Sally Kabak – a resident of New Zealand – recently told her story about how she was scammed out of around $100,000 NZD ($67,700 USD) when she fell for a Nigerian romance scam, showing they’re still prevalent on the Internet dating scene.
Kabak’s story is not one that is particularly unusual, with the exception of how much money she ended up giving away to the scammer. She was contacted through an online dating website she used by a man named Michael.
Sally and Michael quickly hit it off, discovering that they had plenty in common. They talked daily for weeks, often hours on end and before long Michael – who had send Sally many photos of himself – declared his love for her. However meeting in person was not possible since Michael was often working overseas.
Alarm bells should already be going off at this point but then the story takes a sinister turn down even more familiar territory… Michael needed money.
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The excuses varied. Michael couldn’t cash in his pay and needed to pawn his belongings. He needed medical attention after contracting malaria. He needed to pay to break his contract so he could leave his work and travel back to New Zealand to be with Sally.
Sally’s family were sceptical, but she trusted him and over the course of the scam sent him several large payments through MoneyGram – a wiring money service that can be difficult to trace the recipient of the payment and thus is prolifically used by such scammers.
After a while, Michael disappeared, and Sally was left thousands out of pocket. It transpired that the photos of “Michael” were of a man named Melvin Staaf, who lived in Canada. The scammers had lifted Melvin’s photos from his social media account, and it wasn’t the first time Melvin’s photo’s had been used in these scams either.
Ultimately it’s a typical romance scam. Such scammers are skilled in gaining the trust of their targets and will employ many different techniques to extort money from them. These scams not only prove costly from a financial perspective, but can have a tremendous impact on victims psychologically, since they are often vulnerable and lonely.
Sally spoke about her story in more detail to Stuff.co.nz and you can see it – as well as a video of her recounting her experiences – here.
Remember, make sure that you are well educated with these scams and ensure that anyone you know who could be susceptible is “in the know” as well.