Man scammed out of £20,000 in online dating scam

A man from the UK has been scammed out of £20,000 by a criminal on an online dating website.

Simon Frost, a 75 year old retired dentist, found “Eva” on a dating website called Real Sex Contacts back in 2017.

As the pair began chatting, their online relationship soon blossomed, leading Frost to believe they were in a “real” relationship, despite never meeting in person.

However, as with all romance scams, the requests for money soon began.

Romance scams all work with one, single goal. To trick the victim into sending money or sensitive information to someone they believe they’ve struck up an online relationship with. Such scams vary in both how they work and how sophisticated they are, but that one common goal always remains the same.

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In Simon Frost’s case, after striking up an online relationship after meeting on a dating website, the crook – posing as “Eva” – claimed they needed money to obtain court documents in order to access a £5 million inheritance. “Eva” also requested money for flights to come and see Frost.

The criminals posing as “Eva” also used photos of a US pornography actress in order to add a face to the name, adding credibility to their scheme.

And it worked, since Frost sent over £6000 of savings, £3000 on credit and two high-interest payment loans worth £5000, as well as paying for her flight to the UK.

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It was only when she failed to turn up did Frost soon realise that he had been scammed.

Frost said of the scam “I believed everything she said. I thought I’d be able to clear my debts and we’d be able to enjoy the money and buy a house together.”

While such scams may appear obvious to most Internet users, online romance scammers often prey on lonely or vulnerable people, especially pensioners, who may not be technically-savvy enough to spot an online scam, and have enough life savings to be an attractive target.

Scammers used photos of US adult actress Briana Lee. Brianal517 | Twitter

Online romance scams can work in a variety of ways, but they all request victims to send money. As such, to avoid such scams, simply never send money (or anything else of worth) to someone you’ve never met in real person. Additionally, never give up any sensitive information (such as banking information or passwords) to people you’ve never met online either.

Some more tips to avoiding such scams –

– Since many of these scammers operate in non-English speaking countries, watch out for bad spelling and grammar.

– Be sceptical of users who don’t want to meet in real life or users who make excuses as to why they cannot meet. While even legitimate users may not want to meet straight away, crooks will want to escalate the online aspect of the relationship quickly, but not in person.

– As per the point above, watch out for online dating users who appear to want to escalate the online relationship quickly, possibly even claiming they “love” you despite never meeting in person.

– Do a reverse image search on the photos they provide to see if they’ve been used elsewhere online under different names. You can save the image to your device and go to images.google.com to do this search. (Or if you use Chrome on a desktop or laptop, just right click an image and select Search Google for image.)

– Try and stick to reputable dating websites and be suspicious of users who want to quickly move conversations away from the dating website. This is because reputable dating websites have features in place to detect and remove scammers.

– Finally and most importantly, any request for money should be immediately discarded and any further communication stopped.

For Simon Frost, this advice comes too late. But if you know someone who may be vulnerable to such scams, please pass on this advice. The popularity of online romance scams demonstrates that there are many victims still being defrauded in this way.