day – in that time, he could have easily matched with someone, he’s good looking, charming and knows what he’s doing.”

“What really effected me from the documentary was whenever he matched, they showed the photos he used, and they were all the photos I had seen. One girl he matched with was in 2015, which is the same year as me, and he used the same methods with her as with me.”

“I completely understand the victims though – first he got them to fall in love about him, to worry about his safety, and he fed off that, saying he couldn’t use his cars for safety reasons which also makes sense, and then putting insane amounts of pressure on them to send him thousands… and why would  you think he wouldn’t pay you back after he spent so much on you? You’ve lived your best life with him.”

Danielle ended by sending a clear message to women out there.

“Girls, be careful out there, and do not fall for such things. We are all looking for Prince Charming, but this guy isn’t it, he should be behind bars, no doubt about it.”

What are your thoughts after seeing The Tindler Swindler and reading Danielle’s experience? Let us know in the comments below