Daejon Love allegedly defrauded women out of roughly $1.3 million by pretending to be a wide receiver on the San Francisco 49ers.
Love, 35, and Taylor Jamie Chan, 18, were arrested by the FBI on Aug. 14 at Boise Airport and charged with scamming at least 26 women after courting them on dating apps using Love's fake image as a star 49ers player, and talking them into fictitious investments.
The crazy story has made Love one of the internet's biggest memes, and some have dubbed him the "wide deceiver."
Many are wondering if they could have pulled off the stunt themselves. Others are already planning their Daejon Love Halloween costumes, with Love's iconic gold 49ers helmet as the central piece.
Scammers have a unique history of sparking jokes online.
Some want to live vicariously through them, while others joke about the poor fools who fell for their tactics. Scammers of all kinds make for fascinating figures, from Charles Ponzi to Elizabeth Holmes – they brazenly claim to have found a loophole in reality, and when the scheme is uncovered they fall from grace as outsiders gawk. Here are four more scammers who fascinated people on the internet – plus one who people thought was a scammer but turned out not to be.
Throughout all the scammers we’ve seen on here who was the best? pic.twitter.com/7pkvzcoM6y
— COWBOYS (17-0) (@FreddieNoir_) August 28, 2026
Malachi Love-Robinson, aka Dr. Love
In February 2016, 18-year-old Malachi Love-Robinson was arrested and charged in Palm Beach, Florida, for impersonating a doctor and practicing medicine without a license under the moniker Dr. Love. He was also accused of defrauding an elderly patient out of $35,000, according to initial reports. He pleaded guilty in both cases and was released from prison in 2019.
The Dr. Love story had many in stitches, with memes focusing on his headshot; the baby-faced fraudster is seen smiling, while sporting a lab coat and a mohawk, making him a perfect symbol for an inexperienced yet overconfident physician. "Me after 11 seasons of Grey's Anatomy," reads the caption of one viral tweet from 2016.
Me after 11 seasons of Grey's Anatomy pic.twitter.com/J18mwrUsO7
— Optimus Noy (@incognitobat) February 18, 2016
Caroline Calloway, the Gatsby of Cambridge
Influencer Caroline Calloway was at the top of her game in December 2018. She had over 800,000 followers on Instagram and had landed a cushy book deal for $500,000 to tell the story of her life as a University of Cambridge student.
She then launched a tour of "creativity workshops," which backfired. Attendees faced cancellations in several cities with no refunds in sight. Calloway was called out on Twitter and labeled a scammer. She eventually cancelled the tour. People were preying on her downfall online because she was a symbol of the seeming emptiness behind the then-burgeoning "influencer economy."
She's since leaned on the "scammer" label. In July 2023, she released a memoir titled "Scammer." (She never completed her 2018 book deal.) In it, she admitted to doctoring parts of her Cambridge application. "I think I made the right choice then just as I am making the right choice writing about my lies now," she wrote.
That Instagram influencer I occasionally check in on because she's The Worst is now charging $165 for a 4 hour "seminar" on how to be yourself. pic.twitter.com/zLvBFn9dPI
— Kayleigh Donaldson (@Ceilidhann) December 20, 2018
West Elm Caleb, the Hinge Grim Reaper
In January 2022, several New York City women claimed on social media to have gone on dates with a man they nicknamed "West Elm Caleb," because he said he was a designer at West Elm in his dating app bios. He was accused of meeting women on Hinge, "love-bombing" them with excessive flattery and romantic gestures early on, and then ghosting.
Caleb soon became a villain on TikTok. Even if someone hadn't met the real West Elm Caleb, they knew a former fling just like him, and that's why the story stuck. Caleb was an early example of the "performative male," an archetype that dominated dating discourse in 2025, calling out men with fake personalities designed to maximize their romantic footprints.
@linds.moran i too have matched with west elm caleb (this was over the summer btw, not recent 😂) #westelmcaleb #fyp #bumble
♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys - Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey
Angel Victoria Murdock, the fake Duke graduate
In August, Angel Victoria Murdock, a former reality TV star on "Temptation Island," was accused of faking her graduation from Duke's prestigious Physician Assistant Program. Recent graduates of the program noticed an error in her celebratory Instagram post: She was wearing the wrong gown color. Then, Duke provided a statement to the New York Post confirming that Murdock had never enrolled.
Mocking memes began flooding social media, reveling in the boldness of the claim from such a high-level influencer. An AI-generated one showed her and Daejon Love posing together in her "graduation" photo. "The University of Scamming Class of 2026," the caption reads.
Tyrone Hankerson, the Howard University scapegoat
Tyrone Hankerson Jr. was a commencement speaker for his Howard University graduation ceremony in May 2015. Three years later, in April 2018, he was accused of misappropriating over $400,000 in funds while working at the financial aid office as an undergraduate.
Accusations were spread in viral tweets that called him "Finesse God Tyrone" and scrutinized images of him wearing designer outfits. "Livin my life like it's stolen," is the caption of one popular tweet from the dogpile, captioning an image of him jumping in a posh yellow cardigan.
Livin my life like it's stolen pic.twitter.com/2pvIdp7Tfw
— 🐶WOOF CLITZER🐶 (@ESPNFrankie) March 29, 2018
However, Hankerson was never charged and denied the accusations. He later filed a lawsuit against Howard for $10 million, and in July 2020, two men pleaded guilty to the fraud charges, among six staffers who were fired from the office in 2018.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Daejon Love isn't the first alleged scammer to spark memes. Here are 5 more
