You're a married woman in Argentina, but the sex with your husband just isn't working out. Maybe he's not interested; maybe you're too hotblooded for his thermometer. And so you start taking on lovers outside your marriage. Maybe you have one, or two or three. The hotels, the dimly lit restaurants, the secret trips outside the city -- it's beginning to get difficult to hide all the shenanigans from your husband. How do you account for all your time?
You go on the Internet, and find a professional liar to cover for you.
For the past few months, Web designer Raul Tello has provided elaborate excuses for Argentina's lovers through his Amorios site. Clients pay an annual fee and receive a secret identity card and password. Whenever they need an excuse, the good folks at Amorios will take the lie to the outer limits, whether it's designing and mailing out invitations to fictitious business conferences, forging airline tickets for business trips or setting up a bogus telephone line. After the phony "conference" has ended, the client is sent a certificate of attendance and invitations to follow-up conferences.
Tello says he has clients of both sexes. "I don't care if it is women with women, men with men, whatever," Tello told London's Guardian. "People who are unfaithful will be so with or without Amorios. I am just providing an excuse, nothing more."
Tello got the idea for the company from listening to his female friends describe their affairs. As in any successful business, there was a demand, and he provided the supply.
The attention to detail is exquisite. More than a dozen cellphones are spread out on a desk in the Amorios offices. As suspicious spouses call the number of a "business conference," checking up on their partner, an Amorio staffer pretends to be a secretary, and reads from a script appropriate to that "conference." A stereo plays background noise of a conference throughout the office, adding to the hoax. The caller is told that the spouse has "just stepped out," and then the cheater is quickly contacted and informed of the call.
"With Amorios, there will be no failures, we study every case thoroughly," Tello boasted.
Argentina is taking to the new method of spousal lying. In its first two months, Amorios signed up 300 clients, and it has plans to expand into neighboring countries.
"We aren't sure whether to franchise this or do it ourselves, but the number of calls from Peru is huge," said Tello.
Shares