Love and Fraud: The Heartbreak of Romance Scams

This week on Scams, Hacks, and Frauds, we uncover the heart-wrenching reality of romance scams, where love can lead to devastating financial loss. Join us as we share the true story of Alison Peters, a British grandmother who fell victim to a fraudulent relationship, losing a staggering £120,000 to a man she believed was her soulmate. 

Alison's journey begins amidst personal turmoil, seeking companionship online after a rocky marriage. What started as a hopeful connection with a man named Steve quickly spiralled into a nightmare, as he manipulated her emotions and finances under the guise of love and investment opportunities. We delve into the tactics employed by scammers that make individuals like Alison susceptible to such deceit. 

Tune in to learn about the red flags to watch for in online dating, the importance of verifying identities, and practical tips to safeguard your finances against these insidious scams. This episode not only highlights Alison's story but also serves as a crucial reminder to stay vigilant in the digital age.

We publish new content every other Monday. The short time our episodes save your wallet, and help protect your family.

If you like shows like "The Perfect Scam" or "Darknet Diaries" then this show might be for you.  

On our website you’ll find more computer hacking, identity fraud, impersonation, consumer rights and Romance Scams.  To find these and to access our transcripts, visit us at www.scamshacksandfrauds.com.

The transcript and spoken audio are available under the Creative Commons, Share Alike, With Attributions license. For more information on this visit creativecommons.org.  

Transcript

One of the most devastating type of scams around are Romance Scams.  Not only can you lose your life savings, but your heart in the process.  This week, we tell you the true story of a British Grandmother who lost £120,000 to a bogus beau.  This is the True Crime podcast that keeps you safe from Scams, Hacks, and Frauds

We believe the best way to fight scammers and prevent fraud is to share stories, and you can help us by sharing this story.  Hit the like button, subscribe, and share this story with your friends to help us protect more people from scams and fraud.

Alison Peters of Hampshire, England, was in her 60s.  She and her Husband, David, were hitting a hard point in their marriage. It was so bad that David had moved out and wanted to sell their home, allowing them both to have a fresh start.  David had plans to buy a boat and tour the world, while Alison struggled to pick up the pieces of her life after a 42-year marriage.

Following a friend’s wedding where the bride and groom had met online, she decided to try online dating, stating in her profile that she was looking for friendship, good companionship, and good conversations.  She received 7 replies, one of them from a man calling himself Steve Myers, who was about 10 years younger than her.

Steve was supposedly a widower, half English and half Hungarian, and was working in the oil industry.  Within the first hour of making contact, she was already pouring her heart out, expressing things bottled up inside as she tried to cope with the failure of her marriage, and Steve was willing to listen. 

The next day, the texts were replaced with calls, and not long after, the friendship turned into romance, with marriage being discussed at points. Within five weeks, the pair was due to meet, but this meetup was cancelled the day before he was supposed to arrive, as he was urgently needed on a project in Malaysia.  Steve also needed help topping up his phone, just £50.  What’s £50 between friends, she thought as she topped up his phone.  This became a monthly arrangement.

The pair quickly planned to meet again and Alison booked him a hotel room and planned to collect him from the airport; but the day before he was due to fly out Alison’s phone rang, it was showing Steve’s number and she was excited; but instead of hearing the voice of her new romance, she was shocked when a different voice told her that Steve had been injured in an explosion at the oil site, and the meet was off again.

Once he had recovered, Steve then asked for more money, at first £12,000 to buy equipment.  This caused Alison to begin to have some doubts, but Steve overcame these doubts and told her she’d get a share of the Malaysian contract, a contract worth $ 5.2 million US Dollars.  The promise of a reward silenced some of those doubts, but she still felt the need to promise her daughters she hadn’t sent any money.  Over the next few weeks, she sent another £23,000.  Her savings were now drained.

But running out of savings didn’t stop Alison; she took out two loans and sent another £20,000.  Steve still wasn’t satisfied, and Alison told him he’d just have to wait until the house was sold.  When it was sold, Alison didn’t have enough for another home, so she moved into a caravan.

Alison and her husband began to rebuild their relationship, so Alison decided that her relationship with Steve should be on a strictly business footing - after all, she was now an investor in his company. However, Steve revealed that he had prostate cancer, and needed money to pay for his health bills - but good news, the oil project was now at a close, and she’d hear about getting her share of the profit soon.  She quickly sent £70,000.

She was then contacted by a company claiming to have $5.2 million owed to her as a result of her oil investment—an impressive profit from her small investment in such a short amount of time.  All she needed to do was send another £10,000 to obtain a special certificate, which would release the funds.  She convinced her husband, David, to release the money to her, despite his doubts about the scheme.

Of course, Nothing ever arrived, and Alison’s family finally convinced her to contact the police; she was out £120,000 at this point.  Steve, when confronted, denied he was a scammer, but she never saw any of the funds again.

David and Alison are now closer than ever due to the experience. David moved into the caravan, and yes, he still bought the boat.

Alison was ripe for this sort of scam. Emotional turmoil, combined with a lack of awareness about how online romance scams operate, left her vulnerable to scammers.

At any other time in her life, she might have found the the pace of things unusual, and whilst many a TV drama warns us of problems that happen on the rebound, it can be hard to see and think straight when you’re in the middle of it.

Also complicating this situation is the business investment.  This part of the scam is very similar to the Pig Butchering scam we covered in Episode 4 when Shan (pronounced Shane) Hanes, a bank CEO, ended up sinking the bank he was running, constantly chasing the reward of an investment that never came.  Like Shan, Allison had been affected by the Sunk Cost Fallacy, prompting her to continue investing more rather than accepting that what she’d put in was lost.  Think of it as being like in a cinema watching a bad movie and feeling like you have to stay in case it “gets good” rather than accept the fact that the money you’ve spent on the ticket, as well as the time watching so far, has been completely wasted.

Love can come from the internet; my own marriage did so. Not all online relationships are scams, but until you’ve met someone in person, be cautious and sceptical. 

Savvy online daters understand the importance of verifying each other's identity. If you are online dating before taking any serious steps, such as agreeing to meet or sending money, ensure you’ve had a full video call. This simple step helps ensure that you are really talking to who you think you are; After all, even voices can be faked by AI these days.

If you haven’t gotten to the point of a video call yet, Scammers usually use stolen profile pictures from other people on the internet or take them from stock image archives. Often, you can verify whether they're real or not by taking their picture and conducting a reverse image search on Google. If you find another person or see the image being used on random articles, then you know it's fake.

When it comes to requests for money, the most straightforward answer you’ll see from help sources is just to say no.  But this is not always as emotionally easy as it is suggested.  If you’re in a deep friendship, or what you think might be more than a friendship with someone, and they need help to deal with a serious illness, even the hardest-hearted among us would find it hard to say no.

Before sending any amount, make a promise to yourself to discuss it with a family member first and take their advice.  If you feel like you need to hide what you’re doing from a family member, as Alison did until she got desperate, that should be a warning sign to you that you’re doing something dangerous and need to stop.  

One thing you can do right now to help limit the damage from scams like this is to call your bank and check your transfer and withdrawl limits. You may want to pause this video and call them right now.  When connected ask your bank to lower these if they’re significantly higher than your usual withdrawal or transfer amounts.  Having a lower limit will slow you down if you have fallen into one of these traps, giving you time to realise what's going on before losing everything to a fraudster.

If you’re being promised something that seems too good to be true, it's because it is too good to be true.  If you really could get millions in just a few weeks or months from a small investment, the person asking for your money would have no problem getting serious investors; they wouldn’t need to ask you.  The reason why they can’t get serious investors is that serious investors know it's unrealistic.  If they aren’t investing, you shouldn’t be investing.

I’ve been Cee, and this has been Scams, Hacks, and Frauds, where we examine true crime stories to learn from them and protect ourselves from Scams, Hacks, and Frauds.  If you’ve liked the show or found it useful, please share it with everyone you can.  The best protection we have against being scammed ourselves is sharing stories, so that when the Scammers come to us, we can stop it before it begins.