The Girlfriends S5/Bonus Ep 2: Help! My Bestie’s Dating a Scam Artist

The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe

iHeartPodcasts and Novel

True Crime, Society & Culture, Relationships, Documentary

4.4 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2026

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Confronting your bestie’s terrible boyfriend about his toxic behaviour can be tempting, but is it always the best course of action? How do you strike a balance between protecting your friend from becoming isolated, and being honest with them about your fears? In bonus episode two, Anna talks to social worker - Jen Lawrence - to learn more about the red flags of romance scammer behaviour, and what you can do about them. In this four part mini-series, we take a deep dive into our archive of never before heard interviews, to take a closer look at the key themes that underpinned Trust Me Babe. If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show, our charity partners NO MORE have available resources at https://www.nomore.org. To learn more about romance scams, and to access specialised support, visit https://fightcybercrime.org/ The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:03.2	Guaranteed Human.
0:07.4	Novel.
0:12.4	One night in a bar in St. Paul, Minnesota, a group of friends are hanging out.
0:18.7	He was kind of like, well, what do you want to know?
0:24.6	It's Michelle, one of Lisa's mates from episode two, and the rest of the gang, all grilling
0:31.6	her new boyfriend.
0:33.4	Tammy started right in, right away.
0:35.9	So what do you do for work?
0:37.4	Where do you live kind of thing?
0:39.5	She was starting to grill him questions like,
0:41.4	I want to see your license, I want to see this and that.
0:43.2	And he's like, why would I have to show you it?
0:46.6	One thing that attracted me to the story at the heart of Trust Me, Babe,
0:50.8	was learning all of the ways in which our protagonists were supported by their friends.
0:56.1	In-depth online sleuthing, first-meet interrogations, interstate rescue missions from Minnesota to
1:03.1	Hawaii are just a few of the examples of how these women really had their friends' backs.
1:08.8	And this moment in particular really stuck with me, because we've all been there, when a friend
1:13.6	is dating someone we don't like, or we're seeing some red flags that they're missing.
1:18.6	And the idea of going in there and actually confronting that drop kick is so, so tempting.
1:25.8	I've had my fair share of nights dwelling on one of my friend's new,
1:30.4	odd relationships, followed by animated discussions with the rest of the group on how we could
	...

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