How I lost over $ 150,000 on an online dating site

What happened to this export manager who lives in Brownhills, in the center of the United Kingdom, may sound crazy. But security experts warn that it is much more common than you think.

Elwell was a victim of what is known as romantic fraud or romantic scam.

According to Action Fraud, the UK’s national fraud reporting center, it occurs when criminals trick people into sending them money, earning their trust and convincing them that they are in a genuine relationship.

This type of deception is usually carried out by a form of scam known in English as catfishing (catfish fishing), which is when someone creates a fake account or profile, either on social media or dating sites, with the intention of scamming or abusing someone.

In 2020, the United States Federal Trade Commission reported that “reported losses from so-called romance scams reached a record high of US$304 million“.

Elwell’s case serves to show how a well-intentioned person can fall for this kind of deception.

The woman told the BBC that the man who contacted her told her that he lived in a nearby town called Cannock, but that they would have to wait a few weeks to meet because he was abroad, doing an engineering project. in Ukraine.

But after a while the man called her and told her that the laws in that country had changed due to the covid-19 pandemic and that now had to pay taxes before engineering work can begin.

He told him that the work was stopped until he paid that money, and that he had used his pension funds, sold his car and also had gone to moneylenders to collect the amount claimed.

The man even produced a letter – and sent Elwell a copy – supposedly from the Ukrainian treasury, requiring him to pay US $ 160,000.

“Everything looked very legit“says the woman, who” reluctantly “agreed to send him 45,000 pounds (about US $ 62,000).

But things got tense when the man contacted her to say that two “thugs” sent by the moneylenders had appeared at his house and locked him in the basement.

He told him that the men were claiming the borrowed money and sent him photos that allegedly showed him locked up.

Elwell decided to send him the money.

“When he told me that his life was in danger and I didn’t hear from him, I thought he had been murdered. Can you imagine feeling responsible for someone living or dying?“, he explains, when asked why he sent so much money to a person he did not know.

The fraud did not end there: the man told him that after receiving the money they had released him, but that they would not return his passport until he paid the interest, so Rachel returned to help him.

On March 16, the day the man was supposedly flying back to London, Elwell went to Heathrow Airport to meet him, but received an email from alleged airport officials saying that he had been arrested.

He says that when he approached some Border Force officials to ask them about what was happening they told him: “Hey, it’s a scam.”

But it wasn’t until he visited the man’s supposed home to speak with his alleged daughter and housekeeper that he finally realized the reality.

“None of those people lived in that house,” he says.

“It was at that moment that I knew it was all a lie.”

A West Midlands police spokesman told the BBC: “Rachel’s case is an excellent example of romantic fraud and shows how much these scammers affect people’s lives“.

These are Action Fraud’s suggestions to avoid romantic fraud:

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